The Wandering Minstrel

A lot of football and baseball today plus it’s all hallows eve. I got nothin’ to blog about except this (clickable) photo of a for sale ‘64 Caddy I saw the other day. Photo credit - the Better Half.

In retirement, I continue to regularly communicate with my former colleagues - one of them sent me this tongue-in-cheek overview of retirement relocation options in an email today. If you find any of this politically incorrect - well - see the disclaimer in the sidebar.

You can retire to Phoenix, Arizona where…

1. You are willing to park 3 blocks away because you found shade.
2. You’ve experienced condensation on your butt from the hot water in the toilet bowl.
3. You can drive for 4 hours in one direction and never leave town.
4. You have over 100 recipes for Mexican food.
5. You know that “dry heat” is comparable to what hits you in the face when you open your oven door.
6. The 4 seasons are: tolerable, hot, really hot, and ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!

You can retire to California where…

1. You make over $250,000 and you still can’t afford to buy a house.
2. The fastest part of your commute is going down your driveway.
3. You know how to eat an artichoke.
4. You drive your rented Mercedes to your neighborhood block party.
5. When someone asks you how far something is, you tell them how long it will take to get there rather than how many miles away it is.
6. The 4 seasons are: Fire, Flood, Mud, and Drought.

You can retire to New York City where…

1. You say “the city” and expect everyone to know you mean Manhattan.
2. You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Columbus Circle to Battery Park, but can’t find Wisconsin on a map.
3. You think Central Park is “nature.”
4. You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual.
5. You’ve worn out a car horn.. (ed note if you have a car).
6. You think eye contact is an act of aggression.

You can retire to Maine where…

1. You only have four spices: salt, pepper, ketchup, and Tabasco.
2. Halloween costumes fit over parkas.
3. You have more than one recipe for moose.
4. Sexy lingerie is anything flannel with less than eight buttons.
5. Every compass direction is “Down East.”
6. The four seasons are: winter, still winter, almost winter, and construction.

You can retire to the Deep South where…

1. You can rent a movie and buy bait in the same store.
2. “Y’all” is singular and “all y’all” is plural.
3. “He needed killin’” is a valid defense.
4. Everyone has 2 first names: Billy Bob, Jimmy Bob, Mary Sue, Betty Jean, Mary Beth, etc.
5. Everything is either “in yonder,” “over yonder” or “out yonder.” It’s important to know the difference, too.
6. The 4 seasons are: cold, cool and humid, warm and humid, sweltering heat and humidity.

You can retire to Colorado where…

1. You carry your $3,000 mountain bike atop your $500 car.
2. You tell your husband to pick up Granola on his way home and so he stops at the day care center.
3. A pass does not involve a football or dating.
4. The top of your head is bald, but you still have a pony tail.
5. You need supplemental oxygen when you shovel the snow.
6. The 3 seasons are: warm and pleasant, cold, bitterly cold.

You can retire to the Midwest where…

1. You’ve never met any celebrities, but the mayor knows your name.
2. Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor.
3. You have had to switch from “heat” to “A/C” on the same day.
4. You end sentences with a preposition: “Where’s my coat at? “
5. When asked how your trip was to any exotic place, you say, “It was different!”
6. The 4 seasons are cold, floods, tornadoes and hot.

AND You can retire to Florida where..

1. You eat dinner at 3:15 in the afternoon.
2. All purchases include a coupon of some kind — even houses and cars.
3. Everyone can recommend an excellent dermatologist.
4. Road construction never ends anywhere in the state.
5. Cars in front of you often appear to be driven by headless people.
6. The 3 seasons are: warm and humid, hot and humid, severe weather storms.

While still employed in the aerospace mill, I would often get questions about my reasons for owning guns and shooting them regularly. I usually would respond with a rote quote of the words in the second amendment (not a bad place to start) and then some statistics about violent crime in Southern California and more statistics about slow police response times to 911 calls. I would usually wind up with a missive about how I should be able to protect myself outside of my own home with a firearm. After all, there are more criminals at large where I’m not ‘permitted’ to carry, thanks to the hoplophobic idiots in power.

John Longenecker makes many good points with his article today in the L. A. Gun Rights Examiner column: Gun control, campus violence prevention, and disappearances. I was particularly impressed by this elegant description of one meaning of owning a gun:

Gun ownership and the idea of lethal force is not a matter of owning a gun, it is a spirit of Independence and preferring to live with that over an exclusive reliance on others. Gun ownership is the knowledge that no one can take your place in your own safety, and acceptance of the fact that it is not anyone else’s job, including police. It is the understanding and acceptance that lethal force may be necessary.

Amen.

I will make a point in future discussions about gun ownership, to stress the importance of independence and self-reliance. These have always been two important traits with which I credit myself, but seldom invoke in firearms discussions.

L. A. Gun Rights Examiner is one of the several Examiners I visit frequently on the web. I also visit the National Gun Rights Examiner, St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner and always the Columbia Conservative Examiner. You should visit them too.

The Better Half spotted this license plate today at the Car Wash. I normally blur the license out in photos I put on this site, but you need to see this one to follow the story.

“I don’t get that guy’s plate,” she said.

I looked at the plate and quickly deduced that it was code for “Saltwater.”

I told her that Na was the chemical symbol for sodium and that Cl stands for chloride. “Combined,” I said, “it’s the chemical symbol for salt. Add that to ‘WTR’ and I get ’saltwater.’”

“OK,” she said, “I don’t speak NERD.”

“Well,” I said, “It’s a good thing you have your own NERD to translate for you.”

(Laughter)

And to the dude in the Audi, clever plate, man.

I haven’t been on-topic with regard to the pro-second-amendment stance of this blog. I blame distractions such as my recent retirement, a subsequent venture into Arizona and the beginning of our efforts to fix-up and sell our home. We have a lot of ’stuff’ we need to do. The purging of the junk has begun.

Today, we took some old electronics (surround-sound, tape deck, VCR we no longer use) and donated them to a nearby charity thrift shop. I spent a couple hours dismantling the old setup including removing all the old cables and hookups behind the furniture and electronics stuff. We’re going to do a lot more dismantling too, since the ’stuff’ has been accumulating for over thirty years.

Some of the stuff I plan to sell on eBay - an old C-band satellite receiver, some old ‘ham’ radio gear and various furnishings and items that still have some value to us and, hopefully, to someone else. We’ve come a long way, but have a long way to go.

As for the 2A blogging, we’ll try a little harder to get some gun interest and RKBA topics going. We ought to be seeing some of the Chicago Gun Case happenings real soon now.

And I thought I was going to have a lot of time on my hands . . . sheesh!

Those of us fortunate enough to have attended the Gun Blogger Rendezvous and saw Major Chuck Ziegenfus give his presentation on Project VALOur-IT, have a head start in knowing how much good the project does.

The 5th annual VALOur-IT drive is now underway. From now until November 11th, you can support this important project with your generosity. See the links below.

This year, even though I’m a Navy veteran, we will be supporting Team Army, given Chuck’s convincing argument to do so:

But honestly, the most important thing you can do is reach out to the 237,999,998 Americans who don’t read this blog. Make them aware of VALOur-IT, Soldiers Angels, and the 2009 service members waiting to be adopted. Encourage them not only to donate (especially to Team Army, since the Army bears the brunt of the casualties, and does the majority of the fighting) but to also reach out to other people they know, to educate, contribute, and ask them to reach out. It’s how things go viral besides the video of the fat kid going ape in the candy store.

Electronic Check, Credit Card and Pay Pal all accepted. Choose your team and Donate:

Team Army
Team Navy
Team Marines
Team Air Force

After target practice today, the Better Half and I went to a “Fabulous Fifties” auto show held in our local Botanic Garden. There were a few nice cars there, like this 1956 Chevrolet Bel-Air Nomad, but by-and-large, the show was a bust. I expected to see some old American-built classics, but the show was dominated by Porsche, Ferrari and Morgan “Eurocrap.” I guess some folks like ‘em, but their not my “cup of tea, old chap.”

There were a couple of nice Ford Mustangs and some classic Corvettes, but all from the sixties era. I wanted to see a fifty-five Buick Roadmaster, dammit, not some turtle-looking Porsche! Or maybe a freaking Edsel - that’s what I’m talking when I say “Fabulous Fifties.”

Clickable image - 1956 Chevrolet Bel-Air Nomad - credit the Better Half.

I don’t know which gun blogger brought this Pachmayr Dominator equipped with a set of Punisher grips for 1911 pistols to the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno last month. I sure like those grips, though. Alas - no 1911 in the gunventory - yet.

Image found while going through some of the Better Half’s photos from the Rendezvous. This was taken during the show-n-tell session the evening of September 11th.