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Posted on 08/07/2007 7:52:15 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!
Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
That washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is anoble thing!
O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain.
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.
O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack,
and Water Hot poured down the back.
O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain white beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!
Heh. Usually, I’m only ambidextrous when it comes to eating.
Whoa, that’s a cool photo of Barkley and Homer. voice over Having assumed the shape of the earth canine species, we join our explorers as they venture forth into this place known as Terra...
Glad you made it through safely. I’m sorry about your cousin.
LOL!
Oooo... scary beams emanating from Barkley’s eyes! LOL! Love the way his paws are casually draped over the front of the couch!
Whoever took this picture must have had awful good luck, or it was posted posthumously.
wow - I wouldn’t try that with Annie - I’d be in ICU with several IVs in me, moderately sedated, if I tried.
Ha! If looks could kill...
The thread has gone to bed and so must I...
Hittin’ the hay early. I did a 45 mile ride today, and I’m tuckered! That’s another personal best, and it means I’m still well on track to be able to manage 50 miles pretty comfortably by the end of the summer.
Incidentally...you know you’re officially a bike commuter when...you go on a trail ride which involves driving the car to the trailhead, and when you get home at the end of the day and pull into your driveway, for a split second you think “Ohmygoshwheresmuhcar!?!?!!” before you realize “You’re *in* it, you knucklehead!”
LOL!! So you're gonna get to go home for a visit in September? The leaves will probably have already started turning up there, right?
I picked this up at a big gunshop in a small Michigan town. It was in a rack with lots of other beat-up farmer's shotguns. I wasn't really paying attention as I walked by, but the painted "52" on the pistol grip rang an alarm bell in my head, saying this once lived in a gun rack with lots of other similar weapons. Looking up, I noticed the barrel (20 inches) was almost a foot shorter than the others.
That got my curiosity up enough for me to take it out of the rack, and look a bit more closely. The poor cosmetic condition was apparent, as was an exuberant "US" and ordinance bomb just below the ejection port.
The condition said this shotgun (serial number shows it was made in 1943) had seen a rough life, probably after it left military service.
Here's the main military markings (the cartouche and inspector's initials are still on the stock, only very faint) that make the Winchester Model 12 riot and trench shotguns such a standout:
The markings on other military shotguns are smaller, and in more obscure places. The Model 12 displays them proudly.
After Pearl Harbor, all civilian firearms companies suspended further production, and either made military firearms, or civilian models for sale to the military. The Model 12 riot gun (sold in small numbers mainly for police use since 1912) has the extra-cost take down feature. This was an option on many brands of shotguns, and some rifles, available earlier in the century. It lets you take down the gun into two separate parts quickly with some neat gadget that keeps everything together. In the case of the Winchester, it's the special "receiver extension" hat holds the rear of the barrel and magazine tube.
The takedown system uses an interrupted thread on both the magazine tube and the barrel. Turn the magazine tube 90 degrees and pull forward almost to the muzzle. That disengages the action bar from the bolt. Turn the barrel assemble 90 degrees, and remove. Here's a look at the rather complex machining to do this:
The Winchester Model 12 (made with key John M. Browning patents) is still considered the Rolls Royce of pump shotguns. Mine looks beat up on the outside, but everything inside is still as pristine as a Swiss watch. With 2739 manufacturing steps, it was expensive in 1912, and remained expensive. Meanwhile the Remington 870, the Chevy smallblock of the shotgun world, became the champion of both price and performance. Winchester made a little over a million Model 12s, while Remington only admits to having made "over 10 million" during it's production run. Remington learned a lot about stamped steel parts in designing the Springfield 03A3, and put that to use on the 870, and many of their other guns. If it's a Remington, and the part is not visible, it's either stamped, or plastic.
I took in this beater military riot gun for much the same reason other folks here take in old stray dogs. This particular shotgun probably never saw combat, but served MPs guarding prisoners, and maybe some cops after the war. Whoever had it before me felt it would have a better chance at TLC if it was put in the rack where I stumbled across it.
I take it his 'traveling back and forth' might be considered 'Quantum Leaps'! At least there are existing scripts for a couple of years for this show.
Sort of like 'King Arthur', released just 3 years ago. Isn't there any originality left in Hollywood. For example, a nice biography of Charles Martel or his grandson Charlemagne would not be inappropriate. Or the story of Roland.
But I love the Arthurian legend tooo much to turn away another attempt at it. I think the Roman influence on the area is too much overlooked. The Jack Whyte version creates a Roman colony that remains after the Legions withdraw. They are an island of law, technology, and Christianity surrounded by chaos. Excalibur was forged from a meteorite - an iron alloy close to steel that would naturally be stronger, brighter, better than the simple iron swords of the day. No mysticism! Just a very rational story. (with cardboard characters...alas.)
Bakula never did much for me. There's something about his voice that is aggravating. It'll be fun to hear McKidd try out an American accent.
Well there was a pretty interesting interpretation of The Bruce in ‘Braveheart’. I think you are really annoyed at Bakula because the Startrek franchise sank when he was Captain.
I'm glad it found a good home where it will be given the love it deserves :~)
Good morning everyone!
The Winchester Model 12 is a classic, the one that other pump guns are measured by and are found lacking. Those fine guns are still seen with regularity in the duck blind, the pheasant field and on the trap/skeet fields across the nation. Some of us have never owned one but have shot them, fine weaponry indeed. I still see them in gun shops occasionally along with its rack-mate the Winchester 97.
It always helps to measure the barrel on both those guns when looking them over. Quite a few of them sported polychokes and cutts compensators in earlier years, especially here in the midwest, and their subsequent removal has left more than one old classic with a barrel length that is chokeless and of an odd length.
Morning Hair. Saw on the yahoo news that your part of the country has the highest year round humidity. Sure explains why the greens in your pictures are so vibrant.
Good Morning ALL.
We do? We don’t complain of humidity the way the south does... maybe it’s because when it’s humid, it’s also cool. When heats up here, it’s usually dry.
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