One of my favorite blogs is Marko's "The Munchkin Wrangler." Marko is yet another prolific and intelligent blogger from Tennessee whose interests include firearms and Second Amendment rights.

He wrote an interesting piece a while back, titled "Why the Gun is Civilization." While one could (and some do) argue that his premise is not fully developed, I found it thought provoking. It's worth reading, if only to get you thinking more abstractly.

It seems that I'm not the only person who liked that little essay, as it has apparently been turning up in various guises and attributed to someone else. This is my little contribution to helping the cause: if you see his writing under someone else's moniker, or even unattributed, do your part and let people know who wrote it.

It's a karma thing.

-=[ Grant ]=-

It's not that I don't want to blog today, but a combination of fatigue and a full calendar conspire against me.

Last night - late last night - I finished a major task: a remodel of our kitchen. I've been at this nearly every evening and weekend for a month, and last night I drove the final nail. The only things left are paint (my wife's task) and a new floor covering. This morning, I decided on a bit of well-earned extra sleep!

Sadly, the workday beckons...

-=[ Grant ]=-

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the idea of carving (or whittlin', as we called it.) My dad occasionally whittled a whistle, my uncle did a spoon now and again, but the object that fascinated me the most was a short wooden chain that my grandfather had hanging on his wall.

The idea that one could gouge out a series of links, with no breaks, from a single piece of wood seemed incomprehensible to my young mind. It seemed almost like magic!

Today, of course, I understand how its done, but now marvel at the patience necessary to complete such a task. The little chain that captivated me pales, however, in comparison to this:



That item was carved from a single pencil! There's more to see over at The New Shelton Wet/Dry blog. Check it out!

-=[ Grant ]=-

My earlier post today indicated that Michael Bane's podcast cannot be subscribed. Thanks to a regular reader, I learned that one can, in fact, subscribe to the wonderful Michael Bane podcast by going to the DownrangeTV website, where you'll see a button to subscribe to the podcast.

(He still needs to put that link on his blog, though...how 'bout it, Michael?)

-=[ Grant ]=-

For the 3rd time in 3 months, I'm working on a 9mm revolver. It is the 3rd Ruger SP101 in a row that has CrimsonTrace LaserGrips installed. Finally, it has the 3" barrel.

All these "3"s are starting to become unnerving...I feel a bit like Rod Serling.

---
Michael Bane has a podcast at the top of his blog page these days, and it's pretty darned good. I'm hoping one of these days he'll see fit to make it available as a subscription through iTunes (or one of the other podcast sites) like every other podcast! (Hey, Michael, that's a hint! I listen to podcasts as I work, and having one that's not in the same place as the others interrupts my workflow!)

Seriously, though, it's a great listen. Check it out.

--
Funny how training manifests itself. We're remodeling the kitchen, and I'm making good use of my Bostitch nail gun. I've noticed that I keep my trigger finger straight along the side of the head when I'm not actually nailing, just as one should with a firearm. I guess that safety training really has been ingrained!

--
Speaking of safety: handling guns all day long, as I do, always has a certain amount of danger for accidents. That's why I don't allow any live ammunition in my shop, period. If you do any dry fire practice, follow that same rule: no live ammunition anywhere in the room where you're practicing, no exceptions!

--

-=[ Grant ]=-

It's taken me years to assimilate this fully, and I still backslide occasionally, but the old saw "quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten" is so true!

Nowhere is this more evident than in the fine garments from Filson. Filson is an old-line outdoor clothing maker located just up the road in Seattle. (Yeah, it's a long road up there, but you get the point.) Filson has been making top-drawer clothing since the days of the Yukon gold rush, and many of their current designs actually hail from that era. "Tried and true" has never been more appropriate!

Filson became known for two materials: "mackinaw wool" and "tin cloth." These are incredibly rugged, durable fabrics that have no synthetic equivalents. A "tin cloth" coat will literally last generations, and I have a "mackinaw wool" coat in my (small) collection that is at least 40 years old and still in perfect condition despite having been worn in some very rough conditions.

Styling? What styling? The traditional Filson garments are functional above all, and whatever style they have derives solely from their function. The result is a look that has come to be known as "northwest casual", and to my eyes looks as good as it works.

This tremendous gear is made right here in the good ol' US of A. Needless to say, quality of this level is not cheap. It is, however, worth every penny when you're out in the cold and wet, and traipsing through vegetation that would shred even the best that Columbia or The North Face has to offer. After all that, you can hand it down to your children, who will get the same service out of it!

It's worth noting that Filson was purchased by an investment group a few years back, who promptly introduced a line of imported garments. Some of us watched with horror, convinced that our beloved Filson was going the way of another once-quality maker from this area - Pendleton - in transferring production overseas. Thankfully Filson's new owners didn't succumb, and kept those items traditionally made in Seattle right where they'd always been. They added new items made overseas, but at the same time introduced new items made in the US as well! While I'd prefer seeing everything made here, kudos to Filson for striking what is probably a pragmatic balance.

Just look for "Made in the USA" in the product description - Filson still proudly declares those items that are!

Filson is going to be featured on John Ratzenberger's "Made In America" show next Tuesday, June 12, on The Travel Channel. You can be sure I'll be watching!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Gunscrubber is for more than just guns.

Who'da thunk it?

-=[ Grant ]=-

Someone reminded me that I promised to tell you the story of my little plumbing adventure. Personally I don't think it's all that interesting, and there isn't even a moral to the tale. It is, however, interesting in the same way that highway accidents are!

It started, innocently enough, with a knock at the door. Standing on my porch was a nice gal from the city's Public Works department, who said something along the lines of "we think you have a problem!" The Finance Department had called them with the news that our water bill had jumped during the month from our normal $73 to a whopping $233, and that maybe they should come out and have a look.

She did, and didn't see anything. She did suggest that I call a leak detection company to locate the source, after which a call to a plumber might be "a good idea."

(It's worth noting that normally I take care of such matters myself, having grown up on a farm where we never hired such work out. However, I've got so many other things to do right now I just couldn't tackle the project. As you'll see, it was probably for the best.)

The leak guy came out and did his little magic (pumping the lines full of helium and listening for the popping sounds of the gas escaping from the leak site.) Nothing. He did the test again - same result. We were both standing in my side yard, wondering where this leak could be, when I heard a sound.

"Pop-snap-crackle" (trademark concerns, you understand.) We walked around in circles, trying to find the source. At one point I decided on a likely direction and followed the sound into....the middle of my neighbor's back yard, where a tiny geyser was erupting!

We theorized that at one point back in the 1940s both houses shared a common water service, but sometime later the neighbor got their own service. At that point they apparently cut the tie at their house and capped the now-unused stub, which finally rusted out and started leaking.

At least, that was the theory.

The leak guy traced what he thought was the offending pipe over to the leak site, marked everything, and left. That's when I started calling plumbers - and calling plumbers, and calling plumbers. An even dozen, in fact. I called half on Thursday and the other half on Friday, and none of them returned my calls. Finally, on Monday I found a plumber who actually answered his phone, and one of his crews came out to start digging.

The plan was to dig down 32 inches, where the line was, to the 't' fitting where the stub line originated, then cap the stub off at that point.

They got down to the point, and found only an elbow going into my house. They started digging a trench - 32 inches deep, by hand, mind you - in an effort to find the stub and it's fitting. The dug 8 feet of trench without finding that connection, and would have followed it clear to the water meter, were it not for one little problem: the garage was built on top of the water line, and the pipe went right under the cement floor!

At this point things got really expensive, as we elected to have them bring in a horizontal drilling rig and install a whole new service line. A couple grand later, and it was in - and the leak, naturally, ceased. I'm now glad I didn't try to tackle this myself.

On the plus side, those boring machines are pretty cool. They put a hole from the water meter, down under my garage, up the hill and into the end of the trench that had been dug - and got within a couple inches of center. The actual drilling probably took them 10 minutes, but the setup and takedown kept them here about an hour. Quick and easy, as long as one has a full checkbook!

There you have it. Hope it was as exciting as you were expecting!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Seems that Michael Bane, host of the television shows Shooting Gallery and Cowboys (and general firearms bon vivant), has seen fit to mention me in his blog. Much appreciated, and I am flattered by the attention, though being named in the same column as radiation-squelching undies leaves open questions of the sort I'd rather not contemplate.

As to this screed being ghostwritten, I'll only say "yestidday I couldn't spell intirdnet, today I is in it! Thank you, Al Gore!"

-=[ Grant ]=-

Back when I was a teenager, I apprenticed to a master watch- and clock-maker. He was an older fellow - in his early 70s - and had been in the business for a very long time.

I enjoyed looking around his shop in spare moments, as he had many old and wonderful gadgets on his jam-packed shelves. One one high shelf, way in the back, was a little vial of off-white liquid. I asked him what it was, and he said "radium paint. We used to use it to make the numbers on dials visible in the dark. Don't touch it!"

He never did explain to me why I shouldn't touch it, but I obeyed his command and forgot all about it. That is, until I ran across this article on US Radium, the company that made the paint in that little bottle.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Back from serving as assistant teacher in a rifle class this weekend, and am just beat. My back hurts; my chiropractor has been making a mint off me for the last few months, as I seem to injure myself with greater regularity as I age!

Students reported that ammunition (this class required 700 rounds) was extremely difficult to find, particularly in .223 (5.56mm, if you prefer.) It wasn't so much the price - although ammo prices are high, and getting higher by the minute. No, the major stumbling block was availability; they almost couldn't find what they needed in sufficient quantity for the course.

As a result, we saw a lot of "second tier" ammunition in this class: Fiocchi, Sellier & Bellot, and Wolf.

Luckily, no major ammunition problems presented themselves. In the past, S&B .223 has shown a disturbing tendency to lose the primer cups during ejection. Invariably, those little things would work themselves into the trigger mechanism, and tie up the action. This time we saw none of that. Perhaps S&B has gotten their act together (again)?

Fiocchi seemed to work fine, and the Wolf steel cased is....well, Wolf. I'd personally restrict its use to those guns (Communist-bloc) designed for steel cased ammunition, as the steel is rough on extractors designed for a diet of brass cases. If you insist on using it I'd recommend you keep a spare extractor on hand.

After working these classes for the past several years, and seeing all kinds of autoloading rifles used to shoot large amounts of ammunition over a weekend, I've come to a conclusion guaranteed to raise hackles amongst rifle debaters: the AK-47 series of rifles have proved to me that they aren't as reliable as scuttlebutt makes them out to be, and the AR-15 series of rifles aren't as fragile as that same scuttlebutt says they are. This particular class proved that again: two AKs experienced problems while all of the ARs ran flawlessly.

Boy, am I gonna get hate mail for that one!

(Final thought: if you have a Ruger Mini-14, use only Ruger magazines. Period. Nothing else will be reliable in that model. This opinion is validated in nearly every class, as it was again this time. Yeah, I know Ruger only makes 20-rounders; if you want more, get a different rifle!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

That's right - an undersea cable. I'll bet you thought that undersea cables were a thing of the past, right? You probably had it in your mind that satellite technology had rendered the undersea cable a relic of a bygone age, didn't you? As Gomer would say, "surprise, surprise, surprise!"

The vast majority of telephone and internet traffic flows on undersea cables, to this day. Compared to satellites, cables are cheaper and have much greater bandwidth. As a result, there are hundreds of cables in use today, and well over 1,000 cable landing sites (where the cables come ashore) around the world. Here's a good graphic of the undersea cables - and their load - in use today. Wikipedia has a good article on cables, with lots of links to other sites that can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the subject!

Of course, all those cables sitting on the ocean floor are subject to lots of forces, and sooner or later they break. So, how do you repair a cable that might be thousands of feet deep, well below the ability to use human divers?

Find out here.

-=[ Grant ]=-

The changing social behavior of Americans is having an interesting side effect: certain types of knowledge are becoming extinct. I'm not talking about the kind of information you'd expect to disappear: how to build a barn, how to drive a team of horses, or how to make butter. No, what I'm referring to is less obvious.

Prior to World War II - and even, in some place, for a decade or so after - people grew up in a specific area, got married, and settled in that same area to live out their lives. They might travel occasionally to see other locales, but they always returned to what they called "home" - where the rest of their family lived. Over generations, there would come to be a large number of folks in that area who were related to each other; large extended and interrelated families who knew each other well, even if they didn't always see eye-to-eye.

After the War, people started moving around the country in larger and larger numbers as the idea of going "away to college" became accepted. This lead to the practice of chasing a career across the nation, and as a result new families were being started a long way from the families which begat them. After a while, enough of these disconnected families existed that it became common for one member to not know his or her relatives in the other branch of the family, even at the first cousin level.

Without these large numbers of related people in a specific geographic area, our perceived need to know how we're related to someone else has diminished. After all, if you don't know who your cousins are, why do you need to know who the less-close members of your family are?

The upshot of this whole thing is that the common knowledge of how to place yourself (and everyone else) in the family tree is quickly fading away. Most people know how their cousins are related - but can you tell what a second cousin is? How about a third? What does "once removed" and "twice removed" mean?

Don't sweat it! Thanks the the miracle of the internet, you can find out everything you ever wanted to know about how families are structured. Check out these sites:

The Cousin Chart
Canon Law Relationship Chart
Simplified explanation of cousins
Yet another chart for determining relationships
A thorough explanation of relationships
What is a cousin? (Wikipedia)

-=[ Grant ]=-

The firearms world attracts the most interesting people. I'm not talking about my business, specifically, but in general; shooting attracts good, solid citizens who often have a great story to tell.

I've yet to meet the pensive, frightening loner; the crazed, wild-eyed revolutionary; the bloodthirsty, gleeful animal slaughterer; or any of the other stereotypes that the media cooks up to "represent" gun owners. I have, however, met a lot of well-adjusted, happy folks who just happen to like shooting, and occasionally are just iconoclastic enough to lead an out-of-the-ordinary life.

This week, I ran into one such person.

This fellow does a couple of things for a living. First, he buys and sell aircraft (planes, helicopters) and related parts. (Do you know what a starter motor for a Boeing 737 costs? Whole bunches of money, and he's sold them.) That's out of the ordinary, and no doubt about it, but it's the other thing he does that catapults him into the "interesting" category: during the summers, he runs a mobile military surplus store!

He's got this box truck that he's outfitted as a store selling BDUs, canteens, caps, and other such materiel. He travels around California from June through about October, setting up on street corners and empty parking lots. He'll spend a couple of days in one place, then move down the road. By the time winter has set solidly in, he's back home where he spends the coming months divesting himself of the airplanes and parts that he's come up with during his trip.

For those of you living in, or perhaps traveling through, the state of California, be on the lookout for the mobile military surplus store on a streetcorner near you. It's easy to recognize: next to the door of the store he's got a female mannequin dressed in BDUs. Stop in, perhaps buy something, and be sure to tell him that Grant says "hi."

-=[ Grant ]=-

During World War II, Oregon had the singular distinction of being attacked by the Empire of Japan not once, not twice - but on three separate occasions. It would seem that the war planners in Tokyo had it out for us!

In early 1942, Fort Stevens - which stood guard at the mouth of the Columbia River - was shelled by the Japanese submarine I-25. Just a few months later that same submarine, this time fitted with an underwater aircraft hangar, launched a small airplane and bombed our southern coast. Finally, in 1944, the Japanese military launched a series of balloon bombs against North America, most of which landed in the forests of Oregon. One of those balloons landed in south-central Oregon, and killed 6 people - the only war casualties to occur in the mainland United States.

So, why Oregon? Basically, because we were the most convenient yet lightly defended target available to them. There is a lesson in that...

-=[ Grant ]=-

So, let's say that you were going to buy me a new cel phone. What do you think I'd want?

How about a Blackberry Pearl? Too "Geek bondage." A Motorola Razr? They are SOOOOOO 2006. Nokia N80? If I wanted a slide-out I'd buy an RV. The Apple iPhone? Tempting, and it would go great with my Macs, but no - there's something even better.

The cel phone I really want is the Portable Rotary Phone from Spark Fun Electronics. Inside this antique is a fully functional cel phone module that utilizes all of the phone's original parts for their intended purposes: the handset, the dial, and even the two-bell ringer!



My Father, who was an inveterate prankster and a telephone company employee, would've loved this thing. It would be just the ticket to out-annoy the clods who use their phones in restaurants, and imagine the looks you'd get in meetings ("sorry, but I have to take this call.")

Besides, the whole retro-dial thing goes perfectly with my revolver persona, don't you think??

-=[ Grant ]=-

I fell in love with the short story format back in high school. While I cannot stand reading a whole novel - non-fiction isn't really my "thing" - I do enjoy the short story. It forces the author to work carefully on character and plot development, and requires the reader to concentrate on the storyline.

While my favorite author in this format is Stephen Vincent Benet, Mark Twain proved himself a master of the short story. One of my favorites is "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg."

Hadleyburg enjoys the reputation of being an “incorruptible” town, known for its responsible, honest people that are trained to avoid temptation. However, at some point the people of Hadleyburg manage to offend a passing stranger, and he vows to get his revenge by corrupting the town.

You can read the entire story online, or you can download it as an e-book.

Enjoy!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Okay, I realize this is a little morbid, but it's also pretty cool (in a weird sort of way): a coffin made of recycled paper! From Boing Boing we learn about the EcoPods, which are made of recycled paper that has been "naturally hardened." (Don't ask me...)



While you're reading the article, check out the other links - like how to make a cheap coffin out of Ikea parts. Folks, where else can you learn such useful things??

-=[ Grant ]=-

No, that's not a typo - just a bad pun. Find out why in the article "The Terrifying Toothpick Fish."

Makes me shudder just thinking about it.

(My female readers may wish to pass on this one, unless you're just morbidly curious. In that case, enjoy a laugh at our expense!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Well, I had a nice weekend...took Friday off, went to Eastern Oregon (so capitalized because it is like a completely separate state.) The destination was my cousin's ranch, where we were to exercise our trigger fingers in decreasing the population of a local pest known as the Sage Rat (spermophilus townsendii mollis kennicott, aka "Townsend's Ground Squirrel".)

Many folks live their lives in the city and are unfamiliar with the problems ranchers face in producing the food they eat. To those who think that beef originates in the supermarket, this may seem to be a barbaric blood sport. It is anything but.

The Sage Rat is widely distributed in Eastern Oregon. They prefer to burrow in irrigated fields, and they eat green grasses. (Beginning to spot the problem?) If that's not enough, their muli-tubed burrows can be up to 100 feet long.

Imagine, now, that you're a rancher who has spent a not inconsiderable amount of money turning the desert into an oasis; you've dug a deep well, bought the necessary irrigation gear, and plowed and seeded the field. Remember, you're doing all this out in the middle of nowhere, in what's known as the High Desert (and for good reason.) Your green and tender alfalfa shoots are just poking out of the soil, and you anticipate being able to easily feed your cows during the long, cold desert winter.

Along comes the sage rat, who promptly sets up shop in this wonderfully soft soil you've toiled to prepare. He meets a cute female sage rat, nature takes its course, and they are soon blessed with a litter of junior sage rats. Like all adolescents, the kids are eating machines - and they just happen to have made their home in the middle of a rodent supermarket!

You can only imagine what a large number of sage rats can do to a field; it's not unusual for a good sized field to harbor many thousands of the little critters, every one of which is bent on eating everything he can get his little incisors around.

That's not the end of the problems, though. Their burrows, which are below the root level of the alfalfa, take the irrigation water and channel it away from the plants that need it. The sage rats attract badgers, which dig huge holes in the fields, holes that can easily break a large animal's legs. They also attract the coyotes, who bring assorted problems of their own.

When you consider this, you can see why the ranchers and farmers need to control the artificially large populations of sage rats. Hence, the reason for our seven-hour drive out to my cousin's ranch.

To be continued....

-=[ Grant ]=-

Every so often I'll come up with an idea that makes absolutely no sense, and I'm not smart enough to see it.

The other day a client was kind enough to send me an email exclaiming his delight with the work I'd done for him. In it, he said that he owned another example of the same model which he'd had tuned by a very famous gunsmith. (He went so far as to name the other gunsmith, and the word "famous" is most assuredly proper.) After directly comparing the two guns, his opinion was that my work was superior in every way to the other guy's!

Everyone like those kinds of ego strokes, and I'm no different. Since I'm preparing a new customer testimonial section for the website, I wanted to use his quote. No problem, I'll just get permission and I'm good to go!

A moral dilemma immediately presented itself: I actually entertained the idea of publishing the quote unedited, leaving in the name of the famous gunsmith. After all, my flawed reasoning went, at least one other gunsmith does it, so why shouldn't I cash in on the notoriety too? Why should I hide my light in an ammo can?

Luckily I decided to run this idea past my "alter ego" - a person I trust to give me unbiased, unvarnished opinions. This person is famous in the industry as well, and anyone who has been around the shooting game for any length of time would recognize the name. (I won't tell you who it is, because I don't have permission and even if I did, I wouldn't want to ruin a good friendship.)

We exchanged emails, wherein I expressed my reluctance to name the gunsmith in question, but also my concern that I was passing up a grand promotional opportunity. I had the imaginary angel on one shoulder telling me not to, but a little devil on my other shoulder (who, as I mentioned in the email, sounded like a cross between Jackie Mason and Sam Kinison) was telling me to give in to the temptation. What to do? What to do?

Luckily my friend had no compunction in telling me that I was full of it. Well, actually, it wasn't that harsh, but it did bring me back to the proper frame of mind. The recommendation was to listen to my conscience, because it's there for a reason, and that I should "go to [my] strengths, not their weaknesses." How come I never say such profound things?

It's good advice that I plan to take. Whew - that was close!

-=[ Grant ]=-

As the story goes, a fellow in Portugal decides he wants a new house. He looks around and finds a nice old farm house, with some acreage and an old barn. He gets a good deal on the property because the place has been empty for 15 years.

He moves in, and gets curious: what is in the old barn? Now this is not your usual barn; it's made of block, and features high windows and a very sturdy steel door which is padlocked solidly, the lock rusted shut.

He manages to cut through the lock and force open the door - and you'll never believe what he finds inside...



Find out more here. (Warning: lots of pictures, slow to load.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

In 1988, at a facility near Henderson, Nevada, something really bad - and really loud - happened.

Pacific Engineering Production Company, aka PEPCON, was a producer of ammonium perchlorate - a very powerful oxidizer for rocket fuel. Ammonium perchlorate, as it happens, is very unstable and doesn't like fire one little bit.

Coincidentally, there was a repair crew on a television transmitter tower nearby, and not only did they witness the whole inferno they also captured an incredible video sequence of the main explosions. You just have to see it - watch for the shock wave as it travels across the ground!



You can read about the whole disaster at Damn Interesting.

-=[ Grant ]=-

A regular reader sent me a note that, essentially, asked if I weren't a little daffy for talking about (promoting) other gunsmiths.

Quick answer: I don't think so.

In any endeavor, there are people who stand out from the crowd, whose peers agree are worthy of recognition and serve as inspirations to others. Gunsmithing is no exception, and those who do high grade work deserve a bit of fanfare.

The tone of the email suggested that I would be cutting my own throat (in an economic sense) by giving another gunsmith free publicity. While it's a possibility, I suppose, I'm not all that worried; after all, I refer people to other gunsmiths on a regular basis when I can't provide what they seek. In the case of Hamilton Bowen, if someone needs the kind of service he specializes in I'm happy to make a connection for them!

In what can sometimes be a contentious, egotistical business maybe I can do my part to civilize things, if only a little bit. Call it my small contribution to the field!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Gukanjima ("Battleship"), also known as Hashima ("Border") Island sits a mere 15 kilometers from Nagasaki. It is one of 505 uninhabited islands of the Nagasaki Prefecture - but it was not always that way.

In 1890, Japan's industrialization was just gaining steam, and they needed coal to make that steam. Mitsubishi (yes, that Mitsubishi) bought the island that year, with the intention of mining the coal reserves that stretched beneath it. Mitsubishi built a city on the tiny island (only 15 acres) that eventually housed an incredible 5300 people - giving it, for a time, the highest population density on earth.

By the 1960s, coal had fallen out of favor around the world, and Japan was no exception. They began shrinking operations at the mines, and in 1974 closed the mines - and the island - completely.

Today the empty city stands, its once-bustling buildings being reclaimed by the force of wind and rain. Travel to the island is prohibited, but some intrepid photographers have made the trip to capture haunting images like these.

Wikipedia entry for Hashima Island
Archibase photo esssay - superb B&W pictures of the remains
History of Hashima Island

-=[ Grant ]=-

A regular reader informs me that the Nessmuk classic, "Woodcraft and Camping", is available online as a .pdf file - completely FREE!

"Woodcraft and Camping" at Outdoors-Magazine.com

If you haven't yet gotten a copy, you now have no excuse!

-=[ Grant ]=-

You know, I had a pretty darned good childhood. I grew up on a small farm, outside a small town (I remember when the town passed the 1500 resident milestone) that was nestled in the foothills of the Cascade Range.

After chores were finished and if there were no other pressing jobs to be done (like hauling hay), I got to do what I wanted. I could go down to our pond and fish, or take off with my friends Dan and/or Tom for an overnight camping trip - all with very little administrative (parental) hand-wringing. Even a two-day trip up the river and into the woods wasn't out of the question, though such an outing did prompt some worrying from my mother.

Not a bad way to grow up!

Living as I do in suburbia, I long for the time when we would run into the forest with little more than a small tent, a blanket, a sheath knife, maybe a couple cans of baked beans, and a fishing pole. (If we planned our trip into a particular area that we knew contained several small caves, we didn't even bother with the tent.) Woodcraft, such as shelter building and fire making, was an expected part of any well-balanced upbringing. I miss those days.

I have found a way to keep the hunger for simpler times at bay: I curl up with Nessmuk.

What is a Nessmuk? Properly, the question is phrased "Who is Nessmuk?"



Nessmuk was in normal existence one George Washington Sears. Sears was a slight, asthmatic individual who was born in 1821 in Massachusetts, and spent much of his life - at least, that portion when he wasn't working just to finance his next adventure - in a canoe or on a boat or in the woods.

He was able to combine his love of the outdoors and his considerable talent as a writer by having narratives of his adventures published in Forest and Stream magazine.

He wrote two books, Woodcraft and Camping, which are still in print - combined into one volume titled Woodcraft and Camping (no surprise there, right?!?) It is still available to this day, which must be some sort of record in the publishing business. (Another book, called Adirondack Letters, is a compilation of his articles in Forest and Stream.)

Woodcraft and Camping is not a thick book, nor is it solely a "how to" manual. It is the collected wisdom and insights of a man who lived just to be able to commune with nature. Nessmuk wrote in a beautiful, lyrical style that makes the reader salivate with the desire to get out into the wilderness.

At only $6.95, I believe it to be one of the greatest bargains - as well as one of the "must haves" - in outdoor literature. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who enjoys living in and exploring the wilderness, or even just dreaming about it!

Woodcraft and Camping at Amazon.com
A short biography of George Washington Sears
The Adirondack Letters online edition (free!)
Wikipedia entry on Nessmuk

-=[ Grant ]=-

That was my dear, departed father's question whenever I was found to have done something that wasn't all that bright. Of course, any self-respecting 10-year-old knows how to answer: look at the ground, shuffle your feet, and say (sotto voce) "I dunno."

Unfortunately, once you become of age and start asking yourself the same question that tried-and-true answer know longer works. As luck would have it, sometimes it takes a while before you ask. Sometimes, it takes years. The great part about this delay is that it allows you to once again say "I dunno!"

This is a story about just such an event.

Here in Oregon we're blessed with some phenomenal scenery. From our gorgeous Pacific Coastline to the high desert east of the Cascades (a treasure unto themselves), there is something here for every taste. One of the most visited natural wonders is Multnomah Falls, located just a short 45-minute drive from downtown Portland.

The spectacular waterfall - the second-highest year-round fall in North America - is fed by a spring way up on Larch Mountain. In fact, it's not the only falls served by that spring: there are several other (much smaller, of course) falls that the water travels over before reaching the "big one."


(From the U.S. Forest Service website.)

Multnomah Falls is 620 feet high - a straight drop of 542 feet, then a bit of a pool, then another drop of a mere 69 feet. A footbridge spans the small canyon over the top of the smaller section, and leads to a trail which snakes its way up the side of the mountain to a viewpoint at the top. There, safely contained behind fences and guardrails, one can look over the incredibly scenic Columbia River Gorge.

However, back in 1982 there were no such amenities at the top - just a small sign that warned visitors (those hardy enough to make the steep climb) to stay on the trail. That didn't stop my buddy Ed and me from doing something stupid, however!

A quick digression: Ed and I were aspiring photographers who spent our days selling Nikons and other assorted high end gear to people who also aspired to be photographers. Most of them, however, would never put themselves on the line for "that shot"; we, on the other hand, continually stick our various body parts in harm's way just to get pictures that no one else would dare.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we found ourselves in the middle of that cold little river at the edge of Multnomah Falls!

I decided that I wanted a different shot of the falls - one that no one else would take. So we lugged our 35 pounds of gear (per person, you understand) up the trail and sloshed out into the water.

I walked to the edge of the falls, where I found a couple of rocks between which I could wedge my Pentax KX-Motor camera on its Bogen Monopod and shoot at a low enough shutter speed to capture the movement of the water. I framed the scene to show the water going over the edge on its way to the bottom (542 feet below my, umm, feet) as well as a glimpse of the river and gorge, and made 3 exposures.

Once I developed the film, into my archives the negatives went - to be resurrected here for the first time in a quarter century:



Looking at this shot today sends chills down my spine. It was foolhardy in the extreme; I was literally leaning out over the edge of the falls to take the picture, knee-deep in cold water, just a slip away from certain death. I was either invincible or ignorant - I'll leave it to you to determine which.

It shouldn't surprise you to learn that this wasn't the first - nor was it the last - stupid thing we did in the name of photographic immortality. My wife, one would think, would be used to this sort of thing - yet when I told her the story (several years later), she asked "what the hell were you thinking?!?" Need I tell you my answer?

-=[ Grant ]=-

Today's cel phone technologies rely on something called "spread spectrum," which is a fancy way of saying "frequency hopping." In spread spectrum, a data stream - in this case a voice - is transmitted using radio waves whose carrier rapidly switches between many frequencies, using a prearranged sequence known to both transmitter and receiver.

The reason the spread spectrum is so important - aside from being resistant to interference and very difficult to intercept - is because it makes more efficient use of scarce bandwidth. Spread spectrum makes it possible to carry more information - more conversations - amongst a limited number of frequencies.

But this use is very recent. Prior to the invention of the cel phone, frequency hopping was used to make military radio transmissions more secure. Using frequency hopping makes it far more difficult for an enemy to intercept your signal, and to use direction finders to pinpoint your location. Of course, it isn't just for voice! Frequency hopping makes it possible to have radio-control munitions, such as bombs and torpedoes, that your enemy can't jam into uselessness.

Now as useful as this is, one would think that the concept originated deep in some Pentagon think tank - but you'd be wrong! The idea came from the fertile mind of a beautiful woman, the actress Hedy Lamarr.



I'll let you read the articles below to find out about her valuable contribution to the world of communications technology!

Female Inventors: Hedy Lamarr

HEDY LAMARR: The Inventor of Frequency Hopping

Did You Know...about Hedy Lamarr?

Hedy Lamarr - from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


-=[ Grant ]=-

I admit it: I'm a bit picky about things. Just how "picky" depends on what the "thing" is, but on the whole I suspect friends and family would describe me as being on the "anal retentive" side.

This extends to my clothing. A number of years back, when I was playing the keep-up-with-the-rest-of-the-yuppies game, I spent a lot of money on Italian suits and expensive ties. Over the years, as I've gotten wiser (and perhaps a tad more miserly), I've looked at clothing for its functional qualities rather than fashion. It's not as though I don't care how I look, but I don't care if I impress anyone with my style of dress.

How the clothing works for me in my lifestyle is more important than anything else. As a result, I've come up with something of a "uniform" - clothing that I've chosen because I like the way it functions. I always wear long-sleeve button-front shirts with two breast pockets - and those pockets must have button flaps. I'll settle for snaps, but I absolutely abhor Velcro! (Yes, long sleeves even in the 95+ degree temperatures of summer. In my mind, you can always roll the sleeves up - but you can't roll a short-sleeve shirt down for the winter!)

Suitable shirts are easy to find, but pants are another matter. I like cargo pants; again, I want the flaps to have buttons or snaps only. What's more, they have to be durable - I wear my chosen clothing everywhere from hiking to range training to getting groceries, and they see a lot of wear and tear. (I've torn out the corners on leg pockets and worn holes through front pockets in as little as six months!) Of course, they have to fit me well in the bargain - both with and without carrying a handgun on (or in) my waistband.

As you might imagine, I wouldn't be writing this diatribe if it were easy to find pants that met my requirements! Most cargo pants seem to be built for mall ninjas and yuppies who rarely venture beyond a Starbucks - their thin, soft material just doesn't hold up to heavy wear, particularly outdoors. Late in 2005 I bought yet another couple of pairs of a brand I'd not tried - they lasted a mere seven months. This was getting to be expensive! I resolved to find the toughest pair of cargo pants I could.

I started looking at Cabela's canvas "Nailhead" pants - which, sadly, were discontinued this fall. The Carhartt line looked promising, but their construction quality wasn't really any better than any other cargo pants I found. The new Woolrich "Elite" line has been getting a lot of press, but the material was a bit thin for my taste (and the price tag.)

I own some original Royal Robbins pants and shorts that must be 10 years old, and I thought that they might do the trick. Of course, those garments have been spun off to a new company, 5.11 Tactical Wear - and the quality has gone away. I examined a pair, and they weren't built nearly as well as my old Royal Robbins examples, despite having a premium price tag. (I guess you have to pay for that "tacticool" look!)

Wandering through my local farm store, I chanced upon some pants that looked promising: the new Riggs "Ranger" work pants from Wrangler. The material is 10oz ripstop canvas; all pocket attachment points are double thickness; the knees are double thick; the front pockets are made from heavier material than my last pair of pants were; and the cargo pockets have snap flaps, which are also anchored to a double thickness of fabric.



Other interesting features: the right cargo pocket has a couple of outside sleeves that hold a folding knife and a cel phone, while the right hand slash pocket has a reinforced corner edge to clip a knife to. This this prevents wear of the pocket edge, which is a nice touch. The back pockets (which I never use) are lined with Cordura, which makes them darned near wear-proof. Finally, they come in odd sizes - I wear a 34, but with an IWB holster they're too small and a 36 is too big - 35 fits perfectly, and Riggs are available in that size.

I picked up a pair, and I must say I'm impressed. They are far better built that your average "tactical" pants, and they look good too - not as "military" as some are. They're available in several colors, and sold by all kinds of stores all across the country so availability isn't a problem. (There are at least a half-dozen stores within 10 miles of me that carry the Riggs line!)

Suggested list is $39.99, which is really a bargain for a garment of this quality. If you're looking for a great pair of cargo pants for serious use, check 'em out!

Riggs work wear by Wrangler

-=[ Grant ]=-

Aside from my preoccupation with personal flying machines, I'm also fascinated by abandoned buildings, old mines, and - even though I can't swim - shipwrecks!

The schooner Milan operated on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, shuttling grain and other staples with its crew of nine men. In October of 1849, it was heading to Cleveland with a load of salt when it started taking on water. Despite the efforts of the crew, the Milan sank into the cold depths of Lake Ontario, coming to rest in over 200 feet of water.

The wreck was located in 2005, and a surprise awaited its discoverers: it sits upright, completely intact, on the bottom of the lake - even its masts are in place, sticking straight up from the deck as they did when on the surface! It is a superbly preserved example of early American sailing technology, and is an important historical find (in addition to just being really cool!)



You can read about the wreck in this article on Shiwreckworld.com, and get some more background material in this article on the ABC News website.

-=[ Grant ]=-

No, I'm not talking about a mortising chisel, or a broach - I mean a real drill for square holes. They do exist!

A bit that drills square holes ... it defies common sense. How can a revolving edge cut anything but a circular hole? Not only do such bits exist (as well as bits for pentagonal, hexagonal and octagonal holes), but they derive their shape from a simple geometric construction known as a Reuleaux triangle (after Franz Reuleaux, 1829-1905).


To construct a Reuleaux triangle, start with an equilateral triangle of side s (Figure 1). With a radius equal to s and the center at one of the vertices, draw an arc connecting the other two vertices. Similarly, draw arcs connecting the endpoints of the other two sides. The three arcs form the Reuleaux triangle. One of its properties is that of constant width, meaning the figure could be rotated completely around between two parallel lines separated by distance s.


Click here for a scholarly (i.e., mathematic) explanation; click here to see a more down-to-earth explanation (including an animation that will make all clear.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Regular readers are already aware that I have this "thing" for personal flying machines. (See here, and here, and here.) I admit it, I'm hooked.

AirScooter has announced that their personal helicopter, the AirScooter II, will finally be available for sale in 2007. Weighing in a roughly 300lbs and flying at 55 knots, the helicopter features simplified controls that use no foot pedals - even amputees will be able to fly!



There's a great video of the craft in action that you can see here.

Of course I want one - but the price is likely to be in the neighborhood of $50,000. It's up to you, folks - order some custom gunsmithing, and lots of it! Papa needs a new 'copter!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Regular readers may have noticed that I have a "thing" for flying. This is somewhat contradictory, as I simply cannot abide flying in an airliner. However, the thought of flying a personal aircraft is immensely exciting to me - and the more personal the craft, the more it intrigues me!

Back in the 1950's and 1960's, the Army experimented with personal flying machines as a way to increase troop mobility. Several different approaches were tried - some were even successful - but the Army ultimately decided that the concept itself had sufficient drawbacks to keep from being adopted.

The most recognized of the entries - and my favorite - was the VZ-1 "Pawnee":



The Pawnee, though, was only one of several designs. This article at Damn Interesting gives you all the poop on the various approaches to the Army's requests.

(Oh, and of course I want one !)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Here in suburbia, everyone (save for me) appears to have at least one dog - the latest fad amongst the upper class, it seems. The trouble with having dogs in a suburban area is that people take them for walks. When they are taken for walks, they relieve themselves. When they relieve themselves, they do it on my lawn!

I'm tired of it, and now I have inspiration to tackle the problem - watch this video for a great tip on dealing with clueless dog owners.

Somehow, it fits right in with the recently completed election. I leave it to you to deduce the connection...

-=[ Grant ]=-

NASA has made a decision to repair the aging Hubble Space Telescope.

I remember when the Hubble was launched in 1990. Once in orbit, NASA discovered a flaw in the main mirror. It was thought that the flaw would doom the Hubble to uselessness, but in '93 NASA sent a repair crew to restore the telescope to its planned quality. It worked, and the Hubble began to transmit the kind of startling images that everyone had hoped for.

Now the gyroscopes on the telescope have reached the end of their service life, and the only way to replace them is to send another manned mission. The only trouble is that NASA has a much better understanding of just how dangerous those missions are in the wake of the Columbia disaster, and they have been a bit reluctant to risk the lives of a crew - not to mention spending a healthy chunk of their operating budget - on such an expedition.

Last Tuesday, they finally reached a decision to repair the Hubble. This is great news for all science buffs, and serves as a chance for me to post one of the terrific images made by this marvel of American engineering. I give you the Crab Nebula, as only the Hubble Space Telescope can present it!



-=[ Grant ]=-

You probably know it all too well. You get a little tired of your job, find it difficult to work up the enthusiasm you once had. You don't want to get up in the morning to face the "same old grind", and your productivity suffers.

Happens to the best of us. I, however, found a way out of the malaise. No, I'm not some sort of motivational genius; it just happened. I was just smart enough to capitalize on the situation!

You see, the last few months have been a period of low productivity for me. While the quality of my work didn't suffer - I'm proud enough to make sure that if it leaves my shop, it's as good as I can make it - the quantity sure did. It's hard to describe the feeling, other than simply being tired of the routine. This is a serious concern for all self-eployed people, as we don't have the kind of external motivation that those who work in busy offices or factories have. (In fact, that is the number one reason people give up self-employment for the womb of corporate America. That, and the health insurance!)

I wondered if I had really made the right career choice. During one such self-indulgent pity session, for some reason I thought back to the times - more than a decade ago - when I would read the gun magazines and look at the delicious custom guns, salivating as the editors no doubt expected me to do. Those memories came flooding back to me as I sat daydreaming in front of my workbench, a pristine Python before me awaiting my ministrations.

Then it hit me - I have the privilege of playing with the finest handguns in the entire world, each and every day! What sat on my bench, and what would come out of my hands, would be the equal (if not the better) of anything I'd ever read about. Whether it's a custom that I built, or the finest offerings from Colt and Smith & Wesson, I spend my days surrounded by the kind of craftsmanship and beauty that others dream about today. How cool is that?

Out to the range I went, with a couple of Pythons and a custom Model 60 that need their live-fire test before shipping. There was - serendipitously, as it happens - one other fellow on the range that morning. He came over to exchange the customary pleasantries; I noticed his eyes widening as he surveyed the guns arrayed in front of me. "You're lucky to be able to afford such fine machinery!", he said. I just nodded knowingly, loathe to disturb his daydream - but my trip back to the shop was substantially happier for that short exchange.

The weeks that have followed this mini-revelation have been some of the most productive I've seen in ages. I've put out more work, of uniformly high standards, in the last month than I've done in the last six. Amazing what a small change in attitude, a slight adjustment in perspective, can do!

It's time for me to stop typing and go back to work. I don't have to - I get to! I love my job again!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Jay Leno has one (two, actually.) In 1924, it ran on kerosene, developed 1,000 ft-lbs of torque, got 15+ MPG, had a top speed of over 100 mph, and had an engine that ran at 900 RPM while traveling at 75mph.

What was this remarkable vehicle? The Doble Steam car! The Doble was the pinnacle of steam automobile design, and even today remains a marvel of engineering. Steam, for those not familiar with the "antiquated" technology, produces phenomenal, linear power with almost no noise. I've long been of the opinion that a modern steam car, taking advantage of advances in metallurgy and computer control, could be economical, powerful, and clean. What's keeping Detroit??

In the meantime, check out this article on the fantastic Doble. (Oh, and be sure to ignore the idiot commentary from one of the readers, who opines that the steam car is impractical because of the "dangerous" high pressure boiler. The Doble used a flash boiler, which doesn't contain a large quantity of high pressure steam. If it burst, the only result would be a sudden drop of power and large cloud of water vapor. Maybe he works for one of the Big 3 - it would explain a lot!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Since this is Friday the 13th, I thought I'd share with you some link that are a little on the "eery" side.

The first deals with the Battle of Los Angeles: did we fight extra-terrestrials in 1942?

Second, check out the Glore Psychiatric Museum: a weird exhibition of madness and how we deal with it.

Finally, take a listen to one of my very favorite podcasts: HomeTown Tales - "because every town has one."

Enjoy!

-=[ Grant ]=-

OK, I admit it - I'm a sucker for the idea of personal aircraft, though I do not own one. Ultralights, autogyros, hang gliders - I love 'em all, even if I've never flown in or on one!

Of course the ultimate would be owning a personal helicopter, and it looks like it may now be possible: the GEN H-4 personal helicopter! For about $30,000 and a week's worth of assembly work, you can have a helicopter that weighs only 155lbs and cruises at 55mph.



Yeah, I want one!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Back in the summer of 1944, the Germans and Russians were fighting over a small strip of land in Estonia. The Germans managed to capture one of the Russian T34/76A tanks, and apparently needed it badly - as it was pressed into their service and painted with German army insignia.

As the Germans organized yet another retreat, the tank was driven into a lake, presumably to keep it from once again being used against them. There it lay for 56 years, until one Igor Shedunov organized a crew to drag it back out into the light.

Buried in the cold waters under a 3-meter thick layer of peat, the tank was phenomenally well preserved. According to the story on the group's website, the engine was able to be started after relatively minor repairs!



Great story and pictures. Check it out.

-=[ Grant ]=-

In the late 1700s, Professor Georg Christoph Lichtenberg noticed some interesting patterns forming on the dusty surface of a charged plate. He showed the unusual works of natural art to his students and peers, and through time they have become known as Lichtenberg Patterns. The same patterns can sometimes be seen on the skin of people who have been struck by lightning.

Formed as the result of high voltage discharges on, or within, insulating materials, Lichtenberg Patterns can today be captured permanently by discharging the output of a linear accelerator into a Lucite block. The resulting three dimensional fern-like patterns are strangely fascinating!

This website shows and explains the process. Very cool!



And you thought science was boring!

-=[ Grant ]=-

We're used to having little "balloons" tethered to our favorite cartoon characters that show us what the character is thinking or saying. Cartoons have been around longer than those balloons, though, and this site shows you the evolution of the now ubiquitous balloons.

OK, I admit - it's pretty useless information, but aren't you glad someone, somewhere, made up an entire web page on the topic? Amaze your friends with your knowledge of 19th century cartooning! (Or not...)

-=[ Grant ]=-

I've always wanted a flying car, and every few years I get my hopes up only to have them dashed by more vaporware. Will this be the one that finally makes it?

The Transition is designed for jumps of 100 to 500 miles. It will carry two people and luggage on a single tank of premium unleaded gas. It will also come with an electric calculator (to help fine-tune weight distribution), airbags, aerodynamic bumpers and, of course, a navigation unit with a global positioning system.

-=[ Grant ]=-

If you've never visited our great state, you owe it to yourself to come out and have a looksee. We have some of the best Pacific coastline available, and - unlike our neighbors to the south - the entire coastline is public property and accessible to all. We have the gorgeous Willamette Valley, which was one of the chief destinations for people coming over on the Oregon Trail. In fact, there are lots of places in the eastern part of the state where you can still see the wagon ruts!

(Speaking of eastern Oregon, what you may not know is that Oregon is nearly 2/3 desert!)

The point of this little travelogue, though, is to sing the praises of our favorite inland body of water: Crater Lake. Formed from the collapsed Mount Mazama, it is the deepest lake in the United States - 1,943 feet deep, to be precise! It is the deepest blue that you can imagine, and is one of the most picturesque lakes extant.

There is a large moss that grows on the bottom of the lake, which is itself the subject of some study. There is a project underway to study the organism, and you can see the latest video of the project here. (For more background on the lake, visit the official Crater Lake website.)

Crater Lake isn't the only deep thing in the state, however - we also boast the deepest river canyon in North America, Hell's Canyon. It sits along the border of Oregon and Idaho, and is considerably deeper than the Grand Canyon. Breathtaking! Visit the Hell's Canyon website.

Of course, there are many more natural attractions and historical sites to visit in our great state. Please visit and enjoy all that Oregon has to offer!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii made quite a number of photographs prior to the communist revolution of 1918. What makes them unusual is that they are in vibrant color!



Prokudin-Gorskii invented the technique to do this. What he did was to shoot 3 nearly identical black-and-white negatives in rapid succession - through narrow-band red, green and blue filters - then show them on a screen through those same red, green, and blue filters to produce color images. With today's digital techniques, it is possible to assemble these images and view them easily.

During my photographic career, I experimented with his technique with marginal success, but of course modern color films and papers made this cumbersome process superfluous. At the time I was playing with this, I did not know that Prokudin-Gorskii had invented it. It was, after all, the tail end of the Cold War, and very little was publicized about Russian technology. It wouldn't be until the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the disintegration of the Iron Curtain, that such things became known.

Today, the Library of Congress has one of the largest, and the only digitally reproduced, portfolio of Prokudin-Gorskii's groundbreaking work. Absolutely fascinating to view, and a "must see" for history and technology buffs!

-=[ Grant ]=-

I realize that I've been a bit off-topic the last couple of weeks, posting more general interest topics than revolver-centric items. It's not that I've been lazy, just busy and suffering from a bit of writers block.

When I started this blog, I made a promise to myself to update it at least three times a week; a blog that doesn't have new material on a regular basis is pretty boring, and I don't like to read boring things. So, I've been posting things that simply caught my eye, rather than taking the time to sit down and bang out an original article.

I'll try harder, I promise!

-=[ Grant ]=-

The New York Times has a maddening story about men who won't take jobs that are "beneath them" - and end up jobless for years.

Folks, I'm not all that old - I'm still a long way from the big "five oh" - but I was taught that a real man would take a job (any job) to help feed and support his family. The concept of "demeaning" or "beneath me" wasn't mentioned, let alone considered. You had responsibilities, and you did what it took to meet them.

I know it's an old fashioned point of view, and I'm sure the psychologists would say something about it being bad for one's self-esteem, but part of being a man is doing what needs to be done regardless of your feelings. If that means taking a job that is below your self-imposed social status, that's what you do; if it means taking two or three such jobs, then that's what you do.

Apparently these "men" never learned that. Perhaps it's time that someone knocked the concept through their thickened skulls?

-=[ Grant ]=-

If you've read the "About Me" page, you know that I spent many years as a clock/watchmaker. Consequently, I like timepieces - and sometimes even really odd ones.

At the Indianapolis Children's Museum is a water clock - in fact, the largest water clock in North America! I'd really love to see it in action, particularly at 12:59.



That's cool - but a bit hard to fit in your house. How about something a bit easier to deal with? How about a bar code clock on your laptop? Neat bit of programming; now if someone can just program a Widget like that...

(Sorry, Windows users - Widgets are a Macintosh thing.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Damn interesting, that's how!

This is a site that I read regularly. Damn Interesting has regular stories about (surprise!) interesting - and usually little-known - events and happenings in the world.

This entry details an almost-forgotten radiation accident at Los Alamos shortly after World War II. Why did it happen? Someone got careless and ignored safety precautions, proof that even a PhD doesn't shield you from the laws of physics.

As I read the story, the parallel with shooting became obvious. Even the best-trained shooters get careless, or decide that the rules don't apply to them. The result is usually a negligent discharge, sometimes with tragic results.

Georges Rahbani, the best combat rifle instructor I know, says "seemingly obsessive preoccupation with safety is the mark of the professional." Be obsessive - follow the rules, and make sure everyone around you does too. Safety is the first thing that you should think of when you pick up a firearm, and the last thing you think about as you put it down. Don't get complacent: THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tamara K.'s "View from the porch" blog. Her tagline: "They report, I deride."
A great blend of guns, humor, gun pictures, and lots of dumb people to ridicule. Great reading from a gal who works in a gun store and doesn't suffer fools gladly.

(Hey, any blog that Oleg Volk reads is good enough for me!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

When we think of images of World War I, we think "black & white." But color photography, though in its infancy and quite expensive, did exist - and was used to capture images of the event and environs.

This site has a number of pictures taken by the French during the last two years of "The Great War." Wonderful slices of history, and rarely seen.

One of my favorites:



This picture show Swiss soldiers standing guard at the border with France. Switzerland, as you know, was neutral during the war; images of their soldiers during that time period are a bit hard to find. To find one in color is a rare treat. (If you look carefully, you can tell that the picture was taken through the chicken wire that served to delineate the borderline.)

I must say that it's a bit unnerving to look through these images, and not because of gore or mayhem (there isn't any.) Black-and-white pictures are an abstraction, which is why photographers like to dabble in the medium. Color, on the other hand, is "real" - it is a record, where black-and-white is an interpretation. These pictures draw you in, and make the situations being captured on film a bit less theoretical. They are almost haunting...

-=[ Grant ]=-

If you don't yet know about Steve's Pages, you need to. Here you can download PDFs of an astonishing array of firearms manuals. Actually, not just firearms - but reloading equipment, optics, and even high-end flashlights like SureFire.

One of those "must-have" additions to your bookmarks!

-=[ Grant ]=-

This short article may be one of the funniest things I've read in a while...and it seems dead-on accurate, at least to me!

-=[ Grant ]=--

One of my childhood dreams was to build a submarine out of our above-ground diesel tank, and use it to explore the bottom of our pond. Despite the fact the the pond was only 8 feet deep at its deepest, the dream persisted.

Needless to say, I love the current generation of small research submersibles. Here are some great videos of an erupting volcano on the sea floor, taken from the Jason II sub as part of NOAA research.

(The site is very popular, so you may need to reload a couple of times to see the video.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

What brings on this question, you ask? Well, I'm sitting here considering yet another of my afflictions: fountain pens. Yes, those old-fashioned writing instruments that no one uses any more.

Except that people do use them!

I re-discovered the joys of writing with a fountain pen about a year ago. My interest was kindled by the fact that the most indestructible writing inks are available only in a bottle - from a company called Noodler's Ink. This stuff is so fraud-resistant that the only way to obliterate it is to literally dissolve the paper from under the ink.

Thinking that would be great for check-writing, I unearthed the fountain pen I'd been given as a gift a couple of decades ago. Now I had another weapon in my tool chest against identity thieves! But a funny thing happened: I discovered that writing with a fountain pen is, in and of itself, a wonderful experience.

A fountain pen lays down ink with NO pressure required - less even than the best rollerball. That means that, instead of a chore, writing becomes effortless and non-tiring. If you write a lot, a fountain pen will be a godsend to you aching hand muscles! The fountain pen is also more expressive; the ink also has "shading", which means that each different stroke produces differences in saturation or width. The "look" of a fountain pen's work is unmistakable.

As if that wasn't enough, fountain pen inks are available in hundreds of different colors - just the different shades of blue which are available is staggering! Blacks? You'd be surprised at how different a simple black can be from maker to maker - and there are still browns, greens, reds, purples, oranges...well, you get the picture.

You have a wide choice in pens, too. Of course there are the great vintage pens, but there are also dozens of manufacturers of new fountain pens from all over the world from which to choose. Prices range from $2.99 to multiple thousands of dollars, with most falling between $50 and $300.

Intrigued? Your first stop should be the Fountain Pen Network discussion forums, where you can learn all you need to know. From there, go explore dealers like iSellPens (my favorite place to get real bargains), Pendemonium (sellers of my favorite color of ink, Noodler's Legal Lapis - be sure to check out their color charts), and Swisher Pens. There are lots of others, but these will get you started.

Hey, a fountain pen even makes my chicken-scratching look good!

-=[ Grant ]=-