Saturday, July 17, 2021
Some Kind of Cult?
Friday, July 16, 2021
Behold Your Rulers -- Ice Cream Edition
Your Best pal,
LSP
Thursday, July 15, 2021
Napoleon
Josephine, though most beautiful, had rotten teeth. Or so they say. There's a moral there, if you care to draw it. Enjoy the March.
LSP
Clean It Up
Wednesday, July 14, 2021
Smoke That Skeet
Someone once said, famously, Speed is fine. Accuracy is final, and skeet shooting's a bit of both, not that I'm any kind of expert. The orange bird zips out fast and you have to be on to get it. A typically quick, accurate, snap shot.
And how good when you connect and smoke the clay challenger. There's something especially satisfying about hitting that small moving target and watching it dust off. Big fun, but here's the thing, readers.
You may think, because shotgun, that pointing in the general direction and letting loose is going to work, street sweeper style. Think again. It helps to aim. Seriously. Don't forget, in the shotgunnery excitement of all, to aim. Put that bead on the bottom edge of the clay, "popsicle" it, and squeeze the trigger. A fast movement for sure, but an accurate one.
But what am I saying. All you competition shooters out there have forgotten more about the sport than I will ever know. Regardless, the misnomered White Flyers took a right beating today, not least from the kid. Great result.
Then, after a headshot plinkathon against small steel at 150 yards, .22 WMR, we headed back to base. And what a good day out in the country with guns, just sheer enjoyment. Thanks, CR, for the invite. And now?
Pork chops, Yorkshire Pudding(!), roast potatoes and all the rest. A delicious end to a great day's shoot. It's raining too, another plus. Thank you, Climate Change.
Your Pal,
LSP
Tuesday, July 13, 2021
Shoot The Guns
A new day, a new opportunity to shoot, so off we went to the range with a few guns, a 20 SxS, a 12 OU and a Marlin .22 WMR. Idea being to get some remedial shotgunnery in, and then a little plinking with the Marlin.
The range was overgrown and semi-flooded but we made it through, get a 4x4, LSP, and set up on dry ground next to a field, baking under a big Texan sky. The erstwhile Cadet went first, on the 12, and started smoking clays like a good 'un.
I followed up on the 20 and was more or less on, unlike the Specialist who specially smoked the clays with the same gun. Hmmm, improve your game, so-called "LSP." I did, and got in the zone, shooting far better to the right than left, curiously. Perhaps there's a moral in that.
A box of orange "White Flyer" over, we moved on to the little magnum, shooting off the bed of the truck. Take that, fifty yard adversary, and the kid's offhand was impressive, right in the zone. Nice work. Then it was time to head back to the Compound, a good morning well spent.
I love shooting and file this tale under guns and country life in Texas.
Shoot straight,
LSP
Monday, July 12, 2021
Fish And Fossil
"Dad, can we go fishing?" I thought for a moment, for maybe a second, "Yes, we can." Some coffee, two bacon and egg sandwiches and a relined rod later we were on our way to the lake, Lake Whitney. And after a brief pit stop at a lakeside Pick 'n Steal for fried cherry pie and a fishing license for the kid, we were at Soldiers Bluff, casting off.
Would the fish be on? Sure enough they were, right from the get go, with voracious predator perch going at the worms we were throwing into the murky, minnowed water. Tug, snap, light rod down and boom, out comes a fish. The soldier caught first, nice, and I came in not far behind.
And so passed a pleasant hour or so in the Texan sun on the side of the lake, what a lot of fun, especially given a late bite in the last half hour; fish after fish till you started to lose count. Some of them were big too, but all Bluegill. Come on, Bass, get your act together.
As we clambered up the rocks to get to the rig and home, I reminded the world that this was once the bed of a primeval, Mesozoic sea and there were fossils to be found. Sure enough, there was a junior ammonite and some petrified shells, easy to dig out of the clayish strata.
Then, "Look at this!" Lo and behold, there was a section of fossilized shell, sticking out of the rock. Pretty cool, so we went back to the truck to get some tools to excavate it.
Some well placed taps with the hammer end of an old axe on a sturdy screwdriver and there it was, freed from the rock. "What if there's more?" We tapped away, removing the stone which had once been mud, and there it was, the fossilized spiral of an ancient crustacean.
Great excitement, and the fossil's back at the Compound. The Bluegill, on the other hand, were put back to fight again another day, and maybe to keep. Tasty.
Fish On,
LSP.
Sunday, July 11, 2021
Thank You
I'd like to thank the Commentariat for all the good wishes. I was especially struck by this, from Anon:
A Soldier's life is a hard life. But there is instruction in this, for the Soldier.
This is exactly why Soldiers are necessary for freedom to survive. The minions of Myrmidon will not be driven from the land by angry girls waving posters, nor will they suddenly see the light, unless and until, the Soldier forces them to give up.
Forces them to give up. As it always was, so it is yet.
A true Soldier serves his people, an automaton serves the Power, oppressing his own people. It is ultimately the Soldier who frees his people. All the rhetoric in the world is for nought. It wasn't talk that drove the Persians from Greece, stopped the Ottomans at Lepanto, or took back Europe from the Nazis.
We are truly sorry Troop didn't get to see his kin, but, a Soldier's life is a hard life.
Saturday, July 10, 2021
Utter Disaster
The kid didn't get through Terminal B this morning because of insufficient Canadian id. You know, copies of his citizenship card, mother's birth certificate, Alberta Health Services card etc. weren't sufficient. No, sorry, can't come in.
What? You say in amazed wonder. Hold that thought, here's the thing. Fully vaxxed Canadians with Canadian id can enter Canada. Anyone else can't, even if they're fully vaxxed. Why? Because science, because COVID. You see, a Canadian passport functions as a VIRAL SHIELD unlike a US passport, which most evidently doesn't.
Net result of this two-bit chicanery? My eldest son and soldier can't go home to visit his mother, brother and sister, whom he hasn't seen for a year and a half. He was a bit upset about that, so to make it up I put down some smoke and we ate burgers. This helped.
I tell you this, there is a special place in Hell for the people who've foisted this wickedness upon us.
Cheers,
LSP
Thursday, July 8, 2021
The Boy is Back in Town
It was Tuesday when I got the call, "Hey, dad, I've missed my flight." I paused, "Excuse me?" It was true, the Specialist had specially missed his flight from Osan airbase to Seattle and thence to Dallas. And he was freaked out at the prospect of, well, all kinds of trouble.
In a spirit of "no man left behind," I called up Camp Humphreys, explained the situation, and before you could say "Imjin Hill meets Glorious Glosters" spoke to a perfectly polite Korean woman who perfectly rescheduled the flight.
Another call, this time to a soldier in a taxi returning to base, "Your flight's rescheduled to Thursday, it leaves at Noon." A shocked silence, "You got through? Wow, thanks." And the next thing you know, the kid was standing at the carousel at Terminal C. "Welcome home!"
Seriously, it's the first leave of any length he's had in one and a half years. Thanks, scamdemic. I took him out to an Irish pub around the corner for Guinness, fries and orange duck, of all things. "Look at this, orange duck, just like being in Ireland, eh?" Tasty, though.
He's off to Canada on Saturday, if they'll let him through the border, and then back to Texas in August before deploying to Fort Hood. And that, readers, is the story of that. I tell you, good to see my eldest son again.
Cheers,
LSP
Wednesday, July 7, 2021
Swamp Fox Awesome
I like this tune, "Hold on boys, don't lose your grip. When I give the word, boys, let it rip." And they did. But this is good too.
Swamp Fox, awesome, eh?
LSP