Ugly Gun Sunday

An early pocket pistol..........which apparently was designed by a team of pipefitters and locksmiths.

Half Tech, Half Student, Half Soldier.......

Starting the second of three weekends in a row of drill weekends, with this one running Thursday through Sunday. On top of the multiple call-back weekend for work before the drills, and the weekend of being on-call after the drill weekends are over. Given that I have been given the designation of "shit-magnet" by my coworkers for my unparalleled ability to draw long, complicated cases and unpleasant patients almost every weekend on call for the last six months, I'm guessing I'll be at work for the that last weekend also. AKA, six weeks of work with no days off. I had more free time in Iraq in 2003 than I've had in the Midwest since getting home from deployment #2. And if it weren't for having to be away from The Wife, I'd actually be grateful to be going on deployment #3 at this point. Makes me wish we'd bring back the tradition of camp followers.

On an up note, the local hotel I stay at for drill is down the street from a Goodwill store. Which has a fair number of used book racks. Based on past experience, and input from those who've already been to Afghanistan, Internet access can be spotty, especially if you're attached to infantry, who don't spend much time doing the REMF thing. But mail rates for bound material are cheap, and I used to read for actual entertainment or personal interest back when I had personal time. So, it's time to start stocking up on books for $3.88 (hardback) and $0.50 (paperback) for the time when I settled in somewhere, and The Wife can ship a box over for diversion. Two good finds this time around; a large, good-condition hardback of Rand's Atlas Shrugged and a decent paperback copy of Asimov's Prelude to Foundation. Never gotten around to reading the first, and read the other over twenty years ago. A brief perusal of Prelude serves to remind me why I enjoyed it back then; it actually requires attention and thought to follow the story line. Looking at what passes for entertainment currently, I'd wager there's a larger segment of the population that would find this frustrating or uninteresting. Perhaps I'm wrong, but looking out at Facebook and Twitter, I rather doubt it.

Ugly Gun Sunday

OK, I recognize the M-16 magazine. And possibly a very old-style M-a6 flash hider. But the rest of it?

Bike Stuff

Submitted my application papers for a veterans riding association (not an M/C; no territory claimed, thus avoiding the problems of disputes with people who probably have prison records and don't care if they add to them. The members of the group I've applied to generally only killed people under orders from the government, which at least makes it legal). Now I can look forward to riding with some new folks for the almost 6 weeks of riding season I'll have before leaving again. Bah. I'm going to ride the hell out of my bike when 2012 riding season arrives....

Too Dumb To Live

If you're on an interstate highway, there's three inches of slush on the road with snow falling constantly, actual traffic flow speed is 30-40 mph, and there's vehicles in the ditch every few miles, what makes you think your two-wheel drive, 4-cylinder, crapmobile is suited to driving in a manner better suited to Daytona? Drafting someone's rear bumper in normal conditions on the interstate is a bad idea, you dumbshit. And that gives rise to why I will always own vehicles with 4-wheel drive, 8-cylinder internal combustion engines, and some serious weight: many, many people with vehicles are mouthbreathing 'tards who have no concept of danger; high clearance, big tires, and willingness to carry a shovel in a vehicle gives you a better chance of getting out of trouble once you're there; and if it's a matter of you vs me in a collision, then it sucks to be you. Which reminds me, I need to start shopping for some welded tubular steel bumpers, since The Wife thinks it's probably illegal to weld steel punji stakes to the truck's frame.

Ugly Gun Sunday

Shamelessly stolen from VFTP (hey, all my Sunday gun posts are derivative; might as well swipe from the best on the net). Sooner or later, Beretta will be made aware of this, resulting in three things: a cease-and-desist letter to an underground Chinese gunsmith; a far better quality fake logo on future copies of this gun derived from said order's letter head use as a reference by the Chinese 'smith; and a new project for a Beretta engineering team ("take this and make more, only with a nicer finish").

Are We Having Fun Yet?

From 0700 until about 1900 hrs today, I mucked about (as the radiologist's minion) inside someone's femoral bypass graft in an attempt to clean out the jelly that used to be blood inside it, so the patient could keep the leg. Do I know how to party or what?

Between cardiac defibrillator placements and nasty vascular anatomy interventions, I'm starting to think the active-duty training before deploying to Afghanistan is practically going to be a vacation.