Monthly Archives: December 2020

Writing ideas

I like writing ideas, and reading them too. They don’t have to be big, or new, just well said or not entirely obvious. But books that have no ideas, just action, or just human interaction, leave me quite unfulfilled. They need SOME meat to think about. But I also like reading action-adventure. I can write it OK, too, I guess. Mostly I like the ideas. But sometimes the ideas I come across are unsettling. Seeing some of the dark side of men is fine, to know there is evil there, but too much of it is a major turn-off. Watching people discuss the destruction of my nation and culture before out very eyes is sobering / enraging / saddening / depressing / disquieting, because it is all too real. If I were to mention this to ANYONE I work with… well, maybe save one… they’d just laugh it off or think I need to adjust the antenna on my tinfoil hat. So how does one think about, mull over, or discuss such things?

Books like Howard’s Conan adventures are “just” adventures, yes, not exactly a philosophical tour-de-force. But deeper analysis reveals much more. I’d like to think that there are ideas present in my own works that are worth reading, and maybe learning for some people new to them for the first time.

Reloading mass quantities, II

Got case lube? Check.
Got spare decapping die pins? Check.
Got spare resizing die decapping rod assembly? Check.
Got spare resizing die decapping pins? Check.
Got spare resizing die bushing? Check.
Got crimped primer pocket swager? On order.
Got stuck case remover? Uhhhhhh…?

The one problem with saving up brass until you have a lot of it to do at once so you can batch process it is that you get all the problems you might experience all at once, too. So a bent decapping rod or pin or assembly I have spares on hand, but I had a piece of brass jump above the shellplate and get jammed WAY up into the resizing die (the press has pretty good leverage on the last part of the power-stroke), and no easy way to get it under the shellplate to pull to back out. There is such a thing as the “RCBS Stuck Case Remover”  but I did not have one on hand, and shipping at this time of year may not be lighting fast. After some fiddling about I managed to goober something together to extract the case without breaking anything too badly. But I realize I really need a proper garage workbench with a vice on it. Oh, well.

More than 2k pieces of brass resized, decapped, and trimmed to length so far, and quite a pile of brass shavings and used primers to show for it. More to go, yet, though. Then I get to sort it into piles, be interesting to see if I get a similar distribution to this spreadsheet.

Oh, good grief….

Oh for the Love of God….

One of my books, Komenagen: Slog, was flagged for some minor “quality issued.” There was a list of 30-some things, and they took it off-line until they were fixed. Some were legit typos (pealed vs peeled, for example, or a missing word in a phrase). I fixed them in the doc, uploaded them, marked them as fixed, thought I was done.

Nope. A while later it still wasn’t there. Then it still wasn’t. I checked thought I had done everything. Sent off an email asking for help, it wasn’t a lot of help, but… Anyway, twiddle a bit, then wait a few more days, get busy, forget about it, come back a week later after someone prompts me to looks, get frustrated, and tell myself – OK, go through it all by the numbers. still looks like everything is there. Then I see one small red thing on “pricing.”

Ummm…. what?

Looks like every time you do ANYTHING on any of the three main sections, front data, content, or pricing, you have to go through and approve all three even if you are not changing anything on one or two of them. Because I didn’t tell it “yes, I want the same damn pricing I’ve had for four years,” they didn’t publish the typo corrections and put it back online. I should have caught it earlier, but….

Someone willing to say it

OK then. This is interesting. The guy is Patrick M. Byrne, former CEO of Overstock.com. He’s claiming that he arranged a meeting at the request of the FBI to facilitate a meeting between Hillary Clinton and a Turkish government representative to make a bribe of $18 million on 14 Jan 2016, in Salt Lake City. Then he was told to forget about it, because the higher-up in the FBI knew Hillary was going to win, and she’d hunt down anyone who knew anything about it. Yeah, I’d be scared if I were him, too.

Why is this coming out now? I think it’s a part of an orchestrated reveal by Trump of the corruption at the highest level sin the FBI, the CIA, and other branches of government (including, especially, the Bidens!), to reveal so much corruption that people will be thirsty for blood, to bring heat on government and let him have another 4 years. from here until early January I’d expect things to escalate fast.

Reloading mass quantities

I’ve accumulated a larger pile of assorted 223 brass than I thought I had (2.5k+), and now I’m trying to figure out the best way to reload it all. I have a Dillon progressive press, and don’t want to have to handle the brass more than I have to, but I also want to make some reasonably accurate loads for precision shooting, and some training / blasting / plinking ammo loads for general purpose. The brass is somewhat sorted, in that it is generally in batches that were accumulated together, and each bag is mostly a similar type, even if not all exactly identical. Most is commercial, some is 5.56 NATO military brass. It’s all been run through the polisher (corn cob media), but some of it has been stored a while and isn’t exactly shiny-new looking.

Continue reading Reloading mass quantities

Faith is a funny thing

When I read Friday afternoon (12Dec2020) that the Texas case against the states of GA, PA, MI, and WI got denied at SCOTUS, I had only a very brief, very mild “well, that sort’a sucks. Not what I expected.” They had what sounded like rock solid arguments and undisputed facts, and the SCOTUS is the court of original jurisdiction so they almost have to take it (or so I thought). It had a couple of dozen other states and attorneys general and interested parties joining in with amicus briefs, and even the president said he would “intervene” (in the legal sense, sort of like an amicus, but actually joining as an official litigant). Then *poof* and it’s denied. WTH? But what was odd, and it even struck me as unusual at the time, was that my disappointment was only a few seconds, and very low-key. I mean, Joe Biden taking office as President would be a huge catastrophe, and the normal deadline for the electors voting is getting really close, and I was calm that what had looked like the best shot going a few minutes before had vanished like a morning mist. And I was like “meh. Plot twist.”

Very odd indeed. The phrase ‘Faith is a funny thing’ came into my mind, and I suddenly understood the peace and calm a deeply religious man has in the face of adversity. When you know, absolutely KNOW, that someone smart and good has a plan, a really good plan, a plan that you have seen enough of (even if indirectly) to know it exists, and even though you do not know the details you have total confidence that they are on the case and it will all work out in spite of the plot twists and weird shit you never saw coming, it’ll be OK. It was like reading a book, a thriller, by a really good author, who puts in all sorts of plot twists, Easter eggs, unexpected dead ends, double- and triple-agents, hidden meanings, and cliff-hanger chapters as you cut the action to follow another character. You know it’ll all come together in the end, and you are just excited for being on the ride.

I can see how a deep faith would provide a man with the same sort of calm acceptance. They they don’t need to know what the plan is, just that there is a plan, and the guy calling the shots is good; it’ll all be OK in the end, even if it kind of sucks for you personally along the way, it can be confusing as heck sometimes, and people look at you funny. You do what you can, and even if you don’t know what all others are doing, you know, deep down, that it will all work out in the end. Yeah, the cliff-hanger last chapter is tense, and it looks dark, but…. it’ll all be OK. Maybe you will call me a “conspiracy theorist.” Fine, I can call you a “Complicity Theorist.”

I don’t know if this guy’s testimony about Zuckerburg’s money will make a difference.

I don’t know if Col Waldron’s testimony (starts about about  6:10) will make a difference.

I don’t know if Lou Dobbs revealing four names connected with Smartmatic and Dominion and the CCP will make a difference.

I don’t know if Brandy Vaughan’s death after she came out against one of the vaccines is connected or will make a difference.

I don’t know if WA State candidate Culp’s suit to audit the vote will make a difference.

I don’t know if the extensive reporting on easy hacking of voting machines will mean anything.

I don’t know if the Senate report on Hunter Biden, Burisma, and corruption will make a difference.

I don’t know if Chinese guys bragging about their influence on the US government will make a difference.

I don’t know if WikiLeaks revealing ties between Dominion and Hillary Clinton and John Podesta will make a difference.

I don’t know exactly how Trump will use his 2018 Executive Order authorizing military response to cyber warfare attacks.

I don’t know how this massive leak of CCP members around the world will come into play.

But I know it will all come together with quite the exciting conclusion.

Got popcorn?

Stealing an election a fraction at a time

Imagine running a race, say a cross-country 5k. You cross the finish line first in record time, stagger off to get a drink and catch your breath. When you go over to the score-board you see that your time was switched with someone else, and they are handing him the 1st place trophy. You think to yourself “what the heck?!” A few people standing around say “yeah, he crossed first.” You look at the guy and he’s not winded at all, no sweat stains either. You KNOW he didn’t finish the race first, and likely didn’t even run it all the way. You protest, but most of the fans at the finish line don’t say anything, and a few of the other guy’s family are loud, in your face, and adamant that HE CROSSED FIRST! He goes home with the trophy.

Serious question: Who won the race? You  crossed first, he holds the trophy and the score-card records his time as the winning one. Continue reading Stealing an election a fraction at a time