40 Carried For 10

This is not a 10mm vs .40S&W post.

Instead its about the challenge I did today:  Rucking 10 miles carrying 40 pounds.

In one word:  Ouch.

Ten miles was a lot.

We drove out to Pontiac Lake Recreation Area and met up at 7:45 am.

We then did a little warm up stretching, and hit the trail.

 Beautiful clear and sunny day in the 30s, and we were soon more than warm enough as we rucked on.

 I had on a lot of safety orange as did some of the others in the group as this was an active hunting area, as well as a jogging and mountain bike area.

We passed by a few hunters and while we saw deer tracks we never saw a deer.  We were more in danger form the mountain bikers barrelling away on the trail than anything else really. The hunters we passed by all had excellent muzzle discipline and good situational awareness that there were other people in the woods, which is always nice to see.

The trail was quite rugged with many rocks and roots hiding under the leaves to trip you up. lots of slipping and recoveries from hidden roots occurred.

Switchbacks, and climbs, and dips added to the challenge, and we had an elevation gain of 1,219 feet during the walk.

We did a short break at 3 miles in and another at the 6 mile mark.

About 8.5 miles in,  I asked for a break as my feet and legs were killing me, feeling every rock underfoot and always fighting to maintain balance took a toll and I was starting to hit a wall. Others indicated they appreciated and needed the break as well.

A few minutes sitting down helped and I got up and carried on.

The last miles felt like they were forever, and the last was the hardest, with a lot of elevation change and even more damn rocks and roots.  The last mile was really the last mile plus making it a 10.46t mile ruck. But, no one gave up and we did it.

 

Afterwards we had a campfire and hot dogs to celebrate.

The group lead brought Teton Grass Fed Beef Hot Dogs for the group to cook over the fire, and while the hunger and effort of the ruck certainly made everything taste great, those were really amazing hot dogs.  I mean, best tasting hot dogs ever. Highly recommend.

 He also brought some non-alcoholic beverages and a pumpkin pie. All great stuff.  It was a great time with great camaraderie hanging around the fire after all the hard work.

Feet and legs are all sorts of sore right now.  But the accomplishment makes it worth it.

More Transit Attack Woes, Now In Chicago

On the Blue Line Train in Chicago, at 9:25 pm a 26-year-old white woman was set on fire by a 45 or 50 year old man. Depending on the reports, there was either an argument before the man doused her with a flammable liquid and set her on fire, or was simply sitting there when the man poured the liquid on her and set it on fire in an unprovoked attack.

The man is not being identified by the media, so you can draw your own conclusions.

While not identifying him nor providing identifying information, the media has helpfully reported almost every other detail about him.

He had previously been arrested 53 times, and has a record with 9 felony convictions with only having jail time for two of them. His latest assault before this one took place in August when he knocked out a female social worker causing a major head injury when he was being held in a psychiatric hospital. 

So much for replacing cops with social workers. 

He was released and set free, after that last attack, because of course he was. Set free by a Cook County Judge and sent home on home monitoring which was apparently not being monitored very well at all. Should we mention he has no home of record, either?

CWBChicago.com:  CTA fire attack suspect knocked a psych ward employee unconscious, but a judge decided to let him walk the streets: court docs

Yep, let mentally ill criminals continue to walk the streets no matter how many crimes they commit, let them roam free on public transit, then go on about how violence is down and Chicago and its transit system is very safe after an attack inevitably happens.  Much like the Iryna Zarutska  event a mentally ill criminal arrested multiple times but always given a slap on the wrist, if that, and returned to commit crimes again and again and again until someone gets killed or seriously maimed.

Anarcho-tyranny at its finest. 

3.5 Miles Going Uphill Both Ways

Met up with the Rucking Group last night after work on the east side of Oakland County.

It was raining, because of course it was.

That is a photo of me taken during the previous ruck group jaunt in the rain in October. I looked pretty much like that last night.  Except that I did add a blaze orange hat for yesterday's ruck .

The rain eventually petered out, and we continued on without it.  The rain made the roots and rocks a lot more slippery, and it was full on dark as we rucked through the woods. The pace is considerably slower in those conditions.

We went up hills, went around the trail and then did the same hills again.  Then the group leader indicated he wanted to do the hills one more time for good measure so we all obliged. 

Quite a good workout and a good bunch of guys.

Sunday Brunch With Mr. B.

Mr. B. Flew in to KPTK today. I wasn't flying as the Archer is still down getting its new engine, and the Dakota was out for the weekend with another pilot. So Mr. B. came to visit.

Not Mr. B.

 

 

He landed with one heckuva crosswind. It was blowing 18 gusting 25 knots at 280-310 for a 15 knot plus gusty crosswind component.

 He did it with style, and made it look easy, with a very nice landing.

 He taxi'd in and parked, and we headed off to a great brunch, which he kindly paid for.

After a great time catching up, I drove him back to the airport.  

He did the preflight, and as he did that I removed the nose chock, and he got the engines started and soon headed back home.

It was a darn good meet-up. 

Yesterday 4.5 Miles and 45 Lbs

Yesterday I hit the trail once again. I increased the ruck weight again to 45 pounds for this one.

Yet again, the same trail had a difference appearance as fall is really putting on a show and leaves cover the ground.

 Makes your footing a little bit more interesting as you can't see the rocks, ruts, and tree roots waiting beneath the leaves to make you do the Don't Fall Dance. 

I did multiple laps around the trail, keeping an average pace of just under 20 minutes a mile per lap.

Interestingly, I did not see a single deer this time. As it was Opening Day for firearms deer season, they may have decided to make themselves scare, even as there is no hunting allowed in the township, and the deer seem to know that.

Fewer people were on the trail than the last time, and that number will keep declining as fall falls into winter.

 Not a bad ruck of 4.5 miles.

Veteran's / Memorial Day 2025

On the 11th Hour of the 11th Day of 11th Month of 1918, the guns fell silent ending the First World War. 

The hope it would be the War To End All Wars did not last, and it seems almost naive looking back that it was believed that it could be so. 

On this day we can both honor our veterans, and remember the sacrifices of those who gave their lives to defend our county in all of the conflicts that have occurred.

The last of the veterans from the First World War have passed on, and approximately 66,000 American veterans remain who served in the Second World War.

Their experiences, both those who survived and who died in these conflicts, will be lost unless they are honored and remembered, and their stories told and recorded. 

That's One Turkey Who Won't Make It To Thanksgiving

The Jerusalem Post: Florida police kill Turkish man threatening Tallahassee synagogue, Ron DeSantis 

A Florida resident shot and killed a Turkish national on Thursday after deputies said they saw him reaching for a gun while they were serving him a warrant related to threats he had made against both a Tallahassee synagogue and public officials, the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office said.

Ali Bayhan, 38, was suspected of making threats against multiple elected officials, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and of calling in a bomb threat to Temple Israel in Tallahassee, the office told local media station WCJB.

Threatening terrorist attacks on a synagogue and the governor of a state, and then pulling a firearm on sheriff's deputies when they come to arrest you is going to end in the appropriate result. 

The Gales Of November, Remembered

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Immortalized in a ballad by Gordon Lightfoot, the legend of the wreck lives on.

On November 10, 1975, the 725-foot-long Great Lakes freighter, the biggest freighter on the lakes when she was built in 1958, suddenly sank in a storm in Lake Superior, taking all 29 crew members with her.

The ship rests on the lake bottom 530 feet down from the surface, with the bow section upright and the stern upside down.

The Arthur M. Andersen, the ship that was last to see and communicate with the Fitzgerald, is now in long-term layup in Toledo, Ohio, and may be retired from service soon, ending a long career and an operating connection to that fateful day 50 years ago.

A documentary showing the Edmund Fitzgerald in its condition as of the last expedition in 1994 gives a lot of interesting footage of the wreck:

 

There may never be another expedition to the wreck, as it is considered a grave and requires a permit to be visited.  That permit is not being issued by the Canadian government since the 1990s expedition. The presence of at least one visible body of a crew member found during the 94 expedition is one of the factors for the denial of permits for the wreck. 

The deep and cold fresh waters of Lake Superior preserves the wreck, and as the song says, Superior does not give up her dead, even 50 years after the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The Answer To This Question Is No

The Detroit Free Press: Michigan wants AI jobs and 100% clean energy. But can it do both?

At the same time Michigan's Democrats have required that power generation be from 100%clean  renewable sources by  2040, they now want to add a demand of gigawatts of power form their latest shiny fetish - Data Centers.

The power demand from data centers are daunting:

DTE also plans to provide power for the Stargate campus, OpenAI announced. In an Oct. 30 earnings call, DTE officials said they secured an agreement to power a 1.4-gigawatt data center. For reference, DTE’s Fermi 2 nuclear plant in Newport produces about 1.2 gigawatts of power, enough energy to power a city of a million people, according to the company. OpenAI said the power used for its Stargate campus will come from existing energy supply, and DTE said the data center will absorb electric costs, not local ratepayers.  

Not likely. Especially as the Democrats don't want increase reliable baseline production most especially not with nuclear power.

That one data center will take all of Fermi 2's generation just by itself, forget adding another data center.  They want even more. We're already susceptible to brown outs due to a lack of generation capability here,  and they want to add data centers to add to the load without increasing generation capability.

Unicorns and rainbows aren't going to power the Michigan Democrat's data center dreams. Until Dems get serious about power generation, this demand fir shiny hip data centers need to be stopped as it is unplugged from reality.

Apparently The German Words "Reichstag Feuer" May Just Be Pronounced In English As

"January 6 2021".

Bad enough that there were indeed Capitol Police officers letting demonstrators into the building, and after years of denial it turns out over 26 FBI confidential informants in the crowd on January 6, and there were 274 undercover FBI agents present at the demonstration after it began.  

The latest news, that makes this seem even more like a Reichstag Fire event, is the latest allegation that the heretofore unknown person who planted pipe bombs by both the Democrat National Headquarters and Republican National Headquarters was a Capitol Police Officer at the time. 

On top of that, after the incident the officer switched over to working for the CIA - not that there's anything wrong with that.

Blaze Media: Former Capitol Police officer a forensic match for Jan. 6 pipe bomber, sources say

That alleged analysis, if proven to be true, would certainly explain why federal law enforcement under Obama and Biden was impressively incurious and indeed seemingly the opposite of eager to find and arrest the suspect who had been caught on camera planting the devices - with one FBI agent stating they were pulled off surveillance of the residential area of the suspect at the time.  

 Video of the bomber walking away after planting the devices was only released to the public this year once President Trump was back in office. I'm sure there were some reasons to delay releasing it through the course of the entire Biden administration. 

One would hope this lead is followed up and confirmed and prosecuted appropriately, or found to be a case of mistaken identification quickly. 

It does make one wonder why they certainly did not apply the same zeal to identifying a person planting actual IEDs with the same zeal and unblinking focus that they went after identifying and arresting those who did no more than enter the Capitol without doing any damage. 

Rather curious indeed and quite an interesting development.

6 Miles

It was a chill 40 degrees outside as I got to the trail today.

Time to up my rucking game a bit.

 Since the Group 10-mile ruck is coming up on November 22, it was time to increase the mileage.

For additional difficulty, I added 5 pounds to the pack, bringing it to 40 pounds.

First three miles were done in just under an hour at an average 19.55 minutes a mile pace. 

The nature trail is different every time I ruck it now.

Can you spot the three deer in this photo? 

In addition to deer, many ducks were hanging out.

Not a ton of people on the trail,  as the cooler weather reduces people showing up, but still quite a few.   But most of the time I pretty much had a good portion of the trail all to myself, occasionally passing others or them passing me from the other direction.  All good and the solitude and quiet while moving through the woods was rather nice. The noisiest thing, aside from passing people talking on their phones, was the squirrels running through the brush.

By mile five, I could definitely feel the hike, and my feet were informing me that they were no longer enjoying the process, and why did I add another five pounds to the pack, anyway? 

But I pressed on, and completed my 6 mile goal.

 Pretty much achieved 6 miles in 2 hours which was the plan.

Not a bad way to spend a beautiful morning. 

No, Don't Do That

No, you really can't do this:

Fox2 Detroit: White Lake Township man who fatally shot burglar charged with manslaughter 

Months after a homeowner fired shots at several individuals breaking into his detached garage in White Lake Township, the 24-year-old resident has been charged with manslaughter, assault, and two other felony counts.

The details make it even worse.

He allegedly used a 9mm semiautomatic handgun and fired two shots into the garage through a windowless locked door. As the burglary suspects fled, Knapton then fired five more shots before going inside his house. 

So, 6 teens and apparently 1 adult broke into his detached garage, which had been broken into on multiple other occasions. Clearly raising his ire. But, his response is absolutely wrong.

In Michigan, you can legally use deadly force in only three circumstances - none of which were present here. 

In addition, the garage was detached so you don't get castle privilege for that. 

Even worse, he then randomly fired through a windowless door not identifying his targets.

On top of that, He did this in a county with a very anti-gun prosecutor. 

His situation can best be described as started with an F and ending in a ed. 

Dude should have called the police and at most threw a pepper spray grenade into the garage and called it a day. 

So It Is Now Ok To Hit Someone With A Sandwich In DC

NBC News: Jury acquits D.C. 'sandwich guy' charged with chucking a sub at a federal agent

Certainly not a great precedent and a decision based on politics rather than legal principles.

But, given it was a DC jury and the person hit by a sandwich was an ICE agent and because Trump, it is easy to understand how the jury ignored the evidence and found the thrower not guilty of a misdemeanor for the assault, buying into the argument that he had a First Amendment right to assault a federal officer.

Whether it would have been the ICE Agent's First Amendment right to then take said sub sandwich and shove it down Sean Dunn's throat is unresolved.

Hitting someone with an object is an assault.

It gets charged as an assault as we want to, theoretically, let the cooler-head government handle the criminal action rather than require the victim of an assault take matters into their own hands and school the assaulter to seek justice and thus lead to more violence. 

By allowing politics to degrade what was clearly an assault into a non-crime, the jury just harmed the very basis of the social contract in the District.

At this point, based on this precedent, you can now probably throw a sandwich at someone with no legal repercussions in DC. The knuckle-sandwich you may get in response, however, will be harder to avoid.

It is also an open question as to what else this ruling allows you to throw at federal agents with zero consequences and whether that immunity from criminal charges will continue when the Democrats are in charge. 

An Interesting Omission, That

The Detroit News reported on the motorist in France that deliberately rammed a bunch of cyclists.

The Detroit News: Motorist drives into pedestrians and cyclists on French Atlantic island of Île d’Oléron, 9 injured

The report managed to omit a rather interesting detail. 

The interesting detail the Detroit News and AP just happened to omit?

The driver shouted Allahu Akbar when he was arrested. 

A clearly unimportant detail, and, of course, the motive for this deliberate attack will clearly never be known. 

The Democrats Have Made Their Choices, Let Them Live With Them

The selections were all in blue strongholds, and Democrats made their choices.

In New York City the Democrats had a choice of Democrat-authoritarian Cuomo and a Democrat-Islamo-Socialist Mamdani, and they went for Mamdani for Mayor.  After all it was an easy sell when even as he's never held a managerial position ever he offerered free stuff and socialism as the panacea for NYC.  Not a particularly great choice either way, but that is the Democrat bench right now.

I guess if Democratic Socialists figure if they can make it there, they can make it anywhere.

But, given how the DSA's version of socialism has so far failed everywhere it has ever been tried, leading to financial ruin and social harm, I'd bet against them succeeding in New York City, too.

Good luck NYC, you're going to need it as you're about to get what you asked for, good and hard.  

California voted to gerrymander the Republicans out of existence in their state.  I guess as a result they won't have the Republicans to blame for the state of their state but will still blame them anyways.

Meanwhile, in Virginia, the NAACP endorsed a white woman over an African American woman, not that there's anything wrong with that.

More importantly, the Democrat voters of Virginia put into office as Attorney General a candidate who advocated and fantasized about shooting his opponent and the deaths of his opponent's family.

The next time a Democrat prattles on about "stochastic terrorism" tell them to text someone who cares, as they surely do not. At least, they do not so long as the stochastic terrorist is a Democrat. 

After All, If The Sharia Fits....

Of course, now that the attempted terrorist attack was stopped by the FBI, Islamic Civil Rights gorups in Dearborn are concerned

Because it makes Arabs and Muslims look bad, of course.

IJR: ‘Civil Rights’ Leaders Complain Media Coverage Of Terrorism Makes Arab Town Look Bad

 Norm Macdonald sure had it right.

No condemnation of the planned attack by these Arab Civil rights groups. 

No condemnation by these groups of the clear link to an Islamic radical imam that lives in Dearborn that apparently gave a coded green light for it either. 

Nope, just that talking about it makes Dearborn and the Islamic Arabs in it look bad.

Oh, and the attack's target for these Islamics?  Gay/LGBT Clubs in Ferndale.

It seems the Democrat's Green-Rainbow alliance is showing a little strain. Queers for Palestine may want to take note of the targeting choice, if only for self preservation purposes.

Jitsu: Sometimes You're The Fly, Sometimes You're The Windshield

In this case I got to be the fly.

Finally got to Jitsu after work yesterday.

Helped out in the white belt level class which was fun and good to work on my basic techniques.

Then I did the Rolling Techniques class which really helps refine your rolling and self defense capabilities.  

For example, it is amazing how simply moving a person's arm down towards their hip while doing an Americana arm lock massively increases the pressure and pain of the arm lock. Lots more effect for a lot less work.  

Great class.

Then on to the Master Cycle class for more advanced technique.

I was the only blue belt amongst 4 purple belts. 

I distinctly remember someone saying " Blue Belts Are Friends, Not Food." 

Did I mention this was also a fight sim class where there are punches being thrown as well as jitsu?

It worked out about as well as you could expect.

Yep, I got to be the fly hitting the windshield repeatedly. Much was learned as a result, including discovering the license plate on one of the trucks that hit me.

Upside, it is always a great ego check, especially if you start thinking you're good. Work with higher belts and immediately realize how much you still need to learn and work on in order to improve your technique. 

Great classes, great workout, and I was totally beat by the end of it and had no problem getting to sleep and staying asleep all night as a result, which was nice. I really need to do jitsu more often and get in better shape overall, which I'm working on.

Went To The Airport Today

On arriving at the hangar, there was a small issue with the Archer that I quickly picked up on during the preflight:

 

Yep, the initial preflight showed that it was clear the Archer was not going to be flying today.

Of course, I knew this before going to the airport, and the aircraft has already been scheduled as out of service.  

As Flying Club Secretary, the first of the month is when I need to go to the hangars and collect and record the flying times for the prior month and do some other duties to keep the club flying along.

We're doing the overhaul/replacement of the engine, as the replacement engine finally arrived from Lycoming after a wait time of over two years from date of initial order.

Yep, Covid delays have continued and really set back engine delivery dates, and painfully doubled the prices of engines as well.

So, the old engine has been removed from the air frame,and is currently still attached to the hoist.

It has done yeoman service, being rock solid and reliable, but it is over TBO. It is time for the overhaul to get the Archer equipped with a zero-time engine. This awesome engine's most excellent engine core will go back to Lycoming to be rebuilt and will likely make its next owner extremely happy.

But, the new engine sure looks all nice and shiny:

The install will take awhile, and we also need to replace the intake manifold as we've found a crack in it when the engine was removed, so that's a nice extra unexpected expense that needs to be done. 

Putting it all back together by the book will also take some time, and no shortcuts will be taken. Then the plane will get fully checked out and after that go back into service with the club after everything is back in tip-top shape.

Looking forward to getting this easy-handling and reliable bird back in the air.