Posted on 01/03/2008 6:35:58 PM PST 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!
...but I’ll keep nice presents
I want to see mountains....
...and green fields under a swift sunrise...
(without having to go to Valinor)
I feel so used...
My dear Corin... :~)
It worked pretty good! Now for all this wonderful rain to help the grass grow. :~)
Dinner’s ready. I need to go open a bottle of the Gaffer’s Winyard...
Yay. I’ll try to contain my enthusiasm... ;-)
I should really throw down more seed, shouldn’t I? Need ta pick some up.
I am going to go find some water hot that smokes and steams. :~)
Ookay...this is odd weather for this time of year.
That’s entirely up to you!
Actually, it’s probably a few weeks till it’s really warm enough to start seed. We put ours down a little early.
Taxes, we hates them.
Hmm owe the feds over 900......
there will be drinking here soon....
Mmmm...drinkin’...
On the plus side, that means they haven’t been using your money...
OK, I’m confused. So far in the space of about an hour we’ve had sun, sun with rain, rain, hail, rain and now sun again.
Did I get caught in a time warp or somethin’?
Is your nose bleeding?
Ha!
Not yet...
OK, after a week of having cable, I have to say, I *hate* Billy Mays. Even more than I did before. Unnnnngh.
*snort*
LOL! He is everywhere, isn't he?
A couple of episodes back on "American Chopper", the gang were on a boondoggle to South Africa. Part of the time, they were driven around a wildlife sanctuary. One two-second shot showed this:
There's a standard scoped rifle on the dashboard, but it seems like Paulie Jr. is holding a .22 rifle with a can on it. There was nothing in the story about this, just a quick scene. Am I imagining it?
Now on to penguns. Starting from the upper left corner, proceeding counter clockwise, we have a M185 flare launcher still in original packaging, a Navy version of the M185, a MBA Gyrojet launcher, and a Depression-era teargas projector from Chicago.
I have an opened M185 lounging around somewhere, but I couldn't find it. I was about to open the one in the package when a quick online search shows flare launchers still in the original packaging bring $250! So here's what it looks like inside:
My Navy version, complete with all sorts of swabbie nomenclature, was made by Penguin. The launcher and the ammo all have Navy markings. Mine came out of a survival vest, where the launcher was tethered to the vest, and flares were in elastic loops inside a pocket.
The Army and Air Force just went with commercial markings on theirs. I'm not sure, but I suspect that "LOT COL 1-4" on my unopened one means it was made by Colt, which brings a premium. The 1973 date makes it a Vietnam-era collectible.
The MBA Gyrojet flare launcher was developed during Vietnam to launch flares to an altitude of 1000 feet, triple that of the regular launcher. It continued on long after the war, although I think the military depends more on infrared strobes than visible flares now. The launcher has MBA commercial markings and a FSN. You can see the business end of one of the rockets, with the central primer and the two canted rocket nozzles. The round is held be four spring fingers in the launcher until it builds up enough thrust for launch.
I got the launcher ages ago at a gun show. Some guy had several sets, and a sign that said, "your choice, $5". Since an opened military pengun is worth about $50, that tells you how long ago it was. Apparently he didn't notice the Gyrojet was a bit different, because he let it go for the same price. I figured it would be the only opportunity in my lifetime to own a Gyrojet. It was the starring role of the Gyrojet in "You Only Live Twice" that made it my #2 favorite James Bond film. I rate "Goldfinger" as #1 solely on the basis of the soundtrack and title song.
Finally, we come to the Hercules tear gas gun, made in Chicago. This was not only Prohibition, it was also the start of big-city gun control, which had as its objective disarming the citizens, while providing gun permits for gangsters.
The tiny pinch of tear gas powder in the screw-on shell really couldn't put you on an equal footing with a thug with a .38 or .45, but it was supposed to "make you feel safe", as do our college weapons policies. That still wasn't good enough for Michigan, which outlawed even these pathetic penguns.
Now, just a quick review of the SureFire Backup, their new pocket-sized LED. It runs on one CR123 battery, and has a computerized pushbutton that lets you select high or low intensity light of 80 or 5 lumens. LEDs run much cooler than incandescent bulbs, and there is less chance of starting a fire by placing the light down on its lens in the "on" position. If you do, the scalloped front edge lets out enough light to remind you that you just did something dumb.
The flashlight is tiny, and is the first series flashlight I've carried full time. Here it is along with my every-day-carry Kershaw Blur, and the late, lamented Camillus 904S, the workhorse of the Hobbit Hole knife program.
The Backup was designed from the ground up to be pocket friendly, with melted edges and no knurling. I keep it clipped to the top of my pants pocket, while the knife stays in the bottom of the pocket. It's easier to explain that clip belonging to a flashlight than to a knife, at least in the big city.
So I now have a quality light to go with a quality cutting tool. That makes me just a bit more confident that I can handle out-of-parameters contingencies in this world.
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