Ammo Re-Up From Widener's

I shop at quite a few online sellers, including Wideners for reloading supplies, and they have a good selection of ammo too.

They've got some competitive prices on 9mm.  Since I've been shooting a bit more recently I just ordered 1000 rounds of Magtech 115 to get some more practice in between matches.  Since I ordered, it went off sale but others have come on sale now, which is a good thing. Ammo prices overall seem to be coming down a bit and stabilizing, so there's more out there at practice-pleasing prices.

I particularly like at Widener's that you can add a non-descript box to enclose the ammo to make it a bit harder for nosy neighbors and porch pirates to figure out what is in the box on your doorstep.

I also ordered some 6.5 Carcano ammo to go with the case of 9mm, as I've been having trouble finding some in stock to try out my Carcano, which I have yet to shoot.

The ammo arrived quickly with no fuss or muss and was nicely packaged.

I think I shall hit the range and get some practice in this holiday weekend and celebrate Independence Day accordingly with some appropriate noise.

Neato: Go Water Skiing With Your Plane On

This is not something you see everyday.

The South African Flying Lions demonstrate that you can water ski while flying a T6 Texan/Harvard.

 

Formation flying with your wheels in the water is rather impressive.

METAR FU = Hazy With A Smell Of Wood Smoke

Those fires in Canada have brought a dense haze and a smell of a campfire that permeates the air around here.

Sky conditions in the area are IFR or low IFR, and it is the first time I've seen the METAR abbreviation code FU used.

No it doesn't stand for "FU you're not flying today", but it might as well mean that.

FU actually is an abbreviation that means smoke, from the French fumée.

Sunday Match Day

Went to Romulus today to shoot the regular USPSA match.

It was a very full match with over 100 shooters, and 8 challenging stages.

It got a little backed up at times, especially when some of the stages got to be a little complex to score and reset after each shooter. It was also rather hot and humid, so I was drinking a ton of water during the match.

I had a darn good time, and was shooting with a great squad of people.

I'm quite pleased with the results so far, as I await the scores to be posted. No hit factor was under 3.1 and many were much better than that which was happy-making.

I also shot two stages clean with all Alphas.

Best of all, I had zero, count 'em zero, misses the entire match. Every round hit, mainly Alphas or Charlies, and maybe a one or two Deltas the entire match I'll have to check the official scores when posted.

I'm rather happy with that, as Romulus always puts on a fun and challenging match. I seem to be improving with stage planning so I would leave no target behind and my accuracy is increasing including on swingers and disappearing targets which is great.

A great way to spend a Sunday, and it's nice to see some improvement in my shooting.

The Henry Ford Rouge Tour With Distinguished Visitors

I traveled once again to the Henry Ford Museum yesterday.

MrGarabaldi and his heir apparent had come to town to visit the Museum.

They arrived late Friday night so we met up at the museum Saturday morning at 9 when it opened.

First thing we did was the Rouge Factory Tour. The tour takes you to where they are currently building F-150 trucks.

The historic and storied Rouge Factory Complex is huge.

 This picture taken from the observation deck of the F-150 assembly building gives you an idea of the size of the complex - every building you see in this picture is a part of it.

They've made the site more green, with living roofs on some buildings and transforming what were slag-heaps into green-spaces.

We then entered the building.  The tour begins with you traveling to two different theaters.  The first gives a short film with the history of the Factory and Henry Ford. The second is an impressive show complete with lights, lasers, and robots,  that demonstrates how an F-150 is made.  Both were impressively well-done and set the tone of the tour very nicely.

You then head up to the observation deck, and we chatted with a knowledgeable and friendly docent who was a retired Ford employee, who gave a really informative chat as we  saw what was there.

Each F-150 gets driven on a test track after assembly:

Every 58 seconds while the factory is working, a new F-150 is born.

We then walked a catwalk above the factory floor and got to see the trucks being assembled, as they were working on Saturday.  No pictures or cell phone usage was permitted.  Watching the trucks being built on the assembly line was very impressive.  MrGarabaldi, with a background in automotive, provided some very knowledgeable color commentary about the process that made it even more interesting. The catwalk tour was 1/3 of a mile long and was only a portion of a side of the factory, which gives you an idea of how big the building is. Real big is an understatement. We got to see the line shut down for the lunch break, which was interesting to see everything go from humming alone to a dead stop in an instant.

After the catwalk, we got to examine a Ford F-150 cutaway that was neat to poke around.

MrGarabaldi's heir left the tour wanting to buy an F-150, and I understand that completely.

After the tour, we left the museum grounds briefly and I took them to a coney restaurant so they could get some local flavor.  The Coney Dogs were pronounced good and the Gyros received MrGarabaldis' stamp of approval.

We then returned to the museum and toured it until it closed. Lots to see.

From Ford's Quadracylce, the first commercial vehicle he made:

 

To the first Mustang and Taurus-

We saw the sweep of automotive history.

Not neglecting aviation, we also saw the Ford Tri-Motor and many other flying machines in the museum.

To complete the Planes, Trains, and Automobiles set, we of course, had to checkout the railroad section.

Once the museum closed, we exited and then headed off to Buddy's Pizza so the intrepid travelers could experience some Detroit Pizza, which was excellent as always at Buddy's.

It was a great short trip and great to see MrGarabaldi and his heir in person again.

Iceberg, Goldberg, What's The Difference?

Tam notes the concept of  

"The Goebbels Gap: The amount of time between something terrible happening in the world and someone figuring out a way to blame the Jews for it. https://t.co/8ht5ZuxKxE"

Yep, the implosion of the Oceangate Submersible is now being blamed on the Jews. Not to mention the sinking of the RMS Titanic itself. Because, hey, why not?   

After all, no point blaming it on a company that seems to have basically ignored good submersible design and didn't really give safety a thought while descending to 13,000 feet in a submersible with parts rated to 4,265 feet.

Verily, these prejudiced idiots can't tell the difference between an Iceberg and a Goldberg.

On the one hand, being blamed for every possible thing that goes wrong anywhere, no matter how unlikely or outlandish is kinda uncomfortable and rather tiring nonsense.  

On the other hand, if the anti-Semitic idiots think we're all really that powerful, then maybe they should quit messing with us - after all, FAFO is a real thing.

We ReGreta To Inform You

News of your impending demise has yet again been overstated:

Yet another prediction of doom has failed to come to pass yet again. The enviros and those pushing for control of the economy and our lives under the guise of "Climate Change" really need to push their time-frames farther out and make less easily falsifiable predictions of doom.

So, congrats on yet again not being wiped out.

But if they didn't push immediate predictions of doom, it wouldn't be as scary would it?

After all impending doom is better and more scary when it is impending:

A physicist is giving a lecture and explaining that he has calculated that in 4 and 1/2 billion years the sun will exhaust itself of fuel and burn out, and all life at we know it in the solar system will end.

Upset, a man in the audience yells out, "Is there anything we can do professor? Can we form any congressional committees, or donate money for research?"

The physicist responds, "Sir, why are you so upset? This won't happen for 4 and a half billion years?"

"Oh, thank goodness," says the man. "I thought you said it would happen in 4 and a half million years, so there's still time!"

Fun Fact About Juneteenth

The news today is all going on about how Juneteenth was the event that ended slavery in America.

That's wrong.

PBS got it wrong.

The Detroit Free Press quoting the AP has similarly got it wrong: 

Even The History Channel says it is so, and they're wrong, much as they are about aliens.   But, they have yet to claim the slaves were freed by aliens, so that's something.

Juneteenth is ahistorical as a national holiday, and not the actual end of slavery in the US that we seem set on pretending that it is.

While the event itself was laudatory, with Major General Gordon Granger on June 19 1865 proclaiming freedom for enslaved people in Galveston based on the emancipation proclamation, and telling the slave owners they were rather late in freeing their slaves and they better get to it posthaste. Which they did. It ended slavery in Texas (this was a good thing), but it did not end slavery in the USA.

Juneteenth took place on June 19, 1865.

Slavery however legally continued in Union states and actually only ended with the freeing of slaves under in Delaware and Kentucky when the Thirteenth Amendment finally ended slavery in December 18, 1865 - six months later, and the system of slavery based on race finally came to its end.

So we're celebrating the actual end of race-based slavery (again, that end is a good thing) in the US on the wrong day.  

But wait, there's more! 

To make it even more interesting, the 13th Amendment did not apply to slavery in the Indian lands where tribes had autonomy.  The Indians kept Black and other slaves until later treaties between the USA and these various tribes ended the practice. For some reason, the history of Indians having slaves including Black slaves even after the end of the Civil War doesn't get a lot of press.

Arguably, slavery itself continued as legal in the US until 1874, when the Padrone Act finally fully and properly banned it, but that mainly freed non-Black slaves who were being exploited at the time - the enslaved victims were mainly Italian and other immigrant children.

So, slavery, and the slavery of African-Americans in America did not end on Juneteenth except in Texas, and calling it the "Juneteenth National Independence Day" to celebrate an event in one state, as important as it was for that state, as slavery continued in the US after that date, is historically rather inaccurate.

I mean if we want to dumb history down and pretend Juneteenth ended race-based slavery in the US, then cool.

It's also useful as it assuages those, especially in the North who didn't learn that the emancipation proclamation did not free slaves in Union-held territory. Nor did they learn that yes, some Union states had slaves throughout the Civil War, and even kept them as slaves after the Civil War ended.  History is a bit more complicated than Union 100% good, Confederacy 100% bad - even as the Union was much better than the Confederacy on the whole. But the Union had some definite issues and complicated politics to deal with as well, and having some states in it continuing to hold slaves even after the Civil War is one of those issues we don't discuss much.

But, Juneteenth and its creation as a national holiday was an act of pandering, and the national holiday has been in practice since its establishment has been much more divisive rather than unifying.

The Father's Day Weekend Cousins Visit

My uncle, cousin, and my cousin's kids came to town on their return road trip to Chicago on their way back to Toronto.

They've been doing a Guy Baseball Trip yearly, except during the Covid shutdown and this year it was to see the Cubs play at home. Cubs won which was nice especially as it was the first time they had the kids in tow.

They also got some Chicago pizza.

So I arranged to take them to The Henry Ford Museum and then to get some authentic Detroit pizza so they could compare and contrast.

The Henry Ford is a great place to take kids.

After all, what kid doesn't love huge trains?

And what kid doesn't love the Wienermobile?

Yes, yes they do.  And it will always be the Wienermobile not the Frankmobile, just sayin'.

They then also got to build cars and race them after admiring real race cars.

And make paper airplanes and test them too.

It turns out that the plans for making a paper airplane are (unintentionally) dual usage and can also turn into paper hats when not being flight tested.

We spent hours at the museum and had a great time.  Great to see them all, as it's been awhile.

Then we headed to Buddy's Pizza for some real Detroit pizza. Pizza there is always top notch and it was yesterday night as well.

They declared the Detroit square pizza was clearly superior to the Chicago deep dish, which is obvious. 

Then this morning, we met up at the airport and I got to let the kids play with the airplane.

I had the older kid do the full-walk around pre-flight, following the checklist  with his younger brother in tow, and showed how everything worked and let them climb in and play away.  I unfortunately didn't take them flying, as the younger one was kinda tuckered out, and the older boys had failed to get She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed's permission for the kids to go flying. Next time.

Then I headed off to meet the family at  a restaurant and we had a nice Father's Day lunch together.

So it was a great weekend.

Apparently, It Does Take Someone (Or Even Two People) Getting Killed To Be Fired From A Detroit Union Job

The Detroit News:  Detroit bus driver who killed pedestrian downtown fired

A bus driver with a record of a crash per year (unclear if it is all buses or also personal smash-ups) for the last eight years has now finally been fired from Detroit's Department of Transportation after she ran over a pedestrian a few days ago. That latest fatal crash involved running over the pedestrian in a crosswalk right in front of her bus.

One of those eight prior crashes included a fatality in 2015.

That action wasn't taken after a driving record of 8 crashes until she ran over a person with her bus on camera tells you all you need to know.

The Media Has Learned Nothing And Forgotten Nothing

Our media today:

Chernobyl is in Ukraine. 

So verily, Ukraine has certainly already had their Chernobyl, and they, totally unimaginatively, called it Chernobyl, because it was Chernobyl.

Obama's adviser Ben Rhodes was right when he said:

“All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus,” Rhodes told the Times in May. “Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change.”

“They literally know nothing.”

Of course he used that ignorance to manipulate the media to the Administration's requirements and sell their spin.

That Time, a once venerable news magazine would run a headline and story that the dam collapse could become Ukraine's Chernobyl is beyond pathetic, and a clear sign of the lack of actual real-world knowledge among news reporters today.

About Those Wildfires In Alberta And The Rest Of Canada

As usual, the left, is blaming it on climate change.

It's more likely however that the scale of this fire is based on both poorly-thought our leftist (greenie) environmentalist forestry management polices and budget cuts to wildlife fire-fighting capabilities by the socialist NDP party while they were in charger of Alberta.

Under the NDP in 2016, they cut the firefighting budget by $15, most of it to the air tanker program. They sure could have used those funds for this set of wildfires couldn't they?

A further problem is Alberta's and Canada's lack of appropriate forest management and thinning of brush and other combustibles in forests.

It's a little trite and too easy to blame the wildfires on climate change.  Instead, their extent is more due to a deliberate policy to not properly manage the forests to reduce the chances of a massive wildfires, combined with deliberate budget cuts to spending for firefighters to contain the wildfire.

Sunday Match Day

Shot a match today at Brighton.

Very small turnout so we only had two squads running and 5 stages.

The forecast for rain and thunderstorms scared most people off, but it only spit some rain on occasion and was otherwise overcast and muggy.

I was an RO on one squad, and overall it went well, aside from feeling like I was herding cats at times. People were just not getting the concept that if you;re not on deck, the shooter, or reloading your magazines after shooting, you should be helping pasting to move things along.

As to my shooting, it was very mixed and inconsistent. Out of five stages two were lousy, and three were good.

First stage I was rather focused on two shooters shooting their first match ever, going over the procedure with them etc, and did not develop a stage plan before I shot and it showed when I stupidly missed a hidden target array of two targets that I really should have seen had I been properly concentrating. On another stage I did the same darn thing with a complete brain fade.

But, on two stages I was likely solidly B-class, including the dark shoot-house which was shot without lights inside and only outside illumination this time.Hit 14 targets with two shots each in 25 seconds. The other stage I nailed 14 targets in multiple arrays in under 20.72 seconds.  So those were good.

All three of those stages had solid stage plans and worked well.

So, I need to work on my consistency and stage planning, if I can just quit missing the hidden target array that would be nice.

A very nice little match, and shot with a great bunch of folks as usual.

Ok, Who Had Alligators In Michigan For June?

Seriously?

 Yes, seriously, and the headline is just not comforting:

ClickonDetroit: Alligators are being shipped to sanctuary in Michigan when they grow too big, become dangerous

Alligators that have grown too big and become too dangerous for others to handle are being shipped to an alligator sanctuary in Michigan.

Some of the alligators being released at the Critchlow Alligator Sanctuary in Athens, Michigan, are as big as 10 feet long and weigh 600 pounds.

           . . . . .

Critics believe there should be more regulation on a state level because alligators get loose and when pets get too big they’re being dumped in waterways.

One would think Michigan isn't exactly a garden spot for an alligator sanctuary, but here we are.

Michigan doesn't exactly have known natural predators of Alligators, nor are we in the alligators' normal natural range.

Alligators have been spotted living their best lives in the Kalamazoo River and Long Lake, most likely due to idiots dumping their animals when they get too big or they get bored of them.

What could possibly go wrong?

Michigan's Distracted Driving Law To Go Into Effect June 30

Say goodbye to penalty-free holding your phone to your ear, and other uses of the phone as a distraction, while driving in Michigan starting June 30.

 The Detroit News: Whitmer signs distracted driving laws: When they go into effect

While I tend to have a bit of a libertarian bent as far as phone use while driving goes, it is unfortunately and very readily apparent that most Michigan drivers cannot handle it. 

Heck, I noticed years ago how just holding a phone and talking on it visibly degraded my driving performance, and have been hands-free (on the rare occasions I actually need to talk to someone while driving - most calls can wait until you're at your destination and can pay full attention to the call) for years and years now.

From driving under the speed limit (generally in the left lane) with a phone visibly pressed to their ears; to intermittent and uncalled for braking; to not going when the light turns green; or for some reason hitting the brakes before going through a green light; or much more dangerously going through a solid red, there's a lot of distracted drivers yaking, texting, or playing on their phones out there.

Yes, I have been hit by a distracted driver - a couple years ago, hit from behind while I was stopped at a red light, not a particularly pleasant experience and wholly avoidable had the moron been looking up at the road ahead instead of at their phone.

Since most cars today have easily usable hands-free options, this is pretty darn easy to comply with. It is unfortunately a needed law due to the sheer number of idiot drivers not paying attention to properly operating their vehicles out there.

When you're driving, your attention needs to be on your driving first, everything else is secondary to that. It shouldn't take a law to require this basic approach to vehicle operation, but it sadly seems that it does.

Stupid Criminals: Follow Your GPS To Jail

An example of the consequences of blindly following your GPS and of the concept of Garbage In/ Garbage Out programming.

The Detroit Free Press: GPS error leads to 60-year-old American's arrest at Canada border with 400 pounds of marijuana

A 60-year-old California man was arrested at the Canadian border last week with about 400 pounds of cannabis and more than $600,000 cash in his car, according to law enforcement.

Andrew Lee Toppenberg, of Tustin, California, mistakenly ended up at Canada's Rainbow Bridge border crossing in Niagara Falls, Ontario after following GPS coordinates that were entered incorrectly, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Oopsies.

Michigan Dems' Plan To Bail Out Broke Dem City Proceeds Apace

You never have to say you're sorry, so long as there's still other people's money available.

The Detroit News: Highland Park, GLWA strike deal trying to buy time for final settlement

The tentative deal comes as state lawmakers have attempted to provide bailout money. The Senate Appropriations Committee last month approved a $35.4 billion budget for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services that includes $20.3 million for Highland Park to use to repay the estimated $24 million with interest it owes the Great Lakes Water Authority for years of unpaid drinking water bills.

You see, the City of Highland Park doesn't just owe $24 million in unpaid water bills, they owe tens of millions more in unpaid water bills.  Their current annual property tax revenue - $9.6 million. That's a problem. But now thanks to the Michigan Democrats, it won't be the city's problem and there will be no consequences to it and it's leadeship for this rather bad decision.

After all, there's tax money available from the rest of the state's taxpayers to be diverted.

The fun question is what was the city government of Highland Park doing with all the water payments made by residents there to the City all that time when they weren't paying it to GLWA?

A more pressing question is why should everyone else in the state be bailing them out for their deliberate decision and failure to pay for their water bills?

Stupid Criminals: Dumb, Drunk, And Being A Felon in Possession Is No Way To Stay Out Of Jail

At least in the Detroit area, the Feds are actually prosecuting some felons in possession of firearms and charging them with such when they are caught committing a crime with a firearm.

The Detroit Free Press:  Personal trainer pulls AR-15-style rifle on bar customers in Holly: 'He's embarrassed'

Apparently, in this context, embarrassed is an alternate spelling of the word dumbass.

A Michigan man is going back to prison for five years after causing a scare at a local bar: He pointed an AR-15-style rifle at customers, who ran for cover and feared for their lives, prosecutors said.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, 40-year-old Joshua Allgeyer, of Holly, wasn't supposed to have a gun on him the night he terrorized patrons at the Holly Inn Bar. He had prior convictions for armed robbery and home invasion, and did 14 years for those crimes, which means he wasn't supposed to ever own a gun again.

Yep, the felon, who after he pointed the firearm at the bar patrons ran home and then hid the weapon under the cushions in his house, because no one would ever think to look there.

He's a felon in possession of what looks, per the picture in the article,  to be a badly-braced pistol, not a rifle. Be interesting to find out how he came to obtain it.

I'm rather impressed that he was federally charged with being a felon in possession. It's possible his  Nazi tattoos had some bearing on the decision. In any case, prosecuting felons committing criminal acts with a firearm needs to be a regular activity.

On top of the federal conviction, State-level charges from the incident are still pending.

Putting The Socialist In National Socialism

So the scum that defaced a Royal Oak synagogue with a swastika and the word "Azov" turns out to not be the media-hoped for and expected white supremacist type.

Instead, she is a card-carrying communist and member of (and author for) the World Workers Party. She stated did it to have Ukraine be blamed for it, as she supports Russia and Iran and is solidly anti-American and anti-capitalist in the finest Marxist-Leninist fashion.

The Detroit Free Press: Judge orders psych evaluation for woman charged in Michigan synagogue attack

She also is a suspect in the arson of a scientology center and is likely bughouse nuts, or drunk on leftist ideology, which often presents as the same symptoms.

She also had a cunning plan of going to Yemen and Turkey to impot weapons so she could commit terrorist acts int he US. She's previously written in support of the pro-Iranian Houthis in Yemen and calls herself a revolutionary socialist.

As usual, scratch a revolutionary socialist, find an anti-Semite.

Sunday Range Day

So yesterday morning I got up, loaded the car, and met Tosh at the range.

Did some solid handgun practice, in which I learned I need to practice more, but I think I already knew that.   To be fair, I was using a couple new handguns while doing so, so getting used to them likely slowed me down a tad.  More on that in another post.

We also shot my Turknelli shotgun, which is still having some issues since coming back from repair and is now being broken in all over again.

We then shot Tosh's AR-15 with his new can.  It is much more pleasant to shoot it with a suppressor but it does kick a lot of gas right back in your face and he's working on modifications to reduce that.

We then shot my PS90 and much fun was had.

So as it turns out, we shot those three firearms in descending amounts of recoil.

In short, the Turknelli shotgun with 12-pellet 00 Buck kicks quite a bit and wants to get off target. 

The AR-15 by comparison had very little recoil and was easy to keep on the steel silhouette target.  

The PS-90 had effectively no recoil at all and stayed right on the target without any effort at all.

That was a darn good time at the range.

That's Rather Impressive, In An Unhappy Commentary On The Prevalence Of Scammers

I posted a recliner chair for sale on Facebook marketplace.

Bought it for the Hip replacement recovery and haven't used it at all since I've been able to get around.

Withing minutes of the posting, I had 4 different scammers contact me to "buy" it.

All easily detectable as scams, with one asking for my phone number and then for "their safety" if they could send me a code to verify who I was. Of course that made no sense and screamed scam rather clearly.

Never, ever go along with that. 

That’s an attempt for the scammer to get your phone number to register for a Google voice number, which will send a verification code to your phone. The scammer will ask you to send them the code you received – "for their safety". Instead that code will unlock the Google voice number, which will assist the scammer to perpetuate more scams, including possibly stealing your identity.   

Make that 5 scammers in the time it took for me to post this.  Sheesh.

B-17s Grounded

Due to an FAA Airworthiness Directive regarding a major safety issue with the wing spar of the aircraft, All B-17s are grounded until the inspection AD is complied with.

Flying:  FAA Grounds B-17s Through Airworthiness Directive

The AD requires an inspection of the wing spar, the cost of which is estimated at $38,700.

There are 18 B-17s on the US registry, with currently 3 in flying condition at the time of the AD, including the Yankee Air Museum's Yankee Lady. Sadly its already noticed up on the website that it will not be flying for the 2023 season.

We may have come to the beginning of the end of seeing these historic beasts of freedom airborne in the skies above us.