A Challenge

I used to post about my shooting a bit more than I have been. One of the reasons I don't is time and one of the other reasons is that my shooting interests are changing. The discipline that I'm most interested in now is one that doesn't have a great deal of acceptance because most people don't believe that it is possible. I've learned that keeping my mouth shut, about what I do, is the best way to keep from being called a liar. This is despite the fact that I have proof about some of my ability.

This year while shooting the Sundance competition an acquaintance asked me if I would be interested in shooting the 2010 ITRC . For those of you who don't know, ITRC is one of the few events where SPEC OP, LEO and civilians can compete head to head in a full out SPEC OP level event. I felt particulary honered, since the person asking me to cover the long range portion of the event was active duty SPEC OP for 20 years.

Yesterday another acquaintance approached me about teaming with him to shoot ITRC for next year. He wants me to shoot the short range portion of the event. Again I was honored as he is reconized as a shooting expert.

The challenge is this: I'm not in physical shape to participate. In order to shoot the course you have to be able to run it. I doubt that I could lug a full pack loaded down with 1,000 plus rounds of ammo, plus gear, plus water. You see its much easier to have a trigger finger that is in good shape than to have your whole body in shape.

So the question is, "how do I get in shape and prep for this if I'm going to do it"?

For a better explaination of the event by guys who have run it click here.

Republicans New Moto

I have a suggestion for the Republican Party's new motto: "All the Right Words, All the Wrong Actions". On nearly every issue they say the "right" conservative phrases and then go about doing the wrong thing anyway. I'm sure most Republicans would agree with the above quote, it sounds good. Nearly none will work to make it Federal law or policy.

Nuts About Balls

Yes the title says it all.

We've got a new kid at work. He is 18 years old, pale as a vampire, tongue priced, queer sounding, mumbles almost all the time, whining little post gen X slacker, waste of oxygen, who only got the job because his girl friend keep calling up (3 to 4 times an hour) till someone said "sure show up at 3:30 for training". No I don't like him, he seldom actually does any work and has told me 5 times in the 2 days since he started work that something "isn't his job". Incidentally I'm his boss when the other bosses aren't around.

We've got another guy at work, who is like me, older, a dad with a wife and kids to support who is used to doing more interesting work that pays better. His opinion of the new kid is even less charitable than mine. A lot less charitable.

So we bust our butts (me and the older guy) the slacker pretty much slacked and got yelled at a lot tonight. All of us were taking a break (the two old farts needed it, the kid hadn't actually done any real work) and the kid saw "beef and buffalo" fries as a menu item. I wasn't around for this part but the kid asked the older guy what they were and was told, "Buffalo and Bull balls".

Now as I understand it, where we were has the best balls in several hundred miles. People who eat balls say they are top notch. So the kid gets himself a big platter of deep fried testicles served in a white creamy looking horseradish sauce. And in case you are wondering, yes it looks something like what you would expect to come out of that part of the male anatomy. Me and the other guy had a liquid mixture of wheat, barley and other naturally brewed flavorings, it was cold and yummy.

So everyone kicked back for a bit and relaxed. The kid chowed down on the balls with all the enthusiasm of a hungry 18 year old boy, or a starved school of piranha. When he finished he talked about how good they were. Then he asked me what they were. "Bull balls", I said. "No, what are they really?", he asked. "Balls, Nuts, Gonads, Testicles" I shot back, "You know the things in the bag at the base of your dick except bigger". He turned paler. I didn't think it was possible but he did, it was like watching a ghost get bleached.

"You mean people eat that?" he wanted to know. "We'll you just did" I said. He burped and then he gulped out, "do you eat em"? I couldn't resist. "Not me, I think its morally wrong for one man to eat that part of another males anatomy", I remarked. The other guy piped in, " I told you they were balls, I just figured you like 'em, you ate 'em like you had 'em before". The kid got real quiet. The two old farts got another beer.

"Can I get a beer?", he wanted to know. "I don't think they'll sell you one", my buddy said. "Are you going to try to claim you were drunk and that is why you ate balls?" he asked. "I don't think you should worry about eating balls, I hear H___ (gay guy well known in town for being out) eats them all the time". I smirked. "I'm not a fag," he protested, "I was hungry". SIDE NOTE: I know he said "hungry" but that tongue ring of his made it sound like he said "horny", not a good thing to say when you're defending your heterosexuality. "Sure you're horny, you ate all those balls, that's what they are an aphrodisiac".

At this point the poor kid looked at the plate, and honest to goodness, I think it occurred to him right at that minute that the white creamy looking horseradish sauce looked a lot like spooge. I thought he was going to either faint or hurl. I think he thought that too. He only keep dinner down because he had a bigger battle to fight.

"An afro what", he pleaded. "An aphrodisiac" I replied, "you know a food that makes you extra horny so you can keep it up longer, like Viagra". My buddy butted in "That's why the indians did it. They got the idea from watching the buffalo. They saw how big of a dick the buffalo had and they thought if they ate the balls they could grow bigger dicks too." ANOTHER SIDE NOTE: I've got no idea who first said "testicles, yummy, lets eat that". Frankly they had to be one sick puppy. In Wyoming the "old indian legend" gets pulled alot and given a bit of credibility. This time it sounded like a good explanation. I know that aphrodisiac and male enhancement aren't the same thing but my buddy was trying to pull the kids leg and it seemed to work. Sometimes you just role with it.

At this point the conversation turned ugly. The kid bought into the whole "horny, gay with a small dick" thing and was getting mean about it. I think he really thought that eating nuts made you gay. So to get back he started getting way out of line, talking about our wives etc. Both me and my buddy could take this kid out, but we just walked away. We knew we had gotten him worked up. We also knew that we didn't want to explain to the boss why his new employee was too beat up to come into work.

It has never occurred to me to get upset over something like this. If I eat something and it tastes good, I just enjoy it. I don't need anyone else's approval for what I eat. I don't care what they think about it either. I like escargots. I don't care if you think its gross or nasty. When I'm in the mood I eat them and I like it.

I rerealized something that I'm sure many of you may have thought of too. People who dress odd and do their best to be "individuals" or "unique" tend to be the very ones that need other peoples acceptance the most. The goth or whatever they are calling the new punk look is far from tough, its a visual cry for acceptance. Unfortunately the only ones they are likely to gain acceptance from are others who are just as maladjusted as they are.

Halo Scan

Halo Scan is back. The RL pic of 704 Houser St is back.

A special thanks to Taylor aka "the blog goddess" and "miracle worker", who has kindly devoted herself to fixing my mistakes and repairing my blunders. Any suggestions you have for making the blog better can be posted here. Taylor will consider them, if she approves and feels like doing something about it, maybe something will happen. Otherwise as I understand it, I'm not allowed to make any more changes to code/template/etc. This is because my understanding of and working on these things has been likened to a chimp pounding on a keyboard. Although to be fair, the chimp may achieve better results at times.

Virgin Lands

One of the hall marks of communism is the belief that centralized economic planning produces a better end result than free market economies. Communists believe that an all powerful decision maker (government bureaucrat) will produce a superior end result than the independent choices of individuals acting in their own self interest. They argue that a more efficient, fair, and workable solution can be reached if only "someone would do something about it".

At the end of World War II, the most industrially advanced communist nation to ever exist was faced with a serious problem. After Stalin'sprogram of Yezhovshchina(the Great Purge) which according to official Soviet records killed less than 2,000,000 people, The Holodomor (terror-famine), the Russian Revolution the Russian Civil War, the period of communist collectivism (many historians place Stalin's personal body count around 30 to 50 million dead), the First and Second World Wars, Russia's population was 60 million less than during Czarist rule. Even though the population was greatly reduced, the Communist Soviet Union was unable to feed its self.

Nikita Khrushchev thought someone should do something about it. Fortunately he was just the man for the job. He had a plan and a snappy name for his program "The Virgin Lands Campaign". The Soviet Union is one of the largest and natural resource rich nations on earth. One area Kazakhstan, has a territory of 2,727,300 km (larger than Western Europe) and is suitable for growing wheat and other grain crops. The idea was simplicity its self, move farmers to the area, plow up the land, plant wheat and save the country. So that's what they did.

The first harvest on the Virgin Lands, in 1956, was a stunning success. Of the 125 million tonnes of grain produced in the Soviet Union that year, more than half of it came from one eighth of the country. The Soviet Union was producing, per capita, twice as much wheat as the West. The scheme was therefore considered to be a huge success, as it not only enabled the USSR to feed its people but also to prove to the world that the Communist way of life was "better".

Nearly all of the collective farms in the Virgin Lands grew one crop alone: wheat. By the 1960s, the soil had been drained of all its nutrients beneficial to wheat. However, production of fertilizers in the USSR had increased during this period and so the loss of fertility was principally due to poor planning as the fertilizers were rarely available where they were needed. Before long, due to lack of any measures to prevent erosion, much of that soil was simply being blown away by the wind to leave bare, useless steppe behind.

Also, much of the crop that could be harvested was wasted, as there were not enough storage silos, so it had to be thrown away. Furthermore, the Soviet infrastructure was unable to cope and so much of the grain produced did not reach the towns, which was where it was most needed.

Therefore despite the initial success of the Virgin Lands Campaign, the Soviet Union was forced to buy 20 million tonnes of grain from Canada to meet its needs and avoid famine. This constituted a huge humiliation both for the USSR and for Khrushchev, who had boasted that the Soviet Union would outstrip US agricultural production.

Wikipedia

I hope you caught all that. The program was a success, at first. They plowed up over 330,000 km of land or about 12% of Kazakhstan and they grew lots and lots of wheat. Impressive. In fact they were producing about 2 times the amount of wheat as the greedy individualistic western nations. So what happened? Well no one thought about the need to store the wheat or the need to transport it to people who wanted to eat it, so it rotted in Siberia, and the Russians had to buy food from people who could actually get it to their cities.

Government bureaucrat's are capable of doing a job once it is laid out to them and they get funding for it. One problem is that they will do the job and use the bench marks they are told indicate success. Benchmark #1 plow land, check. Benchmark #2 grow wheat, check. Benchmark #3 harvest wheat, check. Send in report demonstrating we accomplished our job, check. Someone forgot Benchmark #4 get wheat to hungry people, no one did it, it wasn't their job.

Next time you come across ObamaCare, remember the Virgin Lands Campaign and the law of unintended consequences. The Soviets spent lots of money, did lots of work and still failed to get what they wanted, yet some still think it was a success.

"Someone should do something about it". That was the rational for a government health care program called medicare. Medicare is a very large reason that the cost of health care in this country has risen faster than other sectors of the economy. The communists in America believe that they can fix the cost of health care if only they can get their hands on the entire industry, never admitting that they are the ones who made it unaffordable in the first place. Think I'm a bit over the top? Ask a Ukrainian era 1932 about the effects collectivism and Supply and Demand (third link in the post).

Health Update

I went and saw the doctor again. All the tests came back negative, which means if there is something wrong with me, they don't have any idea what it is. One one hand that is great, on the other hand it still leaves the question why I fell and knocked my head.

No one at work wants to say it was a slip and fall due to workman's comp issues. Only one person was around when it happened and his statement isn't very helpful. So it looks like the question as to what really happened will go unanswered, unless I have another incident.