Paranoia

Since surgery, every time I feel even a little off, get a headache, or feel a little too hot, I worry at least somewhat that I’m getting an infection where my semitendinosus (one of the hamstrings) tendon was harvested for the autograft in the ACL. It doesn’t help that the bottom half of the incision has been an angry red and sometimes purple and pussy.

If you’re curious, the harvest site is just on the inside of the tibia about three inches down from my knee cap. I’m not certain how it was harvested, but the research I’ve done suggests that tendon regeneration is a lot faster if you leave the tibial insertion alone, so let’s hope he did that. He seemed like he knew what he was doing so I’m sure he did whatever was best.

My surgeon tells me that a lot of people have bad reactions to the staples like I had, as opposed to sutures. He didn’t elaborate why, and he didn’t say I would get an infection from them, but he said they tended to irritate the skin a lot. I’m certainly going to have a decent scar from the lower half of the incision, because the staples weren’t even and my skin got kind of scrunched up. The top half has already closed entirely with just a little scabbing, while the bottom half is a pussy mess 3/16″ wide that drains a hell of a lot, meaning I have to change my dressing several times a day.

The four holes around my knee cap where the actual ACL bundle replacement was done closed a week ago. The swelling is almost completely down, though there is still some fluid in the joint which is keeping me a little stiff. Range of motion is about 5 to 105 degrees right now–I’m still working on getting my knee locked out, which I never accomplished since the injury. If I can’t get that, I’ll never run properly again.

I’m on antibiotics, naturally, and that’s about all I take anymore. I was on percocet for a while, which did help with pain, though it made me sleep 16 hours a day. I’m fairly certain the antibiotics I’m on are fucking up my ability to sleep. I had thought it might be because I came off percocet and my body had to adjust, but it’s been a week since I last took any. I’ve never had problems sleeping in my life when I wasn’t really stressed out about something, so 2+3 = cats.

I should be done with the antibiotics course here in a few more days, so if I can sleep regularly by the time I’m driving back down to TX I’ll be very happy.

In closing, I’d just like to say I’m pleased to present another post lacking any real cohesion other than the common thread of things relating to surgery. Whatever, I live here, I do what I want.

Amateur gunsmiths… gotta love em

You’d better love them, because I’m one too! So far I haven’t screwed up too much though so I can’t claim the bubba title.

I bought a Remington 700 Classic in 257 Roberts back before I deployed and to date have never fired it. It is in good shape cosmetically for a rifle made five years ago, let alone in 1982! The bore is bright and the finish is, well, immaculate. It would be nice if the checkering was a little crisper, but this is how it came from the factory. All in all it is a very nice rifle. I ended up putting a Leupold FX-II 4×33mm fixed power scope on it, since I had one laying around being useless, and it’s just about perfect for the way I intend to use this rifle.

The reason I’ve never fired it, and indeed never loaded it or even bought ammo, is because up until this afternoon the firing pin would fall when I closed the bolt. Not always, and it didn’t do it in TX that I remember, but up here in NY it has been fairly consistent except in the winter. Given that it started being a problem when I came up here, the only thing I can think of is that someone gave it a trigger job right on the edge of what would work in TX, and the NY climate is such that the trigger no longer worked properly. Somehow. Or maybe the lubricants are acting funny in the humidity.

I read about how to approach this here. I did not follow those instructions exactly, as all of my gunsmithing tools are down in TX and I was lucky to even find a screwdriver small enough for the screws, but I’ll finish the trigger job once I’m back here for deer season.

At first I thought the problem was sear engagement, since I had to be so gentle for it to engage–closing the bolt as slowly and smoothly as possible. What I mean is I thought the sear engagement was too light and closing it even normally was allowing the sear to release. Also, the trigger (when I did get the sear to engage) did not seem super light and had not in the past. However, it was very difficult to back the sear engagement screw out, as it is still full of glue, and even after about two full turns the problem persisted.

Taking a look at the trigger pull screw, I noticed it was adjusted very light, and after incrementally adjusting it a full turn, the problem went away. I adjusted it a further half turn for security.

Next I made sure I couldn’t make the firing pin fall no matter how violently I closed the bolt and also tested the safety. I figured I should test closing the bolt about fifty times before I trusted it, and the safety a good ten or so. It worked as it should.

Of course, having adjusted the sear engagement screw so far had really thrown some creep into the trigger. I adjusted it a bit at a time until the trigger felt crisp again and left it at that. My trigger job is only half done, but I just don’t have what I want on hand to do it right (copper and nylon brushes, a proper screwdriver, loctite).

I suppose it’s a good thing I bought this rifle rather than someone else. Who knows how many people actually play with their guns like I do, and how many of them would have noticed it? Lots of people still maintain that you can’t dry fire any gun, and they would have chambered a round without ever testing the trigger.

It’s also nice to have learned something about the arcane and mysterious Remington 700 trigger. I like the design and it’s always interesting to take a look at how the different firearms function comparatively.

***By the way, since I’m too lazy to read the link I have up there and I don’t know if it mentions this specifically–if you mess with your new rifle’s trigger, you’ll void your warranty. If you’re not confident you can make the right decisions in the process, get a gunsmith to do it. If someone dies because you messed with your trigger, made your gun unsafe, and they got shot through mechanical malfunction, guess what? You’re liable.***

Back.

Well we went up to Niagara Falls for a couple days to, well, see the falls and a bunch of other stuff. My mother, a nationally competitive agility dog trainer in both AKC and USDAA, was going to a trial in a town nearby and my sister lives in Buffalo, so it covered lots of bases.

The falls were nice and not particularly difficult to see because the crowds are, as you would imagine, not bad this time of year. There was a serious concentration of Indians, the kind from India, enough that it had to be a travel group. It was kind of difficult to walk around everywhere, especially downhill as that takes some good quadricep control and hurts along with it, but I think I did pretty alright all things considered. There was only one thing I decided not to do, which was hike down the Whirlpool trail, because it was described as very rough, climbing over boulders and stuff… if stairs are hard to go down, I figure that’s not for me this time.

Some fun facts about Niagara Falls:

• Since the glacier melt 12,000 years ago when it first started being Niagara Falls it has migrated seven miles back toward Lake Erie. That means in about another geological second or two it’s going to change completely because it’ll be cutting into Lake Erie (it’s only a couple miles away). The erosion has been slowed substantially due to rerouting 50-75% of the water for power usage along with other erosion slowing efforts, but it’ll still happen someday.
• The US hydroelectric dams can produce up to 2.4 terawatts of electricity. I didn’t see anything about what the Canadian dams can do, but I’m sure it’s about the same. The dams are in series: one is directly below the reservoir which acts as a backup and peak power plant with a much lower head, and the other, main dam has a 300 foot head and drains back into the Niagara. The US power plant looks like it’s a better setup if you ask me. Oh, since I went on a Wikipedia link safari, I found out the Canadian plants make a total of about 2 terawatts. Not too shabby though they have it spread out over five plants, not two.

Well I’m bored with that. I spent about two hours trying to figure out what a pier thing is, unlabeled anywhere that I saw and only, as it turns out, mentioned in about three freakin places in the whole internet. I’m talking about the International Niagara Control Works, which is used to even out water flow across the Horseshoe Falls, among other things. Presumably it also increases water pressure down the Canadian reservoir inlets and possibly the American ones, though the American ones need a lot less help. The Canadians have to route the water along a big dog-leg and we don’t. Nyah nyah.

To learn that, I had to read a ton of crap about Niagara and now I don’t want to think about it anymore. One cool thing I came across was this photo gallery of an abandoned power station. It would be pretty sweet to go check it out myself, but I don’t know that I’ll ever feel like going into Canada just to see it.

…an hour later…

Okay whoa I just went on another one, although it was shorter, looking for undeveloped land around Pittsburgh. No luck.

Anyway, I’m back now, and though I haven’t been posting, I’ve got about six things in the works. One is over 2000 words already and less than half done. There will be another dry spell starting about the 22nd because I’m driving back down to Texas then.

Is it a weapon?

So I was doing a little research into what kind of tacticool firearms training can be had in PA, as I intend to move there and go to Penn State when I end the Army era of my life, and I came across an argument on a gun board about whether or not a firearm, when used defensively, is a “weapon”.

This is stupid. Of course it’s a weapon. The initial argument was that something is only a weapon if used offensively rather than defensively; otherwise your defensive tool is just a tool, be it handgun or golf club or keychain. This seems like an echo of the argument against the gun grabbers emotionally charged idiocy when they say that guns somehow CAUSE bad things to happen. So if we call firearms weapons, they will instantly be imbued with evil and start killing the nice neighbor children. Or something.

I own five firearms dedicated to defensive purposes (the other 15 are for fun, hunting, or practice and very necessary too, srsly). They are three pistols, a rifle, and a shotgun*. They cover 80% of the defensive uses of firearms I’ll need, and I’m working on that 20% left over as I can afford it. They are optimized to be WEAPONS, or down that road a ways at least. That means some provision for retention, night/low light use, high capacity (except the pistols), and powerful and effective ammunition that is confirmed to cycle reliably, and so on. It also means when I go shoot them, other than confirming zero, I don’t sit at the bench and core a bullseye. I’m standing, moving, shooting from the draw, finding cover, reloading, inducing malfunctions, switching from long gun to handgun and back, reloading with one hand, cocking with one hand… you get the picture.

I wish people would stop masking bullshit with semantics. Anything you use to harm another living thing, offensively or defensively, is a weapon. If you attack me while I’m getting candles out of my cupboard and I nunchaku your ass with them, they are a weapon. That’s right, the dreaded ninja assault candles, watch the fuck out.

If you’re too afraid to come to grips with using a weapon against someone else and can’t even admit to yourself that that is what you’re training to do, then you have serious mindset problems and I give you a very optimistic 50% chance of doing the appropriate thing when the time comes. I just hope it’s you that dies if you fail to act, not your child or wife. The cost is too fucking high not to prepare, but if you don’t prepare, I pity you if you live see the results of your failure.

Remember, the absolute cheapest thing you can do to prepare yourself is change your mindset. All that takes is deep thought and maybe a little reading, which is free, so stop making excuses and do it. Even if you don’t own a WEAPON, with the right mindset you WILL survive a hundred times more often than your average sheep.

*See next post for details.

Huh. That day again.

It’s 9/11. You know, twin towers, planes and stuff, something about a field in PA? Remember that?

Most people don’t give a shit anymore, from what I can see. I’m not going to build an altar of remembrance complete with scented candles, little Jesus statues, and a bunch of flowers, but I doubt this day will ever go by without me at least remembering what it is all about.

To me, this day is a day when I remember the heroism of the men and women who sacrificed their lives to try to save trapped workers in the WTC. It is a day when I remember how great it was for America to come together, stand up, and stomp the shit out of Saddam and bin Laden. While it lasted, anyway.

This was our Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately, the TV generations have the attention span of a sugar crazed ferret, so a few short years later a substantial portion of our population wants to give up, to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and go back to living our lives without that icky war business.

The truly sad thing is that nobody in our country is suffering on any large scale, but they still screech to end the war. Sure, soldiers die and their families have to deal with that loss. That’s part of being a soldier. I remember how it felt when the first soldier I knew died in Iraq, a couple months before I was due to ship to Fort Benning. I’m not ashamed to say I wept for him. Even worse is not finding out until long after the fact. A friend of mine, Rossi, a guy I went to basic with and one of only two or three guys from my whole company at Benning that came to my brigade, was shot and killed by a sniper in June of 2007 in Baghdad. I didn’t find out until early December on my way home–not two hours after someone told me he was dead, I found a memorial bracelet for him on the ground outside a Kuwait McDonalds. It sits in my barracks room.

Also keep in mind this is the lowest casualty war we’ve ever been involved in, so it’s not as though we start high school football games with the latest list of local dead or something. It’s an all volunteer army! Maybe we should stop moaning about the dead, and instead celebrate that we still produce at least some people with the fortitude to risk everything for what they believe in. Truly, the men and women I’ve met in the military are the best I’ve ever known taken as a whole.

Back to my point. People in this country are not suffering. Are we rationing coffee and bacon and steel and gasoline like we were during WWII? Are we building a conscript army like we did in Vietnam? No. If it wasn’t for the occasional mention on the news, I suspect most people would react to a question about Iraq or Afghanistan with ‘What, we’re still at war?’ It is simply fashionable to oppose the war: reflections of the rebellion of the sixties I suppose.

Some people take it as far as opposing all war, no matter what. Opposing all war regardless of circumstances is about as smart as opposing all violence. Those without swords can still die on them. Sometimes violence is the answer, folks.

It is my firm belief that in the last generation, America lost its stomach for war. I hope with all sincerity that it doesn’t come back to bite us in the ass in the bestselling sequel 9/11 Part Deux: Nuclear Edition or similar. However, just like I hope my generation will wake the fuck up, I fear my hope is groundless.

It also says a lot about our country that we live such a carefree existence that such a large portion of our population, and sadly our voting block, can cram their heads so far up their asses and not pay a serious price for it immediately. This is similar to how we are SO RICH that even our poor shower in potable water. In Iraq, running water of any kind is a mark of HIGH luxury, even if you still might want to boil it before you drink it. No joke, I must have raided and searched a couple hundred houses, and maybe ten had running water inside.

Americans have lost their perspective, and thus lost all understanding of truth. We are ruled by opinions now rather than reality, and someday soon we will feel the consequences. In the meantime… I’m stocking up on ammo and food. I suggest you do the same.

PS: I know that not everyone, or even most people, are like I’ve described. My family received nothing but support from coworkers and friends when they found out I was deployed to Iraq. On the other hand, about half my friends from high school won’t talk to me at all because I’m a fascist soldier or some bullshit like that, so I’ve seen both sides. I deeply appreciate the efforts of those who do support soldiers because it’s easy to forget what the hell you’re fighting for sometimes.

Re: that last post

I’m going to steal even more from Marko’s site because I think it’s just plain hilarious.

They’d better have a live news feed when they fire up the LHC. If I see any headcrabs I’ll be on the first flight to CERN with my twelve gauge, 1911, and my 375 H&H for the giant spiky leg monster in the rocket silo. Maybe I can wangle an AT4 out of my supply NCO… I don’t have a nifty environmental suit but I’ve got body armor and a gas mask. Bring it on!

The doomsayers strike again. Yawn.

In the near future the Large Hadron Collider goes online (hat tip to Marko). Along with it, the end of the world!

I have little patience for luddites. In this case they are a bunch of people who know nothing about the topic at hand, caught up in the end of the world scare perpetrated by this week’s batch of crazies who know just enough about the subject to completely skew the facts and still sound convincing to the gullible.

Remember, before the first detonation of a nuclear bomb, even Edward Teller was unsure if the whole atmosphere was going to go up like a firecracker once the fission bomb was detonated. He was not the only scientist that was unsure of himself. As I understand it the concern was that the high temperatures from the fission bomb might cause a self sustaining fusion reaction in the atmosphere and oceans, thus destroying life across the planet and creating one hell of a light show for the martians.

Later on they recalculated and figured out that nookular weapons would not, in fact, destroy the world. Thus nuclear technology was born. Too bad Chernobyl and Three Mile Island derailed that progress or I might have one of those nifty Toshiba microgenerators in my back yard right now, maybe even in my car. Gas is kinda expensive… I hear Uranium is a bit pricey initially, but I wouldn’t have to refuel for years! No more gas cans for my Jeep on the trail, yeah? Blazing acceleration from the electric motors at each wheel? Sounds great to me! Thanks assholes.

Interesting points about that atmosphere ignition thing here.

But anyway…

Today, examining the same sort of problem, we have all the leading scientists, and all the amateur ones that actually paid attention in class, telling us that no, the black holes formed by the LHC will not in fact devour the earth. They support this conclusion with plenty of points that make sense even to me, ignerint soldja who only took half a year of HS physics. On the other side of the issue are a bunch of–to put it kindly–ignorant crackpots that just want one more excuse to make death threats and wail about TEOTWAWKI.

The way I see it, mankind must keep marching forward. Maybe eventually we’ll march off a cliff, but we’ve had the technology to completely destroy ourselves over foolishness for three generations and we haven’t yet, so I’m not that worried. If Kim Jong Il can refrain from initiating nuclear holocaust, that crazy fuck, then I definitely have faith in our own scientists.

Also, if the world was to end, big fucking deal. I won’t be around to mourn it and neither will you. At least I won’t have to pay off my credit card.

Off topic, I made it home. Late, and I’m still having trouble sleeping, but it is nice to be home anyway.

[Edited to give credit where credit was due]

A quick political post.

The day of my surgery, as I was laying in bed post op waiting for someone to bring me some chow, I switched on the TV to Fox. I was, quite frankly, shocked to catch the breaking news of McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his VP. Shocked, because it was so god damn brilliant that I had trouble believing it was anything but April Fools four months late.

I was first exposed to Sarah Palin online some months ago, and in reading about who she was and what she’s done, she became one of the very few politicians I actually respect and actively want in higher “service”. About the only other one I can think of off the top of my head is Bobby Jindal. I remember a few bloggers discussing how she would make a good VP choice for someone, but that talk didn’t last long. I don’t think anyone thought it was within the realm of possibility for the GOP to get its head out of its ass far enough to notice her.

So… I still kind of have trouble believing she’s truly our VP pick. It still strikes me as, quite frankly, Fucking Awesome. I don’t agree with everything she says, because how boring would that be, but I can’t wait for her to be a presidential candidate some day.

It’s getting old and tired to say, but like so many others, she has convinced me that I truly have a reason to vote FOR McCain, rather than against Obama. I knew as soon as I saw the announcement that the election was over. I’ve been convinced for some time that Obama would not have the legs to carry the election, regardless of the insanity of his supporters (I mean seriously the guy is about as much use as tits on a boar), but Palin was the death knell. It is over. We won.

Some gun thoughts

I’ve got a few things on my mind just now. FALs and race guns mostly, with maybe some thoughts on the relationship between shooting competitions and real practical training.

So for starters, I’m a firm believer in keeping some sort of long gun in the car as long as it won’t get you arrested (I would do it now, but since I go on a military base daily, that’s asking for trouble in the long run). My choice is a battle rifle, or in a seriously wooded area a riot shotgun, but preferably both. There are now four basic semi-automatic battle rifles commonly available. They are the M14 family, FAL family, CETME/G3 family, and the newcomer, the AR-10.

Of the four, I am a dedicated M14 shooter. I love the rugged simplicity of the M14 design. The sights are great, and if you throw an Aimpoint on a forward mount like I have on my Springfield Squad/Scout, it is a dream. Mine is plenty accurate as long as I can see the target, it has gentle recoil, and a very nice military trigger.

One downside of the M14 is there is no way to cheaply reduce the length if you have need of a more compact weapon. A Sage, Troy, or VLTOR stock will do the trick, but of the three only the Troy is designed for flexible optic use–though at the loss of your iron sights. M14 scope mounts are, in my experience, extremely finicky, expensive, and very scarce these days. They also only give you the option of using a single optic, which is fine for 99% of users, but I’m in the 1% that needs something more.

I’ve decided that my truck gun is going to be an FAL. A DS Arms Para 18″ Carbine, to be precise, with an extended sight rail. It was a tough decision for me to make, considering how much I have invested in M14 magazines and how loath I am to buy a second battle rifle design. I like simplicity, and that is the reason I own only 1911 pistols. Magazine and parts interchangeability is key and having just one pistol design to master (and, not to toot my own horn, but I have) means I’m that much more skilled with the 1911. The 1911 fits my hand like a glove and I’m faster and more accurate with it than anything else by a long shot.

My M14 is my primary home defense and SHTF gun. However, the needs of the truck gun are ironically more varied. My daily driver is, in the near future, going to be a Jeep YJ Wrangler. The only way to securely store anything large in one is to remove the rear seat and get a secure box installed back there that locks and is hidden. I want a rifle in the neighborhood of 35 inches or less at its most compact, as the diagonal of the box I’m looking at is about 40 inches. I also want the to have a red dot sight with the option of magnification, as I have in my Aimpoint CompM3 2MOA dot sight and quick detach Aimpoint 3x magnifier. I can not use that system on an M14 unless I want to spring for a Troy stock, and since I already have a Sage, it seems wasteful.

I’m going to stop myself. You know what? This is all BS. The above is true, but really what it comes down to is I want a Para FAL. This is just an excuse to buy one. Ultimately I will probably buy another Squad/Scout or SOCOM 16, a Troy stock, flip up sights, and just maintain the simplicity and compatibility of my weapons. But for now, I’m convinced I should buy a Para FAL. I want one almost as much as I wanted my first 1911.

I’m going to deal with the race guns and other crap in another post. This one got way too long to keep going.

Ok, still writing. And still rambling apparently.

I ran out of exciting things to do online, mainly because I can’t figure out why I can’t download any audiobooks from Audible. It keeps giving me some text file instead of the MP3 I want. One nice thing about having a relatively techno savvy mother who makes five times more than I do is she has an Audible account that I can get books from (that she already bought) for free! They’re three times as much as a paper book, so considering I have to make special allowances in my budget to buy even paper books these days (I own about two thousand books so I can make due with what I already own), audiobooks are really not in the cards.

I’ve listened to the same two audiobooks I have on my iPod, Heinlein’s Friday and Farmer in the Sky, at least fifteen times each since I first bought them January 2005. On one particularly long mission in Iraq I listened to Friday all the way through (fourteen hours long), and I did that again on the first half of my trip. However, since I’m here with internet access I really want to get something new, as Farmer in the Sky is only seven hours long; I know the story by heart; and I still have about eighteen hours of driving to go. Music is great, but I’d rather have something that engages my brain.

I’m trying to get The Camel Club by David Baldacci and Charlie Wilson’s War, which is more than enough to sustain me for the rest of the trip, but… no dice so far. Ugh.

Oh freakin sweet. John Scalzi has two full length audiobooks, Old Man’s War (which I really enjoyed reading–one of about five books I’ve even read straight through) and The Ghost Brigades (very high on my to-read list). Together they’re a shade over twenty hours long, so that would be carry me through the trip just fine. So… here in a couple hours I’ll call home, since my mom gets up at 6 AM or so, and ask if it’s cool if I buy them with her credits since she loves me so much. I think she’d enjoy them anyway so I’m sure it will be fine.

Segue into a topic change… Y’know, I run into this a lot in the military and I find it foolish. People look down on you for accepting things from your parents that you couldn’t afford on your own. Like it’s a dumb idea to move back home and mooch off your parents for a while when you get out of the service until you can figure out what you’re going to do and where you’re going to work… What do I need to prove to anyone? I have been handling my own affairs for years, paying my own rent and all my own bills and always on time. But when, for example, my parents offer to pay for my plane ticket that costs $900 and I could just plain not afford on my own, I’m not going to get all proud and try to pay for it myself because it just won’t happen.

Flying from El Paso to Rochester, NY is a fucking hellish experience and you pay a premium for the privilege. There is no such thing as a direct flight, and frequently the cheapest flight at only $750 is a three leg trip both ways, twelve hours or more. Layovers are either impossibly short, given that the connecting flight is always at least three miles away–you get a bonus mile if you’re on crutches–or three hours long. I always end up very stressed out and unhappy when I fly. That’s why I’ve sworn off, and that’s why I’m driving home now, ultimately.

I refuse to support the godawful service of the airlines, who keep jacking their ticket prices while reducing services, and I refuse to debase myself before the TSA. Flying in uniform is a real treat–do you know how much shit you have to take off your uniform? Just the boots are a huge pain in the ass, but dogtags, belt, blouse… like I’m NOT a soldier who has already killed his share of terrorist scum? The best part is most TSA employees I run into act like I’m some asshole for being in the military. I think only once has a TSA guy been nice to me and thanked me for my service and all that bullshit since I joined. He was an older guy, probably prior service himself, and not jealous of the respect soldiers get that TSA cops never will.

Ok now that I’ve talked about three completely different subjects and only one completely–the airline rant–I’m going to post this and write about guns.