Comcast Hell

I didn't get any blogging done Thursday night. I was in Comcast Hell.

It's kinda complicated, and I'm not sure I can tell the story right, but I'll give it a shot.

Mom moved into this trailer park several years ago, and one of the attractions was that she got free Cable television. Comcast Cable (TV) connection was part of the deal.

She pays x number of dollars for the space, and the traier park pays her Comcast cable connection as part of the rent.

Step one of Comcast Hell.\

I'm not sure how the next step happened, but apparently Mom got a Good Deal on Comcast Telephone. They send her a bill, she pays the bill by check, and she hastaken Step Twin Comcast Hell.

In May of last year I organized a high-speed internet connection for her using (you guessed it) Comcast Internet. It was her birthday (or Mother's Day ... not sure now, they are only two days apart) but it was a good deal for her. It got her out of AOL Hell (dial-up modem, slow download, all of her thirty-something nieces sending her jokes and pictures and such, she needed a faster download time.

You guessed it: Step 3 in Comcast Hell.


It took a couple of months, but I managed to get the autopay contract with Comcast so that her Internet connection was automatically deducted from my bank account. And every month, I checked my bank statement online to confirm that her Internet bill was being paid.

At least, that's what I thought. Little did I know that I had just entered the Comcast Twilight Zone.

About three months ago (I learned, reviewing past bills), Comcast arbitrarily and unilaterally changed the account number on the autopay I had set up. I was no longer paying Mom's Internet charges, I was paying her phone. I'm fairly certain that this was the result of Comcast Shenanigans, because I did not now her 15-digit account number for her phone account. Comcast never acknowledged this, but that's not surprising because the did not warn either Mom or me that they had changed the account arrangement to which we had agreed.
(That's not entirely true. They sent me a bill every month, warning that the Internet account was in arrears. Of course, I didn't open the hard-copy statements, because I was confident that it only acknowledged that I had automatically paid her bill for Internet access, as it had done for several months previously.

The Comcast Hell time-bomb was ticking, and yesterday (Thursday), the Bomb exploded.

As I was getting ready to leave for the office, I received a phone call from my (much older, retired) sister announcing that Mom's Comcast account was being closed because she had not paid her Internet bill. She had, in turn, been warned because Mom had received a visit from a man who was an employee of Comcast, and had been set to rip out her cable connection. Thankfully Mom turned him away without allowing him access to the physical premises. But it was clearly a crisis, so I told my sister [yawn!] that I had to finish dressing for work, and I would handle it after I got home at the end of the day.

I was phlegmatic about the affair, because I KNEW that I had been making monthly payments on the account. In proof, I had my ban statements which cited that I was making two monthly payments to Comcast: one for my own Internet connection, and one for Mom's.

...

Move to 6pm, and the moment when I received an almost-tearful phone call from my 90-year-old mother, who ALWAYS pays her bills and pays hem as they come it. She has NEVER had a utility cut off, because she is nearly fanatic about paying all of her bills, on time if need be but usually ahead of the due date. She is not familiar with the experience of being dunned for payment on account, and didn't know what to do.

After a half-hour conversation, I had convinced her that I would handle it. This was surely nothing more than a Technical Glitch, and it was certainly nothing that she should worry about.

"I'll call you in a couple of hours, Mom, when I get off work and can talk to the good folks at Comcast. I'm sure they'll understand."

The thing is, they were not at all understanding; if Mom hadn't faced down the Comcast technician at her door, he would have removed all physical connections between Comcast cable and her home.

He would have removed the Cable TV connection, the phone connection, and the Internet connection ... all because the Internet bills was in arrears ... because Comcast had changed the billing.

That's right. As I later learned, my monthly automatic payments were being applied to Mom's Comcast Phone Bill instead of to her Internet Bill. This was not a change I would have, or could have, performed. I didn't even know her 16-digit acount number; It would have been impossible for me to change, even deliberately.
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After Mom's phone call to my desk at the office, I scooted for home and got on the phone. After four hours on the phone, I learned that the bills had been sent to me but I had ignored them because I arrogantly assumed that the latest statements were the same as those I received a year ago ... noting more than an acknowledgment that the monthly bill had bee automatically paid.

I was soon dis-abused of this misconception as I spen the next hour and a half with the Customer Service Representative, "Arland", who apparently felt obliged to restate in every way possible the many ways in which I was entirely in the wrong. (He calmed down when I stated that my intention was to pay the bill. He lost interest when I said I wanted to change the billing so I was paying the Internet Access, and that a monthly bill for the Comcast Phone Service should be sent to my mother, as it had been for the past FIVE YEARS!

So I spent a couple of hours talkng to a CSR about the account, and a couple more hours talking to a Technical Person named "Jessie".

Jessie, in turn, pointed me at an online webpage where I could address qustions to an autobot ... an online program which would feed me canned questions and magically wink-out what needed to be done to resolve my problem.

As I had expected, and as I had mentioned to Jessie ... the auto-bot was unable to help me; The question was (in a manner reminiscent of Obama's response to Pro-Choice questions) "above mypay grade."

Eventually I made online contact with a CSR who could type, and that person (afer I had provided all inf the information available) assured me that all of the Billing changes I had requested, had been accomplished.

I'm warmed by her re-assurances; but I am not convinced. I suspect that I will have to take the same, or very similar .. steps until the billing priorities are p roperly established.
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Here's the bottom line:

Unless you are a Corporae Lawyer, avoid paying for a 'portion' of someone else's COMCAST services. They are not competent to establish, track and control such a bizarre arrangement. Imagine a son paying for his mother's internet access. I think this is certainly not in their Job Description.

Howevre, Comcat is very good at shutting off ALL services (not just the service which is in arrears), and intimidating 90-year old widows at their doorstep.

It took me part of he night just to pay the total outstandig bill, and receive assurances that her services would NOT be cut off.

Translated: the service guy has gone home for the day. We can't hurt ou any more, sopay the bil and we'll forget to send him back.

Eventually, we got the services restored and Mom is much happier now. I think this is much beter than it was before, if only because my mother is no longer crying.

I finished my Thursday night on-line, arrangngfor the biling o be 'as it was before.". I think. But it takes six week for the changes to go into effect, and nobody knows WHAT Comcast will actually do to resolve the problem. Remember, these are the same people who originally avowd that the entire contretemps was MY fault.

So expect the same, or similar confusion next month.

And do NOT expect Comcast to take any extreme measures to shield us from Comcast Hell.

I'll keep your posted.

Are we there yet?

My, how time flies.


It has been eleven years since Nick Alexakos, President of the International Practical shooting Confederation (IPSC), petitioned the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to accept IPSC as a "Demonstration Sport" in the 2004 Olympics.

The IOC replied, essentially: "Not only 'No', but "Hell No!" Their determination may have been fueled ... it may have been decided ... by this statement from a non-IOC source:

ISSF (International Shooting Sports Federation) Secretary General Horst G. Schreiber:

They have approached us once, but we said we are not cooperating with them. We want nothing to do with them. The black sheriffs [security guards], the bodyguards—they're all members of this practical shooting. We want none of them in our group....It is not a sport. I think it's a camouflage for those who are supposed to deliver their high-power .45 pistols to the government, and they [seek to] find some sort of a legal possibility to keep possession of their revolvers or pistols.

So, an international shooting organization pierced the proposed demonstration with a bodkin of pure hatred for pistols, and for a sport which is designed to poke holes in cardboard ... with the added caveat that the request may be nothing more honorable than a crass commercial venture.

Thank you, Herr Schreiber. "What did YOU do in the war, Daddy?"

On the other hand, I find it somewhat charming to learn that the people ["black sheriffs"] who protect the bigwigs [ the Schreibers of this world] enjoy and appreciate Practical Pistol competition. Maybe we need to find a new class of Elitists.
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This defeat for IPSC was a source of great amusement to the Violence Policy Center (VPC), which (in their "Gold Metal Gunslingers" series) gleefully recounted the story.


And some IPSC members, including myself, castigated Mr. Alexakos for his poor timing. The consensus among this disappointed group was that this effort, its rude rebuff, and the resulting bad publicity set back the cause of International acceptance of extreme Competitive Shooting at least a decade.

In the light of this year's Olympic competition in the shooting sports, and the perceived greater appreciation for pneumatic, smallbore and shotgun competition, at least one Gun Writer wonders whether it isn't time to include Practical Shooting to The Olympics, if only in very small mouse-steps.

It may ... be time to start lobbying the USOC [Ed: United States Olympic Committee] for practical shooting.

It's not beach volleyball, but watching shooters run, slide, shoot, reload and shoot again is- at least in my opinion - a made for television event. Telegenic events get coverage- shooting events, especially the moving and shooting events, can draw crowds and encourage participation- and media coverage.

There are the obvious concerns, but it would seem that lower-power equipment combined with electronic scoring technology (and a few lasers, sirens and some pyrotechnics maybe to familiarize shooters with distractions) could add up to rivetingly entertaining competitions.

But that may be the television producer in me looking for more shooting on television.

-- Jim Shepherd, "The Shooting Wire" August 18, 2008

(Shepherd is speaking in the context of the Scholastic Clay Target Program, which encourages young people to compete in Shotgun shooting.)

In its eight-year history, the SCTP has brought nearly 30,000 youths into trap, skeet and sporting clays competitions. But the program's undisputed validation as an international training ground came this past week in Beijing.

... it is now obvious to everyone that the SCTP program and its tough series of qualifying competitions can identify world-class shooters early in their shooting careers. It's an argument that has quietly -but not always civilly - raged between shooting disciplines that cross-pollination doesn't work, but it's hard to argue with the results. The names Hancock and Cogdell make that point impossible to argue.

Medals, as they say in Olympic sports, are what matters. SCTP shooters have produced two medals in the best Olympic showing the United States has made in more than four decades.

SCTP shooters have produced.

Shepherd's theme is that the SCTP program, introducing young people to the shooting sports and providing coaching and other support and encouragement, can produce World-Class Competitors ... and (most impressive to the USOC), bring Olympic medals back to America.
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I don't know. I would like to think that Shepherd is right; the Olympics (especially the Summer Olympics, with its emphasis on outdoor sport) has a long history -- a couple thousand years -- of testing military prowess among the participating athletes. Recent world cultural evolution has chosen to ignore the genesis of the Olympics, but one need not be especially perceptive to recognize that most Olympic sports are based upon warfare.

Think: Javelin (spear-chucking), Discus (rock-chucking), running (Battle of Marathon?), low-jump (broken field running = military assault), pole-vaulting (take the castle), wrestling (hand-to-hand combat), fencing (swords), equestrian sports (cavalry), weight lifting (raw strength) ... we could go on and on, but you can supply your own interpretations.

The Olympics were based on military conflict. In fact, all sports may be said, in one way or another, to be based on conflict whether military or not.

For the IOC to deny another category of competition because it is based on conflict, because it demonstrates weapons prowess, or because it includes hardware (modern weapons) which were not technologically available 2000 years ago seems disingenuous.

In the final analysis, the attempt by Mr. Alexakos 11 years ago to introduce what may be interpreted as Combat Pistol (this was the original name for IPSC competition) as a legitimate Olympic sport in any context, seems to me to have been doomed by purely political imperatives. This, I'm sure, comes as no surprise to anyone.

And whether Mr. Alexakos should be castigated for his poor timing is now of only historic interest.

You may not agree with Mr. Shepherd, but perhaps today is the time to begin campaigning for a "Practical Shooting" event, either as a "demonstration" or as an entirely accepted Olympic "event".


Think ... Archery, 21st Century Style.

Should Teachers Be Allowed To Carry Guns?

Should Teachers Be Allowed To Carry Guns?, Tiny Texas District OKs It; Could It Prevent Columbines?; Issue Debated, On The Early Show - CBS News

This is news, but it isn't exactly "new news".

Yesterday, a school district in Texas announced that they were seriously considering allowing their teachers to carry guns.

Why? Because they are a very SMALL school district, and they are a half-hour away from any reasonable response time in case of an emergency. Having watched the news on television, the district Board of Education were aware that schools were typically considered a "Gun Free Zone", and that is interpreted by predatory types as meaning "a safe-to-shoot, target rich environment zone". (cf: Columbine)

(See link to CBS video here.)

Knowing that they couldn't count on 911 to save their students the BOE elected to adopt a down-home security solution. They can't afford the ability to lock down their school, and aren't certain it will provide reliable defensive capability, so they'll allow their faculty (and staff) to act as impromptu security guards.



Harold, Texas,School Board Superintendent David Thweat:

"The people who are going into these situations are evil ... I'm not going to be Politically Correct on this ... I don't care what their problems are, they've gone in and killed children. And if they come into our school, they are going to meet resistance. And I think if they did, these crack-pots would stop going into them."

Oh, there were some restrictions. The teachers (assumedly, also staff including administrators such as the school principal) must complete training to qualify, and must hold Concealed Weapons permits issued by the county sheriff after all requirements had been met. But Texas is a "Shall Issue state", and that mean exactly what it says. If the applicant meets the requirements, the sheriff shall issue the permit.

Also, of course, the teachers were required to keep the firearm completely concealed so that nobody knew who was and who wasn't packing. And one assumes that the individual was responsible for securing the firearms at all times. Also, they teachers who volunteered for this must be approved by the School Board.

Let's recap:

• Applicants work at schools in the district -- check.
• Applicants receive appropriate training -- check.
• Applicants apply for, and receive, carry license from sheriff's office -- check.
• Applicants are all volunteers -- check.
• Applicants are pre-approved by the School Board -- check.
  
• Applicants are responsible -- check.

So we have a bunch of certifiably responsible citizens with guns, who are voluntarily willing to put their lives on the line to defend their students. Where's the down side?

Oh my, let me count the ways.

No, that's not necessary. According to the CBS news story, which has so far received 381 comments on the original short article, there are at least three typical responses by the reading public:

One: "I think this is a wrong!"
Example from Isobel36:

To arm teachers is wrong! Their main duty is to educate not to think about a resonse to a dangerous student. There has to be a better way. If not, take your child out of the public schools!

Well, that was enlightening. But typical.

Two: "I think this a wonderful idea."
Example from behappy2-2:

I think it is a wonderful idea. Who would be in a better position to defend the kids from an armed intruder than the adult responsible for them while they are in school? The teachers (at least most of them) care about the children as if they were their own. That is why they teach, it surely isn''t for the money. Remember: when SECONDS count, the police are only MINUTES away!

This at least relates to reality.

Three: "I don't know if it's a good idea or not, but it's a sad commentary on our current society!"
Example from Gaye5:

If it has got to the stage where teachers have to wear guns to protect themselves and other students that is pathetic. It is about time that our authorities and families start to wonder why this is happening and when society started to get so bad.. I know why and many of you out there do also.
I am old enough now to remember when a child was well disciplined and sat in school and learnt, they grew up to be health, hard working well disciplined adults who brought up children the same.

Actually, there's a fourth category of responses: "I don't really like it, but I can't think of a better idea, either."
Example from patriot12436:

I have mixed feelings about this. I see the need for protection because of the violence from students against teachers and bus drivers, but i would want very strict training required before they start carrying in schools. Having lived in Texas i understand where they are coming from and the point that the nearest police station is 30 minutes from the school is also a factor.

Apparently, the middle-of-the-road veers toward the right.

Oh, I almost forgot the sneering, dismissive, ad hominem attacking group.
Example from Joe Transit:

Of course teachers should carry guns, students should wear full body armor, the principals office a gun turret. The school bus replaced with a tank. The caulk board should have little ducks moving back and forth. Any student making less then a B, shot in the head right between the eyes. No more Ritalin. That way if Bush needs to look for WMD''s he can find it in his Texas backyard.

(Actually, I agree with the "no more Ritalin" part.)

and ...
Example from cbs3200:

The American Idiots Association (AKA the NRA) fully supports guns in the classroom.

There's always the greviously misinformed:
Example from IDDNSG:

Gun owners KILL THEMSELVES with their guns MORE OFTEN than they kill anybody else. I supose [sic] that''s a good thing!

... continued with another post from the same source:

"Guns dont kill people,it takes someone to aim and pull the trigger."

And EVERY SINGLE TIME, that "someone" is a GUN OWNER!

Conclusion: Guns don''t kill people. Gun Owners Kill People! Obviously, we should OUTLAW Gun Owners!

They''re all a bunch of re.tards anyway! Case in point: they all think that a gun can PROTECT them, when a gun, by design, can only KILL. Killing someone is NOT the same thing as protecting yourself.

Besides, if a Gun Nut can have a gun, so can EVERYBODY else. Whoever shoots first wins (''cause the other person is DEAD!). Everybody shoots everybody. Everybody dies. That''s NOT safety! It''s INS.AN.ITY! The END of civilization.

Gun Nutz are anarchists!

Well, geez, it's really hard to shoot a gun if you don't have one.
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What do _I_ think?

Frankly, I think it's worth trying. No other security measure which has been attempted in this country has so far stopped the crazies from killing innocents in Gun Free Zones (eg: schools, churches, shopping malls, restaurants, etc.)

On the other hand there have been instances when in these SAME "Gun Free Zones", one or two armed responders have been seen to stop, or significantly reduce the number of casualties, in the same venues.

But there have been very few times when Schools have been willing to have armed citizens on-site.

Isn't it about time to try it? If nothing else, the publicity might be sufficient to warn predators that they won't have a free shot at their victims.
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Surely someone will, eventually, suggest that this policy, the arming of people in a usually Gun Free Zone, will attract a predator. Just to try their luck, and thumb their nose at the audacity of peaceful honest citizens to protect themselves.

I think that if the predators are so sick that they consider this a "challenge", they are already predisposed to shoot up their local school. At least this way, there's a chance that they may be thwarted.

I repeat: Where's the down-side?

2008 World Speed Steel Championships

PIRU, Calif. - Spc. KC Eusebio of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) is once again the world's fastest gun as he won the Steel Challenge World Speed Shooting Championships in a new record time of 79.16 seconds. It is the second time Eusebio, who hails from Diamond Bar, California, has won the coveted title and the third time it has gone to a USAMU shooter in the last four years.


Eusebio topped a field the world's best shooters including second place finisher BJ Norris, who also took second in 2007, third place shooter and 2006 champion JJ Racaza, fellow USAMU shooter and the defending world champion SSG. Max Michel who placed fourth. Revolver legend Jerry Miculek finished fifth overall.

"KC is recognized as one of the fastest shooters in the world and anytime he steps foot on a speed shooting range he's immediately among those favored to win. His record setting performance this year has set the bar incredibly high and the shooting world eagerly awaits next year's match when KC will defend his title," said Dave Thomas, Executive Director of the Steel Challenge Shooting Association.

Only two new world records were set by the top shooters. Max Michel set a new world record on the stage Pendulum shooting a 10.07 to crush the previous record of 10.72 previously held by Jerry Miculek. BJ Norris also set a world record by beating Max Michel's time of 10.06 on the stage Speed Option by shooting a 9.81. Both Michel and Norris each hold three of the eight world records.


Among the women shooters Kay Clark-Miculek claimed an amazing seventh World Speed Shooting Championship having won the title in 2006-2004, 2001, 2000 and 1997. She also holds all the current world records for the eight stages in the Steel Challenge.

"Kay is simply the best female shooter in the world with an uncanny ability to win again and again. No other shooter, male or female, has so completely dominated the Steel Challenge like Kay has and there's no reason to believe we won't see Kay's name atop the leader board in the future," said Thomas.

Also competing in the Open Division were Jim Duncan of Hemet, Ichiro Nagata of Le Grand and Deleana Saylor of Crescent City, California and Ryan Leonard of Canby, Oregon. Leonard led the group taking the title as Overall Junior by a margin of 1.43 seconds in a time of 96.14 that was good enough for 21st overall. Nagata shot a time of 113.96 to take the Distinguished Senior title. Duncan's 120.53 won him the title as Overall Senior by just 1.05 seconds. And the 12 year-old Saylor took the title as top Pre-Teen.

In the Limited match, Owasso, Oklahoma resident Phil Strader of the U.S. Shooting Academy posted the fastest time and edged out second place finisher JJ Racaza by just 0.91 of a second. Strader's time of 92.58 was good enough for 10th place overall.

Strader also won the Iron Sighted Rimfire Pistol match in a time of 85.51 beating out Seiichi Ishikawa.

Team Glock's Dave Sevigny of Mableton, Georgia won the Open Rimfire Pistol match with a time of 69.26 edging out BJ Norris by just 0.54 of a second. Sevigny also placed fourth in the Limited match and seventh overall shooting his Open Glock pistol.

There was little surprise in the revolver division as Team Smith & Wesson shooters locked up the titles. In the Optical Sighted Revolver division the title went to Jerry Miculek. His time of 89.57, which placed Miculek fifth overall, was more than 17 seconds faster than his closest competitor, Mark Itzstein of Little Elm, Texas. Miculek also took top honors in the Rimfire Rifle match again beating Itzstein but this time by a smaller margin of 2.22 seconds.

Team Smith & Wesson's other wheelgunner, David Olhasso of Holland, Pennsylvania, outshot John Bagakis of Livermore, California by 5.42 seconds in the Iron Sighted Revolver match to claim the title.

Ohlasso switched guns, going with a Smith & Wesson semi-automatic M&P pistol to help him take the Stock Service Pistol title. Olhasso beat out Seiichi Ishikawa for the title shooting a time of 119.68 which was just 1.85 seconds faster than Ishikawa's 121.53.

In the Enhanced Service Pistol match, Taran Butler of Simi Valley, California claimed the title of fastest gun by shooting a time of 119.63 to beat out Mark Hobbs of Coarsegold, California by nearly 10 seconds. Butler's time also won him the SureFire X300 Lightning Challenge which required shooters to attach an X300 to their pistol and compete with it throughout the entire match.

In the Custom Defensive Pistol match JT Tedder of Moorpark, California beat fellow Golden State shooter Jeff Ryan of Redondo Beach by 14.69 seconds with a time of 137.38 to win the match.

Rounding out the handgun competition, Clyde Harrison shot a time of 168.23 seconds beating Frank D'Amato of Mesa, Arizona in the Single Action Revolver match.

In the Shotgun match it was Butler again beating Hobbs to walk away with the title, but this time by just 2.1 seconds. In the match that was sponsored by Vang Comp Systems, competitors shot two stages of knock down popper style targets using a Vang Comp full house pump shotgun.

The Steel Challenge World Speed Shooting Championship is the crown jewel competition in the sport of Speed Shooting which is governed by the Steel Challenge Shooting Association (SCSA). Both professional and amateur shooters competed for their share of over $350,000 in cash and prizes. More than 200 competitors from 19 states and 4 foreign countries faced off against the clock and eight stages of fire in the three-day event held outside Los Angeles.
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You may have noticed that the accomplishments of Ryan Leonard have been slightly emphasized.

(Photo courtesy of Mr Completely. Click on photo for full-size view.)

That may be due to the fact that Ryan is something of a Local Hero here in the Columbia Cascade Section of Oregon. Ryan, son of Nick Leonard (who has almost single-handedly managed to keep Speed Steel competition alive in NW Oregon), has been shooting competitively since he was 10 years old. I think it took him 3 years to beat me consistently in USPSA competition, and I have seen nothing but the backside of the lad for the last 3 years in both USPSA and Speed Steel.

Is Ryan another KC? Hard to tell, they started out at about the same age.

Ryan has already learned everything his father had to teach him, and is very much like Nick at matches; they exhibit the same speed, same personality, and the same drive go fast and win.

But Ryan started out very young, and has so far benefited from the coaching of an experienced shooter.

It may be time to find him a professional coach, if he is to remain competitive at a world-class level when he leaves Junior Competition.

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NOTE and disclaimer: This article is based on an email sent to me as a subscriber to The Shooting Wire. I have quoted from the original Shooting Wire article extensively because it is representative of the kind of coverage of competition shooting news which is often not available from any other source. Shooting Wire Editor Jim Shepherd is aware that from time to time I draw heavily upon material from this source, and since he has not yet objected I will continue from time to time to credit him and The Shooting Wire with wonderfully informative articles. I strongly encourage you, if you find this article interesting, to subscribe to the service. (Subscribe here, please.)
All images from The Shooting Wire, except where other attribution has been specified.

Disneyland Meets Florida Laws ... just

You may recall that on July 5, Disneyland Florida announced that it would not feel obliged to accommodate a new state law requiring them to allow employees to keep firearms in their cars, when they are parked in the employee parking lot.

The reason: a minor clause excepting employers who keep explosives on-site, designed for Military bases.

Disneyland (Orlando) maintains a stock of fireworks, which it considered a legitimate qualification.

However, last week Disney demonstrated an abrupt about-face in its corporate policy when it announced that it would, under certain (not too burdensome) circumstances abide by the new Florida State Law.

ORLANDO, Fla. - Walt Disney World is revising its employee gun ban policy.

That's according to a company memo obtained Friday.

With the change, some Disney employees will be allowed to keep a gun locked in a car as long as the employee has a concealed-weapons permit, the gun isn't visible, and the weapon isn't taken out of the car.

The memo says the change only applies to employees who work at facilities outside the Walt Disney World Resort area.

Disney had previously claimed to be exempt from a new state law that allows Florida residents to keep firearms in their vehicles while at work.


The company's policy applies only to employees. Guests with valid permits can keep guns in their cars.

...

Sounds pretty good, eh? They're finally deciding that it's better to obey the law than to parse the law.

Perhaps not. Here's the operative paragraph in the press release:

The memo says the change only applies to employees who work at facilities outside the Walt Disney World Resort area.

I've never been to Disneyland, or to Florida, but my best guess is that "...facilities outside the Walt Disney World Resort area" constitutes at least 90% of the Disney properties in Florida. (More likely 99%.) And the number of employees in this exclusive area are mostly executives or drones ... it works for Disney either way, because they don't much care what happens to the employees; they are NOT in the public eye, there.

What appears to be a grand concession to State Law turns into a demonstration of (in their eyes) an expression of sangfroid. Nothing more. Perhaps less.

And that concession is only because, as it's not a 'public area', they don't store fireworks on the premises ... which means that their weasel-words are not legally applicable, so they can't STOP the odd employee from bringing his gun to town.

The Corporate Policy at Disneyland (Orlando), where most of the employees work, hasn't changed a bit.

In other words, employees (who have undergone a background check) are mostly still prevented from having a firearms in their car in the employee parking lot. But guests (who are complete strangers to the Corporation) may have guns in their cars in the Guest parking lot.

Does this sound to you as if the Disney corporation has a vendetta against their employees? Well, they know best. After all, the Employees are the people who portray Mickey Mouse, Minnie, and Tigger as they meet with guests. They certainly wouldn't abuse a guest.

Does Disney not trust their procedures for vetting their employees? If not, wouldn't it be better to improve their policy on hiring, rather than to defy state laws?

Perhaps. But this way is cheaper, and easier. Not to mention that the Disney corporation is less likely to suffer from violating state law than from violating their guests.

It's not a lot of fun to be pessimistic and cynical, but it does have its good side: at least I'm never disappointed.

Finger! Finger!

And I ask, whose paranoid are you?: Feral Shoots Self, Other Feral, Drops Pistol.

A U.S. Marshal managed to shoot himself in the butt, and another officer in the ankle, while holstering his pistol after dropping off a prisoner early this month.

As David Codrea said, it's a "Two-Fer".

The full video is available here, while an edited, but larger-format segment of the video is available from KVIA-TV here.
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The rest of this is pure speculation on my part.

It appears that, while holstering his pistol, the Marshal allowed some portion of his anatomy (his finger?) or his apparel (the tail of his snazzy photographer's vest?) to come between the holster and the trigger. When he jammed the pistol into the holster, that darned thing "Just ... went off!" (Imagine that? Darned guns, they do that a lot. "Not my fault!")

I'm obviously playing in my mind the scene where the U.S. Marshal attempts to justify the 'incident' to his superiors.

The thing is, this is exactly the kind of incident that is addressed (and almost universally avoided) by training competitors in the many "Practical" shooting venues: IPSC, USPSA, IDPA -- they all emphasize that you absolutely must keep your booger-hook off the bang-switch while holstering.

I know, I know. This guy must deliver prisoners on a daily basis, and he must always be required to deposit his pistol in the lock-down area. He probably re-holsters his pistol several times a day, five days a week.

Still, he screwed up.

What will you bet that the U.S. Marshal's Service institutes, within the next 30 days, a program of remedial training in "Safe Holstering" for all agents?

They could save themselves a lot of training time and expense if they just required their agents to enroll in a Practical Shooting sport, and attend at least one match each month.

Jeff Cooper's Rules of Gun Safety

RULE I: ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED

RULE II: NEVER LET THE MUZZLE COVER ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY

RULE III: KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON THE TARGET

RULE IV: BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET

Question: How many of these rules are violated here?
Answer: at least three; perhaps all four.

Darned FBI-slant holsters, anyway.

Army Shooting Tips

Travis Tomasie and Max Michael spent some time together on the U.S. Army Shooting Team. During that time, they made a few videos showing "how to do it".

I ran across these YouTube videos while I was checking out a comment on a video I had made of Travis doing a speed reload under what might be called "Laboratory Conditions".


__________________________________________________________

I noticed a link there which showed Young Corporal Tomasie doing the same speedy-reload thing under "Range Conditions", and in a training environment.


__________________________________________________________

On the same page, I found Ssg. Max Michael's Army Pro Tips video which described "Shooting On The Move".


__________________________________________________________

I can do these things, but I can't do them nearly as well, as quickly, or as reliably as these guys.

As far as I know, Travis and Max are no longer in the military. That's the loss of the U.S. Army. (In comments, bgary informs us that "Travis and Max are both *very* much still in the military, and active members of the Army Marksmanship Unit.") I hope that the American Military learn from their expertise and inculcate some of their Shooting Tips to help train other American soldiers in the techniques of pistol shooting.

Oh! I know there are going to be a few folks who will be appalled when they see muzzles sweeping the camera during the filming. I can only assume that the cameras are not manned, and that nobody actually was swept. I don't KNOW that, but I do know that these two fine young men are too highly trained and experienced to feel comfortable with pointing their pistols 'uprange'.
_____________________________________
UPDATE: 20-AUG-2008
Corrected military status of Travis and Max; H/T to bgary.

Man whose lawsuit scuttled DC gun ban gets permit

Man whose lawsuit scuttled DC gun ban gets permit

The man whose lawsuit overturned Washington's handgun ban has successfully registered his revolver, ending a more than 30-year wait to keep the weapon in his home.

Dick Heller walked out of D.C. police headquarters Monday, clutching a yellow firearms registration certificate stamped "approved." He gave the thumbs-up sign, grinned and said, "Victory!"

Heller was among the first people to seek a gun permit under new rules adopted after the Supreme Court struck down the city's 32-year-old handgun ban inJune. Heller was the plaintiff in that case.

He won approval to keep a .22-caliber revolver at home after coming to police headquarters in July to be fingerprinted and take a firearms proficiency test. Police approved the weapon after completing a background check.

You may recall that last month I reported that Dick Heller applied to the District of Columbia for a gun permit. At the time, I suggested (hell, I said straight out!) that he applied for a permit for a Semi-Automatic Pistol in direct defiance to D.C.'s defiance of the Supreme Court decision.

That may be so, but what D.C. did today was to grant his permit for ... a .22 caliber revolver.

Not quite the Big Boom we had hoped for, but this is a Giant Step for Man in terms of the 2nd Amendment in the District of Columbia.

Dick Heller is still my hero. If he leads us through the deep, dark twisty woods of Gun Control with tiny baby steps, this is still leadership in terms of Gun Control in D.C.

Thanks for showing us the way, Mr. Heller.

Thunder, lightning and Rain

I hear Thunder outside. The clouds are gathering.

Soon we will see Lightning, and feel the Rain.

It's August in Oregon. The middle of the month. We expect to hear the thunder, and maybe a few paltry raindrops heavy with moisture will fall, but nothing serious.

That's the way it is tonite. The thunder, for a few seconds, and a moment of the PlopPlopPlop of rain. Then ... nothing, until the Thunder rumbles again in the distance.

We may see some Lightening tonite. At least, those of us who care to stay up for it. Most of us will go to bed soon, and fall asleep under the cannon-boom of Thunder with few cares. It's too soon for the rains to start.

But sometime during this week, the rains will come. Heavier, and closer, and more frequent as the days slide by.

The Dog Days of Summer are passing. Our plans for picnics, outings and "be sure to put on your sunblock" are slipping away.

Soon, too soon, the rains will be here. We will morph into our rainy season selfs again.

It is traditional in this part of the country to expect sun and summer's glowing heat after Independence Day and before Labor Day.

After Labor day, the betting and the planning shifts. We worry less about bringing Sun Block to our outings than we do to bringing Rain Gear.

For it will rain, and soon. Already I feel the soft coolth of Autumn through the window. Yes, we still need to turn on the Air Conditioner to sleep comfortably of a night, but soon the world will reverse itself and we will say to each other "Yes, but it's a Dry Heat" only with a sense of jocularity, and we will swelter in rain coats while the heavens drench ourselves and our days.

Dust turns to mud. Shallow depressions in the earth become mud puddles, meant for splashing and to impede our passage.

There are sunny days left to come, but the dark days are upon us. The Summer Soldiers here, those who love the warmth and cherish the ability to leave our doors without seeking coats and warm clothing, anticipate the following days with a resigned sense of dread.

...

On the shooting range, plastic bags appear over cardboard targets, and we curse as we try to apply masking tape over soggy paper. Steel targets predominate, and are not painted. The timers appear inside zip-lock bags, and the score sheets must be shielded by umbrellas which drip, drip, drip from the rib-points.

During this time, for the next nine insufferable months, we deal with disappointment and inconvenience. We sing the mantra of Camp Grenada.

We ask ourselves again, why do we inflict this discomfort upon ourselves? Why do we even bother rising before the chilly sun, driving expensive miles to muddy ranges with insufficient shielding from the rain, ready to scurry for cover when the lightning threatens from the ominous clouds?


Because we love it so.

That is our curse, and our salvation.

[lyrics here]

Foreclosure Of 88-Year-Old Leads to Police Standoff - News Story - WNBC | New York

Foreclosure Of 88-Year-Old Leads to Police Standoff - News Story - WNBC | New York

SADDLE BROOK, N.J. -- Authorities said a son held Bergen County sheriff's officers at gunpoint as they tried to evict his 88-year-old mother from her foreclosed home.

Officials said John Brennan threatened two officers with a .22-caliber handgun.

Officers talked to the 60-year-old, who surrendered after about five minutes when a SWAT team arrived Tuesday. Beatrice Brennan had refinanced her two-bedroom, $250,000 home and had fallen behind on payments. The house was sold at a sheriff's auction in May. Real estate agent Donovan Stewart told The Record of Bergen County he's "never had anything like this happen before."

WORKING our way down through the logic schema:

• this wasn't the best way a son could defend his mother
• if nothing else, it didnt' result in a 'win' for his mother
• it didn't stop the confiscation process
• and it didn't present a 'good' Second Amendment image for the Main Stream Media ... a boy (60 years old) using a firearm in a failed attempt to assert his mother's rights

On the other hand:

• the family didn't have many options to choose from
• At least it atracted some attention to the issue
• They (the police) had to take him seriously

Would I have taken the same measures to protect my mother?

No, probably not. Although my 90-year-old mother finds herself in nearly the same predicament, I probably would have found her another place to live and paid as much of her expenses as I could. I almost certainly wouldn't have found myself waving a .22 at a SWAT team.

First, it would have been ineffective. Second, it would have been illegal. Finally, it would have been silly, to them and to me.

You probably have already reached the same conclusion.

Still, for this man in this stage of his life, he somehow seems to have considered it to be an appropriate response.

I wonder what caused him to bully up to the bar like that?

I can't help but feel a sneaking sense of admiration for him.

He obviously loves his mother.

Is that enough to justify acting silly?

Maybe. At least his mother knows he loves her.

x

Hoax Busters

I've added a new link to the sidebar: HOAX BUSTERS DOT ORG. You'll find it on the sidebar under "Reference Sources".

Hoax Busters replaces the (now defunct) U. S. Department of Energy's "Hoaxbusters.ciac.org" website, which has been shut down.

I have always appreciated the DOE website, because they spotlighted my 15 minutes of Geek Fame.

Here's the story:

Around 1997, I received an email which was a spoof. It was called "Greeks Bearing Gifts", and warned Trojans against accepting gifts from Greeks. Yes, it was based on the Trojan Horse episode from the Trojan Wars (see: ILIAD) and suggested that if your city is besieged by Greeks and one day you wake up to find a huge Wooden Horse at the gates to your city, you should NOT take it into your city for fear that it will dump a shit-load of armed Geeks whose only goal is to "Rape, Pillage and Burn". (In that order, please.)

I thought this was high humor, and deserving of a more timely theme. Accordingly, I changed all references to "Greek" to "Geek", and emailed it to everyone I knew.

It came as a huge surprise when HoaxBusters.ciac.org featured this entirely innocent email as 'An Internet Hoax', and warned readers not to proliferate it by forwarding the mail to friends!

Today, the email is not considered a threat and probably doesn't even circulate among ... well, Geeks.

At the time, it was puerile and sophomoric, and I was amazed at the attention.

But I've always been just a little bit proud that, for a while, I made the United States Federal Government just a little bit uneasy.

In point of fact, there are still websites which carry the original text. One of them is here, if you really want to read it. (No, it's not my version; it's the original version which refers to GREEKS not GEEKS, but it's almost identical.)

When you're a Geek, it doesn't take much to stoke the old ego.

Besides, today you can find the "Geeks Bearing Gifts" reference on many legitimate websites.

Snopes dot com even includes the phrase ... although they no longer carry the original text of the email (but they once did!)
_________________________________
UPDATE: October 14, 2008
I received a very polite email from the good folks at HoaxBusters.com correcting my misinformed impression:

Hi Jerry,

I'm writing in reference the following statement from your blog:

"Hoax Busters replaces the (now defunct) U. S. Department of Energy's "Hoaxbusters.ciac.org" website, which has been shut down."

I appreciate the plug, and the link, but I want to clear up one thing. We are not replacing the CIAC site. We have been around since 1999, and are in no way connected with CIAC or any governmental agency. We are completely independent, and beholden to no one.

Now, if we could replace the CIAC site as a one-stop debunking source, that would be a good thing. With the demise of the CIAC site, there are only three or four really good debunking sites left (that includes ours, of course).

Again, thanks for the the plug.

Jim


Who ya gonna call?
*Hoax Busters*
http://www.hoaxbusters.org/

Please do not forward e-mail chain letters - break the chain!

Practice safe computing: DON'T OPEN EXECUTABLE E-MAIL ATTACHMENTS

About the Olympics ...

My television is connected to a Video/DVD player, and the power outlet in the wall. That means I am decidedly NOT watching the Olympics on television.

That does not constitute a hardship to me. I canceled my Cable TV subscription 10 years ago, and if I want to watch 'television' on a television I do so at SWMBO's house. We worked out an arrangement years ago where I pay for the cell-phones and she pays for the cable hookup. Also, we don't watch Home & Gardens TV, Extreme Home Make-over, or any show where idiots jump up and down clapping their hands while shrilling "OMiGAWD! I can't BELIEVE it! I LOVE it!".

(On the other hand we watched Lee Marvin in "Hell In The Pacific" last weekend, and my request, and we discovered that she enjoyed it almost as much as I did. Go figure.)

Sorry, I digress.

As a consequence of 'all of the above', I get most of my news from the Internet. Today, a colleague sent me the Olympics out-take of a "Women's Uneven Bars" event which I found very interesting. You may enjoy it as much as I did.




NOTE: This isn't the first time Mr. Hunt has performed a similar routine. YouTube has a plethora of examples, including here and here (both listed as having occurred in 1988).

Geek Family Status Upgrade

The Geek Family is pleased to report the successful completion of its latest expansion project.


Jon Benjamin and Alysha Geek announced this morning the birth of two Junior Geeks.

Robert Logan Geek weighs 6# 5 oz and Aiden "Number Two" Geek weighs 6# 4oz. They
were delivered by c-section in Texas, which at least is big enough to hold ‘em for a while longer.

My son, Ben, is in the Navy there and Alysha moved to Texas last month so they could be together during his training, and at the birth of his newest children.

Word is, Mom is "doing as well as you could expect", whatever that means, but she sounds fine on the phone. Anybody who has been packing around twelve-and-a-half pounds of Boy is probably really, really happy to finally see them. The boys are in incubators for observation for now, but no problems are reported or expected.

Yes, these ARE my sixth and seventh, and although I can’t take any credit for it I’m still as proud as I can be.

No, I will not be handing out cigars.

But I cannot begin to express how wonderful it feels to share such extremely GOOD news.

Home Invasion

MyFox Orlando | Cops Search For Home Invasion Suspects

Florida seems to be the World Epicenter for Home Invasions.

Continuing with our theme of "Home Invasion Week",

Investigators believe the same group of suspects is responsible for at least four home invasions in the area of the Orange County, Seminole County border.

Home Invasions are bad. These are people who would be burglars, but their intent is not to steal property, but to steal a (perhaps unjustified) sense of security from the lives of their victims.

If there was ever a better reason for allowing honest citizens to keep and bear firearms in defense of their home, family, person and property, I can't imagine what it would be.

The kind of human animal who would choose to enter an occupied home with the intent to assault and terrorize their victims is an aberration to society, and the only way to stop it is to stomp these animals out.

They're way beyond the pale, they deserve no protection from the civilization which the deny.

The only way to protect yourself and your family from these animals is to arm yourself.

Let your neighbor put up the "Gun Free Zone" signs. When you hear the screaming from next door ... call 911.

If they show up at your door?

Let your neighbors call 911 to collect the bodies, because you refuse to be a victim.

SWMBO and the Seattle Cancer Center

I just got off the phone with Sandie, who has spent the past 18 hours traveling to and from the Premier Cancer diagnosis and treatment center in the Pacific North West.

Many of you have shared my concern for her future well-being (and thank you, so many of you, who have written to offer your prayers and support!)

The news tonight is 100% positive, supportive, and encouraging.

I know that Oncologists, as a rule rather than as the exception, tend to deliver the most negative prognosis possible. I think this is the result of two priorities:

1: If they can't deliver on a 'hopeful' prognosis, they can't be blamed for delivering less than their best treatment;

2: If by accident the patient is 'cured', then they look good.

A possible third priority is that if they don't expect much in the way of remission, they can't be blamed for not providing the very best treatment available.

Fortunately, Sandie was wise enough to take a day off work so she could seek a second opinion.


Here's what Sandie learned from her Day Trip:

• the local oncologist failed to provide ALL of the test results available. Why? Because it wasn't in a form suitable to faxing the information. Some of the results, including the PET CT are available only in an Email, and they failed to take the initiative to provide this information to the 'other' doctors.
• Based on the available information, there is no reason to believe that she has cancer in BOTH lungs; they only know that the upper quadrant of her right lung contains cancerous tissue.
• Based on their preliminary evaluation, the Seattle Cancer Center folks (I have GOT to get the full name of the institution .. I only know that the name I'm using is not accurate) believe that they can treat it without chemotherapy.
• The course of treatment involves giving her medicine, not "the poisons which we put in your body".
• The course of treatment will last from 9 to 12 months.
• The side effects of the treatment include acne and diarrhea ... there is not mention of hair loss, or nausea/vomiting.
• She will NOT have to move to Seattle to take the treatment. However, she will need to go to the Seattle treatment center from month to month for check-ups. (This is do-able.)
• The medicine is expensive, and may cost as much as $2,000 per month. We don't know how much her medical insurance will pay for, but this is not a matter of 'experimental drugs' so the chances are that her insurance will pay for a significant amount of the treatment.
• In her own words, she feels "encouraged". This alone is worth the trip.
• She will be able to continue working through her course of treatment. This adds a LOT to the "Quality of Life" issues, and to the affordability of the treatment.
  

I'm sure there is more information that she told me tonight, but it's late and I wasn't taking notes. I's perhaps enough, for now, to know that there is a resource which is willing to offer a positive prognosis and a positive course of treatment.

We have said all along that she will beat this. We just didn't know how.

Now, tonight, maybe we know how to beat it.

It won't be easy. It won't be cheap. It won't be without discomfort. And it won't be without fear.

But Sandie is a strong person, and she is determined.

We can do this.

The Price of Freedom

Two decades and more than a half million lives later, and despite a complete lack of reliable evidence that the unfettered access to firearms holds any benefit for society, the gun lobby’s view hasn’t changed. The day in and day out toll that gun death and injury inflicts on America—children killed in drive-by shootings, angry husbands shooting their entire families, alienated youths opening fire on their classmates, disgruntled employees shooting up their former workplaces, or hate-filled individuals shooting innocent people because they belong to a particular racial or religious group—will never exceed the NRA's “price of freedom
-- Violence Policy Center: "The Price of Freedom"

Penn & Teller: Gun Control and Columbine

Gun Control Debate on Hannity and Combs with Allan Gottleib


911 caller Without Gun in Home Invasion

Horrible 911 dispatch call (Caution: Very Disturbing)


--
NOBODY needs a gun ... until they really, really need one.

And then, it's too late.

Take THIS, BatMan!

Shopper braves gunfire to battle Batman bandit

In the middle of an armed robbery of a Tulsa, Okla., grocery store by a man wearing a Batman mask, one customer leaped into action, charging, wrestling and subduing the gunman until police arrived.

A surveillance video captured several minutes of the struggle as the customer, Craig Stutzman, single-handedly wrestled the robber across the store before finally pinning the phony Batman to the ground in the store's parking lot.

Video of the violent wrestling match, courtesy of KOTV-TV of Tulsa, can be seen below:

I love it when The Common Man SWOOPS into action.

Biff! Bam! Pow!

Etiquette

You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht,
Your hat strategically placed below one eye, your scarf it was apricot,
You had one eye on the mirror while you watched yourself walk in,
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner ... they'd be your partner;
You're so vain, I bet you thing this song is about you, don't you, don't you?
-- Carly Simon: "You're So Vain", from the "Reflections" album

On the first stage of the match this weekend, I was the third shooter.

After the second shooter completed the stage, and while they were shooting, I moved into the bay and started walking though the bay. The 'next shooter walk-through' is where you decide the best tactics and strategy for you to shoot the stage. You decide how to use your personal skills to the best advantage, put on your game face, and calm yourself with the confidence that you know exactly how you will engage each target, from what place and in what order. If done right, it allows the competitor to focus on the shooting and exclude the turmoil of distraction from the purpose of the exercise.

As I was completing the third and final ittiration of my walk-through, I was startled to hear the Scorekeeper announce: "T. is the next shooter".

???

As I turned to the scorekeeper with a questioning look, he announced: "T. is shooting through." And there T. was, with a brightly colored shirt, already starting his walk-through.

I vaguely assumed that T., who is a Very Important Person in the section, was somehow associated with Match Administration. I have no idea why this should be, but he is the VIP and has the shirt; I just paid my money and took my turn, and had nothing at all to do with Match Administration, so I backed away from the stage with what little grace I could muster at this unannounced last-minute change in the competitor sequence. Okay, I may have glowered a little. And maybe my arms were crossed in a defensive/aggressive manner as I tried to get back into the Zen focus for which I had striven.

After T. finished, I moved forward to re-do my walk-though, when I saw E. starting his own walk-through. j ??? I backed off, because while E. was not a member of the squad, he is a Very Important Person in the Section, and he was also wearing a brightly colored shirt.

I was only wearing an STI T-Shirt, and I am not a Very Important Person in the Section.

Sure enough, the Score Keeper announced that E. was the next shooter, and he was "shooting through".

Now, I have no problems with people who are "Shooting Through". Usually, this situation applies to people who have convinced the Match Director that there are good and justifiable reasons why they should disrupt the established match schedule by skipping the match rotation. They shoot one stage, move on to the next stage and shoot it, and so on until they have completed the match in as short a time-span as is possible.

But I usually get, at least, a Dinner and a Movie out of it. Y'know?

After E. completed the run, I was still leaning against the counter in the bay as the Score Keeper read the names of the next three people to shoot the stage. My name was first. Both T. and E. were still in the bay, reloading magazines and getting their gear together to move to the next stage (and presumably to barge through the shooting schedule for the rest of the match.)

I waited for a moment, and then asked the Score Keeper who was the next shooter.

He hesitated, confusedly, and said: "Well, you are."

"Oh." I said. "I just wanted to make sure that the shooting order hadn't changed in the last five seconds."

Silence. A little embarrassed laughter (not from T. or E., though.)

So I moved to the line, walked briefly though the stage, and proceeded to shoot the stage both slowly and inaccurately. "Well, I was slow but at least I got a good D-hit score" I joked feebly.

And went back to my range bag to reload magazines and contemplate my many sins.

A squad member, The Hobo Brasser (THB), wandered by and asked: "Did you hear what T. said as he was leaving?"

"No, I didn't".

"He said 'F**k You, Jerry'."

I thought about this for a minute.

"You know, I've had breakfast, and I've insulted T.; now I think I'll have a cigarette!"

It's probably an Oregon-ism and not common lore that the three best things in the world are a drink before and a cigarette after. I had all three this morning. I was on a roll, and the rest of my day was as light-hearted and enjoyable as it could be.

For the rest of the match, sometime during each stage (usually as one of us was shooting and the other working as Range Officer), THB and I would approach each other and, when one of us said "F**k You", the other would respond "A$$HOLE!".

Then we would smile, and laugh quietly at each other.
_____________________________________

Folks, if you absolutely must shoot through, it's a pretty good idea to act as if you're a guest in someone's home. Ask permission, thank the host and hostess. You know, the usual civilized (if meaningless) gestures that show you're more than some uncouth barbarian from East Arrogantistan.

And after your host lets you use his facilities, telling him "F**k You" is perhaps not as expressive of your gratitude as is "Th**K You."

See? It's just as easy to write, and just as easy to say.

Unless, of course, you're an a$$hole. In which case, I own this bay and when I'm done with it I'll burn it down before I turn it over to you.

Dinosaurs: SUV, COBOL and Me

I'm a Dinosaur.

And I'm a Geek. As such, I am sometimes the subject of derision among my peers because I still have a certain amount of affection for COBOL: COmmon Business Oriented Language (a programming language), even though I now use more 'modern' tools such as Oracle, Pro*C, SQL, SQR, DSL and similar uppity Geek things.

And I'm a shooter who competes with an STI "Race Gun in Open Division, even though I harbor a deep and abiding love for the 1911A1 (A.K.A. "The Geek11A1".)

I thought I was finally moving into the 21st Century when I turned in my Jeep Larado for a 1998 Ford Explorer, two years ago. It had a working cruise control, air conditioning that actually worked, power windows, remote alarm/door-lock, power seats, and the muffler didn't go BRAAAAAK every time I started 'er up.

So you can imagine my chagrin when I discovered that I had only adopted another Dinosaur.

This was made clear to me when I read the SFGATE article Remember the dinosaur known as the SUV?

Twenty years. That's about how long these ridiculous beasts stomped the Earth without peer or predator or even much coherent justification, giving soccer moms and frat dudes alike a false and often dangerous sense of security and capability, when all the beasts really offered was horrible mileage and appalling handling and fiery rollover deaths, mixed with aesthetics straight from the caveman-with-a-sledgehammer school of design. Ah, we loved them well.

... I believe it was Ford MoCo that fired the opening salvo that shocked both itself and the world when it (sort of) invented the first mass-market SUV back in 1990 merely by tacking some extra seats and a few hunks of cheap leather and soft shocks onto a lug-nut pickup truck. It painted it a pretty color and called it an Explorer and sold about 50 million in a week.

Wait a minute. If I'm not mistaken, what they did was to take the Ford F150 pickup and put on a modular body which enclosed the cargo area.

Result? An enclosed pickup, in which you could carry 'stuff' that wouldn't get wet in the rain, and in which you could lock up your 'stuff' so the goblins couldn't get at it.

Understand that I was none to proud about buying a "Damned Ol' Ford" (DOF); I had owned two Fords before. One was a 1969 Maverick, for which I paid $1,999 ["The last New Car You'll Ever Buy For Under Two Thousand Dollars", and wasn't that prophetic?], new. The other was a 1980-something Brown Ford four-door for which I paid one thousand dollars, used.

I courted SWMBO in that ugly brown Ford, and I paid $11 for a tank of gasoline. Fond Ford Memories, here. Gasoline at $1.14/gallon is a thing of the past, but I still have SWMBO and memories of SWMBO in the front seat when ... well, never mind.

But now I have a black 10-year-old explorer, which holds all my 'stuff' when I go to weekend USPSA matches and runs like a top with a minimum of maintenance, and this San Francisco Wuss had the unmitigated Gall to tell me what an anachronism I am?

I've owned a couple of Corvairs, and got great mileage from them.

The last car I owned before I bought the Jeep was a 1986 Mazda 626 which got about the same mileage that the Jeep got.

I had a Porsche which got great mileage, but repairs ... even normal annual maintenance ... started out at $500 and shot quickly UP.

And this Yahoo has the nerve to tell me that I made a bad choice in buying a SUV? I've spent more money on cars that got much better mileage. This guy doesn't have any connection with people who don't spend most of their auto-time pushing their underpowered rice-burners up Telegraph Hill.

But really, who didn't see the SUV's collapse coming a mile away? Who didn't note the beginning of the end when, five years ago, the world's worst consumer vehicle ever took its place as the poster child for all that went wrong with the condescending American ethos, the oil-sucking war-drunk Bush-mauled mind-set? [Ed: Emphasis Added]

That's where this guy really loses me.

The phrase "Condescending American ethos" relegates the choice of transportation to a "moral element". Translation: "You arrogant American cowboy, you buy a SUV just to show your superiority but you are so provincial that you don't even realize how badly your buying habits reflect on the Left Coast angst in the view of the Eurocentral Community!"

This guy wants me to give up my Explorer, which hauls my guns and my bitter self to the matches every weekend, because he thinks it makes HIM guilty by association in the eyes of his effete feminist Euro-weenie pals.

I've got a message for Mark Morford: I've got the response to your Dick Cheney Hate-fest right here, pal.

YOU try hauling a hundred pounds (and 10 cubic feet) of range bags, lunch, guns,ammo, sun-block, folding chairs, water, rain gear and other accoutrements for two to in a fuel-efficient rice-burner to a pistol match where you're on your feet for six hours, and you'll decide that you need more hauling capacity, too.

This ho-dad even badmouths Soccer Moms, because they need to haul kids and supplies to the local schoolyard for their matches. I thought that Soccer Moms were sacrosanct to Effete Liberals.

(Notice how I managed to work in the word "effete" TWICE in this article? That's because I'm on my best behavior. This is, after all, notionally a Family-Safe Blog.

Here's the Death Knell:

It's not completely their fault. Big Auto knows that big, graceless, overpowered vehicles are a cornerstone of the all-American identity. Even with President Obama's imminent new environmental policies, thoughtful, permanent change is going to take a while.

Note to San Francisco: the Presidential Election hasn't been held yet. I know y'all really like Obama-Rama, and you're really big on Environmental Issues (such as the policies you're imposed upon us which prevented us from drilling for American oil, making us dependent on Foreign Oil supplies; encouraging farmers to turn productive food-source acreage into a source of Ethanol, causing a world-wide food crisis; environmental policies which have shut down most American oil refineries and preventing the building of new refineries, no matter that they can be built without the tax surcharge on 'improvements' which prevented the Evil Oil Corporations from making existing refineries "eco-friendly", and shutting down almost ALL nuclear power plants, making the generation of electricity dependent on coal-fired power plants.)


You and your buddies couldn't' possibly be responsible for the dependence on foreign power sources and pollution of the environment, because your intentions are high and your hearts are pure.

The solution to America's Energy problems are obviously to get rid of the Sports Utility Vehicle, and it's only RIGHT that Americans are required to pay four dollars for a gallon of gasoline, because it will 'force (us) to consider alternate energy sources'.

Yeah, right. I recall reading articles in SFGATE ten years ago stating that when gasoline reached two dollars a gallon, it would be economically feasible to mine Shale Oil in Alaska.

Now we're at twice that devoutly-to-be-wished economic precipice, and your people still won't give us a break.

The obscene article listing how wrong we are to cleave to our SUV's (along with our Guns and our God) is just another reason for Fly0ver-Country America to become embittered, and distrustful of Urban Liberals who think they know better than we do how we should live our lives and spend our money.

Liberals and Environmentalists: A Pox on Both Their Houses.

SWMBO and the Oncologist

I took SWMBO to her first meeting with her Oncologist Monday morning. Nice German chap, we could hardly figure out what he said. It took me a half-hour to understand that the chemotherapy would include being dosed with Platinum. He kept referring to the treatment as “the poison we feed you”.

SWMBO went in with the understanding that she had six months, max, even with chemotherapy. On the way out she declared that she was going to be that one-in-two-hundred who was cured. So we went out to lunch.

As we were driving off I mentioned that I had posted her plight on the blog. To my amazement, she announced that she had actually read it. That’s not something she does very often. (No man is a king in his own castle.) Then she said she received an email invitation to come up for dinner with The Usual Suspects, and she was enthusiastic about it. Now, anyway, if not later.

She’s going in for a PET CT (?) on Saturday, and possibly also an MRI to make sure she doesn’t have a brain tumor. Doctor Major (pronounced "Mayor") doesn’t think so, but he wants to be sure.) Then on Wednesday she goes in for her first chemotherapy. It takes six to 8 hours, and she shouldn’t drive herself home because they don’t know what her reactions will be to 'the poisons we feed you'. It’s a cocktail, more or less, and they have to administer it very slowly so the body doesn’t reject it immediately.

I suggested that I would drive her to the appointment, but perhaps a taxi ride home would be a good idea. “At least, you can puke in somebody else’s car.” She said she would consider it. Her sister also volunteered to drive her to and fro. I’m thinking of yielding to her generous offer.

So we’re not being dreadful today, and that’s a good thing.
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Oh, yeah. Let's drop this "SWMBO" thing. It was fun while it was fun, but "She - Who Must Be Obeyed" is yesterday's nickname.

"SHE" is Sandie. Sandie, who is no longer an anonymous internet icon, but a very real, very important woman. Sandie is too important to me to continue as a symbol. I hope that those of you who aren't personally acquainted with her will recognize her as more 'real' than I had ever allowed her to be here.
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We went into the consultation with the hopes that, with chemotherapy, she would have six months. When we left, Sandie told me that she expects that she will be the "one-in-two-hundred" who respond completely to chemotherapy and resume full, normal lives. She also found, when she went back to work, that she had a couple of phone messages scheduling other tests. The Doctor(s) are being very thorough, although intrusive.

She has a good chance of achieving this goal: she doesn't smoke, she's physically stronger than she believes, and she doesn't exhibit any signs of debilitation, other than the tendency to cough a lot. As Doctor Major said: "Looking at the two of you, I can't tell which has Cancer".

Sandie had expected to spend the next weekend in a conclave with her four (!) sisters in a cabin in the high mountains. Unfortunately, the PET CT test is scheduled for Saturday. She will be required to forget her plans for spending quality time with her sisters, in favor of the tests which will determine whether, among other things, she also has a brain tumor (not likely, but would require priority in treatment over Lung Cancer) and other things which are Good To Know for an Oncologist who is trying to save his patient.

We knew that treatment would be intrusive in many ways, but we didn't realize that tests and treatments would negatively affect our weekends. How naive we are.

Today we received several more emails from friends who offered support, prayers and advice. Thank you, all of you.

We heard from Dave F., who we met at the 1998 Area 1 match in Reno, Nevada. We have seen him ONCE since then, but continued to keep in touch via email. Dave is a mortician in Montana, and has encouraged us to refer to him as "Digger". (It's a Mortician thing, not my fault.

You know you are loved, as I told Dave, when the mortician sends you a "Get Well Soon" card.

Dave also suggested that we contact support groups in our area. I had not thought of this, but Sandie had. At least she said so when I talked to her.

What's next?

Sandie will be tested for every bit of Cancer which may be in her body. I had originally stated that she is in "Stage 1" of the Cancer, but Doctor Mayor informed us today that, since it was 'deemed" to be in both lungs, that definitively constituted "Stage 4" cancer, because it was found in two organs.

But we don't really know this. They never ran a biopsy on the left lung. The PET CT test will find all the metastasizing tissues, and then at least the doctors will know the battleground.

The bottom line, for now, is that we don't really know how scary this is. But our friend Sherrie O. wrote to say that she was just completing her last chemotherapy for Breast Cancer, and it sounds as if her doctors don't feel the need to continue treatment for the foreseeable future. Hooray for Sherrie! I hope she beat it, she's good people.

In response to the flood of emails we've received over the past two days, Sandie said to me: "You're right about the messages from our sporting community (not surprised here). We've always known that they are exceptional people. Our circumstances just emphasize it."

Dillon's KISS Bullet Feeder Testimonial

A recommendation received last week on the KISS bullet-feeder: available from "Reloading Heaven":

I just bought a KISS bullet feeder for mine. Loaded 100 rounds in 2 minutes and 38 seconds....


Rob Shepherd
Major Nyne Guns
503-371-9102
www.m9guns.com

SWMBO Update

SWMBO and I have been the "Significant Other" (SO) in each other's lives for the past fourteen years. We have never married, in part because we have each lived alone for so long that it's difficult for us to give up the 'private space' which we have each enjoyed since before we met. It's a personal decision which our mutual friends questioned. It doesn't mean that we love each other less than any of our married friends do. In fact, she is the love of my life and the woman with whom I wish to spend the rest of my life.

Several months ago (to recap), SWMBO suffered a bad 'Spring Cold', with a cough that hung on long after the cold departed. The doctors decided it was a form of Pneumonia and prescribed antibiotics. When these failed to alleviate the discomfort, the dosage was doubled. Finally, She - Who Must Be Obeyed, was subject to various medical procedures (biopsy) to determine the exact nature of the problems in her lungs which caused her to be lethargic, without energy or stamina, subject to a continuing 'non-productive' cough.

During this period she did not feel well enough to attend competitions, as was our habit for over a decade. Instead, she stayed home while I continued to compete. Our friends and acquaintances would see me at matches and ask how she was doing. I would reply with news of the current course of treatment, and then relay to her their best wishes for a speedy and full recovery.

The rest is difficult to write. I'll just give it to you straight.

Ten days ago her doctor performed a 'needle biopsy' which was finally successful in gathering enough material so that they could determine the cause of her malaise.

She received the diagnosis last Tuesday, July 29, 2008.

They were wrong, all along. It wasn't pneumonia, in any form.

SWMBO will begin a course of chemotherapy sometime after the appointment with her Oncologist tomorrow morning.

The biopsy determined that she has cancer in both lungs. It is at Stage 1. It is inoperable.

(More information about stages of lung cancer here.)

The doctors so far refuse to offer her an encouraging prognosis. We hope that the Oncologist will be willing and able to prescribe a course of chemotherapy which has the possibility of slowing, even delaying, the progress of the disease. SWMBO wants to be able to refer to herself as "A Cancer Survivor". I want that, too.

I would not have been surprised to discover that I had Lung Cancer. I smoke cigarettes. She doesn't. I don't smoke around her, except when we're outside in the open, where she won't have to breath it. Somehow, it hardly seems fair. Most of this doesn't seem fair. None of it seems fair. Fairness doesn't seem to have much to do with it.

I would not impose this discouraging news in such a public forum, except that SWMBO's circle of friends is so wide-spread that it is impossible for me to otherwise inform all of them of her medical condition. And again, at every match her many friends ask me of her progress.

Frankly, I'm just not tough enough to stand in the middle of a shooting range and one at a time tell our friends that Sandie (SWMBO, when she's at home) -- who begins every match by hugging everybody who stops by to say good morning -- will not be joining us for the foreseeable future.

But I won't say 'not ever'.

The past five days have been difficult for us. Besides dealing with her personal fears and doubts, SWMBO had to tell me (last Tuesday), and watch me virtually fall apart. After I had got my head and my heart around it, she has had to tell her family, her employer, and her co-workers. Nobody is taking it well.

I have told most of my family, who regard her in the same way as they would if we were legally married. I have told my co-workers (who know her only as 'that paragon of Virtue that Jerry keeps talking about since he started working here'), and they were very supportive.

In fact, they were so solicitous that I finally had to tell them "Thank you for your concern, and for your support and your prayers. But right now, I'm still dealing with the first stage of 'dealing with it' and it's hard not to be emotional. I would rather not talk about it. Please just let me do my job, and I'll say more when and as I can."

In the meantime, SWMBO and I have spend a lot of time talking about the dramatic changes which this diagnosis presages for not only her physical condition, but for the quality of life changes she can expect.

Her doctor recommends that she quit her job "right away". She has no other income, she has no way to pay her basic bills without working, and even if she quits immediately and draws her pension, it will be 92 days before she can receive any pension benefits. Quitting her job means that she will have to pay her own health insurance (a fiscal impossibility) or go on Medicare ... with lessened medical options than under her existing health plan.

The questions we face are unanswered, and at the moment almost as debilitating as the disease promises to be.

The only way we can deal with them is to decide that we are not going to be 'morbid' about this ... this thing which threatens to overwhelm us emotionally.

What do I say next? I don't know how to write this, but we want to live our lives to the fullest every day, taking God's grace as it comes. We are going to beat this, one way or another, and if we have to live on little more than her indomitable will and personal strength and determination, we will do so without flinching.

Without flinching ... much.

We spent this weekend together enjoying our own company. We went to a movie, we went shopping, we had Roast Beef for dinner, we watched some bad Cable TV, we watched some favorite old movies. This is how we will continue, just living from day to day as best we can.

And I will blog, writing as if there are no clouds above.

To some of you, it may seem as if I am indifferent.

Those of you who know how much we love each other will understand. We have always been the two who walk hand in hand. We are still hand in hand. We are determined to maintain ourselves with the things that fulfill our lives. We will not, either of us, give up ONE THING that we can do and can enjoy, so long as it is possible.

To those of you who offer prayers, thank you. We'll take all we can get. Those who would suggest that "God does not send us any more than we can handle" ... well, I hope you're right. To those of you who have already responded: yes, we will continue to "Stay Positive". And thank you for your understanding.

We may not be able to beat Cancer. But it will not beat us.

Still, we bought a lot of hankies this week.