Light posting for a while....

Not that I'm a posting maniac, but the YF (see below) and I have been rather sick. I started with a bad sore throat the week before the wedding, which degenerated into a really bad cold and cough, which I still have, but at least I don't wake up every two hours coughing at night. She started with the sore throat a couple of days ago, and has been home from work the last two days.
I keep kidding her about who she sleeps with!
"YF" is a Ham Radio term for "Wife". If a Ham is going out with a girl, she becomes his "YL", or "Young Lady". If they got married, she then became his "XYL", or "Ex Young Lady". Even when I first got into Amateur Radio back in 1964, I thought it was kind of rude, and sometime in the 1970's Hams apparently saw the light, and came up with "YF".

I'll Take "More Things That Go BOOM" for $2000, Alex

As usual, Blunt Object has some good posts about the continuing travails of the guy who writes "Things I Won't Work With".
Dioxygen Diflouride??
Geez.....I don't even want to be in the same county with that stuff, let alone *work* with it.

Quote of the Day

Shamelessly ripped off from the Geekwitha45, who found it elsewhere.

“The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the presidency. It will be easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.”

Secure Data Deletion.....

Gonna Be Busy....

As some of you may remember, I'm going to marry my sweetie this Sunday, Valentine's Day. SO....I'm going to be pretty busy the next week or so. My sister, whom I haven't seen in almost 20 years, is coming out from Chicago with her husband, which means starting tomorrow, I have some serious house cleaning duties to take care of. Not that I shirk off my share of them, but I've been doing some part-time design work for a little local company, which means I've been getting my CAD and printed circuit board design skills "back online" during last week or so. And I've just GOTTA get my Jeep emptied out and washed!
Not doing much for our honeymoon but spending the night on the Queen Mary, and then escorting my sister and her husband around to see some of the sights while they're here. My sister used PriceLine with the "Name Your Price" option, and not knowing the area or checking with us first, wound up booking a hotel in one of the WORST parts of Long Beach. OUCH! Normally using the "Name Your Price" option means you're stuck with whatever you bought, but she was able to talk her way out of that hotel, and into a much nicer one that's actually closer to us, and only had to pay a $25 cancellation fee.
Oh, well....time to get the computer/radio room cleaned up, and then start on the house while the gf is at work tomorrow. Her coworkers threw her a surprise wedding shower today, and we received a beautiful cake-cutting knife and cake serving thingamajig for use at the reception.
Talk to (at?) you all later....

Superbowl....

meh....I *hate* football. No other sport can take a sixty-minute game, and stretch it out to over four hours.
Ridiculous.
There, I feel better.

Alfonzo Rachel Is Funny, And RIGHT!

In case you don't know, he's the guy that does the outstanding "Zonation" videos. He's not only entertaining to watch, but spot-on about how the left marginalizes people and issues to suit their own agenda.
I found quite a few of his videos posted over at "Big Hollywood", so go kill some time, listen to the man, and enjoy yourself.

I Passed

Two days, 17 hours of classroom and range work, and I'm now an "NRA Certified Basic Pistol Instructor".
The course was in two parts, the "Basic Instructor Training", and the "Pistol Instructor Training".
A lot of the instruction was geared towards teaching us how to teach. We did a lot of presenting to each other, and proper SAFE gun handling was stressed. MUCH emphasis on the NRA "Three Rules" (ALWAYS keep the gun pointed is a safe direction, ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot, and ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use), and I was surprised they didn't have rule #1 as "Treat ALL guns as loaded", which is the first rule stressed in other training I've had at the range. Our first presentation was to take a bagged pistol out of the instructors large bag, open it up, and make sure it was unloaded, explaining all our steps to the class as we went along. The first student drew a Springfield XD pistol and did it perfectly. I was next, and drew a cap and ball pistol, something I've never even *seen* in-the-flesh before, let alone handled. Talk about having a "DUH!" moment! I was able to pretty much figure it out (no percussion caps installed=no bang!), and explained that to the students. I had no idea how to remove the cylinder (HINT: You have to push the "Wedge Pin" on this particular gun, a 44 caliber Colt Navy Model, through the frame...NOT easy to do!), and fumbled my way to explaining that you could use the loading rod to check if there was any ball/charge in the chambers of the cylinder. The instructor laughed and said I did OK. The next guy drew a flintlock, and we all had a good laugh while learning about safeing older pistols that we had no experience with. He stressed the CONCEPT of how a firearm works is important to remember, and that you just might have somebody bring you "Grandpas Old Gun", and it's vitally important you can handle it safely.
The training was fast paced, as there's a lot of info to cover in the 17 hours, and the instructor, who I've trained with before, was excellent.
Another element of the training I didn't expect was the emphasis on how to run the more mundane aspects of teaching a course, like promotion, budgeting, emergency/first aid preparedness, and all the little details involved in record keeping.
All in all, an excellent course, and I should receive my credentials in about 60 days.

Top Ten Corrupt Politicans In 2009

Gee, wonder how many of the same names will be here next year? And how many will get reelected after what I hope will be The First Great November Reckoning.
In alphabetical order:

Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT)
Senator John Ensign (R-NV)
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner
Attorney General Eric Holder
Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)/ Senator Roland Burris (D-IL)
President Barack Obama
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and the rest of the PMA Seven
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)

Read what these wonderful elected "servants" did to make it on this illustrious list over at Judicial Watch.

State of the Union Address

I didn't watch it and didn't listen to it, but my future stepson had it on for a while in the other room. Just from the tone of HRH Obama's voice, it sounded like a cross between a high-school pep rally, and one of Teh One's campaign speeches.
After about 30 minutes, he changed the channel to something else, and came out of his room.
What he said stunned me:
"He just doesn't sound like a President".
WOW! This from a 26 year old guy who dropped out of high school, and works his rear end off in a warehouse for about $12/hour.
I don't think he voted (never asked him), but some of his contemporaries did, and they voted for Teh One. I could write this off as typical young people not understanding what was at stake (Hey, I supported McGovern {for a while} back when I was young!), but they way they talked about Obama was so full of the 'unicorns and rainbows' BS that I'm going to have to start educating these young people about Our Constitution, Economics, and TANSTAAFL.
I'll be interested in seeing how our "State Owned" media spins this tomorrow.....

State Of The Union BINGO Card

I'm going to be busy tonight (have to wash my hair or something...), so I won't be able to watch HRH Obama spew his tripe.
In the meantime, I can probably come up with about 90% of what he's going to say using this neat little tool.

Have fun!