The Wandering Minstrel

I don’t know what PETA has in mind with their ‘call fish sea kittens’ campaign, but these two images came into my head. First the cats/goldfish then the shark attack. Could that be a PETA person pacifying the monster?

California is one of, if not the most, anti-second amendment states in America. The gun laws here are as restrictive (and ridiculous) as it gets.

Today, I read Wayne LaPierre’s latest blog on the topic of the Washington D.C. city council trying to do everything possible to keep the Heller decision at bay. The conniving politicians in D.C. are trying to leverage off of the California insanity.

Excerpt from “D.C.’s New Gun Laws, Part 2:”

[The council’s new ordinance] means for a resident in Washington, D.C., to buy a handgun, it has to be approved by the California Department of Justice. And D.C. council members like to whine about taxation without representation? What about the loss of a right based on the whim of an unelected state bureaucrat almost 3,000 miles away?

And if you think California’s roster of “safe” handguns is based on safety features, you’re wrong. The state of California long ago began to disguise gun bans as gun safety.

For example, they say newly manufactured non-microstamped handguns will be considered “unsafe” on January 1, 2010. With the California legislature’s declaration that a handgun is safe or unsafe based on cosmetic features they like or don’t, they’ve opened a giant back door to gun bans. And not only Californians but also residents of D.C. are victims of these infringements of their Second Amendment rights.

Driving to work today was somewhat of a challenge. The conditions here along the coastline were very foggy with ceilings and visibilities near zero. While I was groping my way along the roadway with the fog glowing in the headlights, I thought about how the old aviation station reports described this condition: WØXØF.

The five-character code would print out on the teletype at the begining of a station’s report:

TOA WØXØF Ø3Ø7 995 VAR VIS OCNL 1/2MI

This report would be read by a pilot or briefer as:

(Station Identifier TOA) Torrance, (W) indefinite, (Ø) ceiling zero, (X) sky obscured, (Ø) visibility zero, (F) fog, wind zero-three-zero at seven knots, altimeter (barometric pressure) two niner niner five (29.95 inches of mercury), variable visibility occasionally one-half mile.

Pilot slang for this condition is ‘woxof,’ pronounced ‘walks off.’

Driving in the WØXØF today was slow and tedious.

When I was in the Navy at Point Mugu Naval Air Station, I gave me a military drivers license since I was old enough (you needed to be 21 back then). It was more of a curse than a privilege, because anytime one of the pilots wanted a lift somewhere on the base, I had to drive him and wait until he finished what he was doing so I could bring him back.

Clickable image: A WWII era ‘Jeep.’

We had one of these (painted battleship gray) on the flight line, and I was the only sailor with a license to drive it. I also drove everything else including a forklift, a power generation cart, a bus and a ‘fox van’ with equipment for the pilots to remotely fly a full-size military airplane used as a target for the Naval Missile Center. I once drove a ‘cattle car’ which is a personnel carrier sort of like a fifth-wheel trailer behind a tractor truck.

Fat Man (G30) and Little Boy (G26) get stripped down for cleanup after the weekly trip to the range. My .357 magnum has no nick name yet. Maybe I’ll call it ‘Jerry Lee‘ because of the ‘great balls of fire‘ that come out of it. How’s that sound?

At one point during the recent road trip, we crossed over Hoover Dam. We came from the Arizona side and encountered a security check point on US 93 about 9 miles before reaching the dam. According to the “Tips for Crossing the Dam” document:

Any vehicle may be fully inspected before it is allowed to pass through the checkpoint and cross the dam. Certain types of vehicles (RVs, rental trucks, etc.) will always be inspected.

Indeed, we were asked to allow an officer to look in all our external compartments and to board the vehicle and look around. The officer did not seem to be concerned about our carrying firearms (good for him). I presume he was looking for explosives and the like.

The Nevada-side checkpoint was only a mile past the dam; when we passed by, there was a three-mile line of cars backed up to cross. Luckily, we did not have much of a delay in the northbound direction on US 93.

Clickable image: Hoover Dam from an Arizona-side overlook. Click here for a larger panoramic image posted on the family website.

UPDATE: Thanks to Liberty Sphere for the link.

UPDATE II: Some more (clickable) pictures

Trooper waving us into inspection area

New bypass road construction over old road.

It’s just as I predicted - drivers in California are ignoring the anti-texting law that went into effect January 1st. The better half snapped this in traffic yesterday . . .

This seems appropriate . . .

The better half spotted this classic in traffic today. Not only is it a classic Checker Marathon, but has a custom license tag that evokes even more nostalgia . . .