Sad But True......

From a friend of mine.....

John Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock

(MADE IN JAPAN )

for 6 am. While his coffeepot

(MADE IN CHINA)

was perking, he shaved with his electric razor

(MADE IN HONG KONG)

He put on a dress shirt

(MADE IN SRI LANKA),

designer jeans

(MADE IN SINGAPORE)

and tennis shoes

(MADE IN KOREA)

After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet

(MADE IN INDIA)

he sat down with his calculator

(MADE IN MEXICO)

to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch

(MADE IN TAIWAN )

to the radio

(MADE IN INDIA )

he got in his car

(MADE IN GERMANY )

filled it with GAS

(from Saudi Arabia )

and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB.

At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his computer

( made in MALAYSIA ),

John decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals

(MADE IN BRAZIL ),

poured himself a glass of wine

(MADE IN FRANCE )

and turned on his TV

(MADE IN INDONESIA ),

and then wondered why he can't find a good paying job

in AMERICA AND NOW HE'S HOPING HE CAN GET HELP FROM A PRESIDENT

MADE IN KENYA

Michael Moore Is A Big, Fat, COMMUNIST Slob!

I don't like Michael Moore. I never have. He's a lying, manipulative SOB who will do, say, and film anything he can to advance his communist agenda.
He wears his plaid shirts and grungy baseball caps so he look like the "Common Man", and yet lives in a luxury apartment in Manhattan.
He brags here about his multimillion dollar worth, and yet has the unmitigated gall to condemn the wealthy here.
What a disgusting, hypocritical, socialist, communist douchebag elitist.

The absolute "nicest" thing I could possibly say about him is that he's a typical Limousine Liberal.
Period.

I Guess *Maybe* Wikkileaks Is Good For Something After All...

Courtesy of several links I don't have time to post right now, I found this story over at The Buckeye Firearms Association about how Wikkileaks has published some Department of State documents revealing quite a bit of insight as to how weapons are getting in to Mexico.
AFAIK, this was originally published in The Outdoor Wire.

HINT: It sure aint the Gun Show Loophole!

STS-133 Discovery's Final Flight

Discovery is the oldest Shuttle in the fleet, and this marks it's 39th and last flight. Up until now, it's spent 351 days in space, made 5,628 orbits, traveled 142,917,535 miles, and carried 246 crew personnel.
It docked once with the MIR, and 11 times before with the ISS, and was the Shuttle that originally deployed the Hubble Space Telescope.
I've never seen a Shuttle launch, but I've heard it on its way to land at Edwards AFB many times.
If you've never been at a rocket launch, it's something that film and video just can't capture. It's like the difference between seeing a Top Fuel dragster on TV, and being there in person, but much more intense. It's one of those experiences that you feel as much as you hear. For a long time, until I'd actually been to a launch, and I'm up to 16 launches now, I thought the 'crackling' noise you hear from the engines was just the microphones of the recording equipment being overloaded, but it's not. It's one loooong controlled explosion, like billions of firecrackers going off continuously until the rocket is far enough away that the sound just fades out. Truly amazing, and as somebody said once, "It makes you wonder where they find bolts strong enough to hold it all together!".

This is NOT the final Shuttle flight, however. There's one more *funded* mission on the books, STS-134, the last flight of Endeavour. It's been pushed back several times, and is now scheduled NET 19 April 2011. This is considered to be the last "official" Shuttle flight. The next flight, STS-135 would be the last flight of Atlantis, but AFAIK, it hasn't been funded. It's currently being prepped as STS-335, which would be a "Launch On Need" rescue mission for Endeavour, and the NASA managers have told their teams it will fly "regardless" of funding on what they call the "Continuing Resolution".
So, we'll have a Manned Space Program at least until April, and possibly through July.
After that, we're just cargo again, depending on the Russian Space Agency to deliver us to the ISS.
Yes, it's very sad.

God speed, Discovery.......

You Might Be A Ham If....

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy.
And yes, I'm guilty of more of these than I care to admit.

1. You have bought black electrical tape in ten packs.

2. You have stripped wire with your teeth.

3. You have told your child, "One day, all this will be yours”, and they didn't respond at all.

4. You would rather help another Ham friend hook up new equipment, or put up a new tower, than to mow your own lawn.

5. You have grabbed the wrong end of a hot soldering iron.

6. You have gotten an RF burn from your own antenna.

7. You have given out RST reports while you were on the telephone.

8. When the microphones or visual aids at a meeting did not work, you rushed up to the front to fix them.

9. You have told the XYL, when she noticed a new rig in the shack, "Why,that's been there for years!”.

10. You have set your watch to UTC only.

11. You have had to patch your roof after an antenna project fell onto it.

12. You have put a GPS tracker in the XYL's car or on the riding mower, just so you could watch it on APRS.

13. You have tapped out "CQ" or "HI" on the car horn in Morse Code to another Ham.

14. Your teenager has refused to ride in your car because it looks like a porcupine.

15. You know the Latitude, Longitude, and Elevation of your home QTH.

16. You have gone into the local Radio Shack store, and the store clerk has asked you where something is and how it works.

17. You have answered the telephone with your call sign, and then finished the conversation with "73" and your call sign.

18. You have looked for antennas, radios, and Morse Code in movies and television shows.

19. When you look at anything made of wire or metal tubing, you wonder if it could be used as an antenna.

20. Your call sign is printed on one or more of your hats, T-shirts, jackets, or other garments.

21. You regularly carry one or more tools in your pockets at any given time.

22. When any kinds of batteries go on sale, you get really excited.

23. When you look at a barbecue grill, it creates ideas about ground plane antennas or microwave reflectors.

24. You have designated all your friends as Hams or Non-Hams.

25. You have referred to your Ham friends by their call sign suffixes instead of their real names.

26. You have intentionally confused Non-Hams by telling them that the only things you talk about on the air are pork products.

27. You have intentionally scared Non-Hams with the word "RADIATION"!

28. You have looked at telephone poles and power line towers as potential antenna supports.

29. You have thought you were still hearing CW, SSB, or SSTV tones, even when your radios were off.

30. Your Go-Bag has more clothes in it than your dresser does.

31. You have a SKYWARN, RACES, ARES, ARRL, or local radio club sticker on your back window.

32. Your significant other sits in the back seat, and your radios ride in the front.

33. Your neighbors wonder if you are a Narc, a Spy, or a Federal Agent.

34. The cops pull you over because they want to see the inside of your car.

"As Much As I Hate The Recent Developments In...."

Oh, man.......you just HAVE to go check out the comments to a post over at Say Uncle's place.
HILARIOUS!
Best laugh I've had in weeks.
H/T to Breda

Have You Seen Me?

Saw this over my buddy Cap'n Bob's place, and just had to share it.
Kinda says it all, doesn't it?

Silver Bullets, Anyone?

My wife and I started watching "The Wolfman", the 2010 remake of the Lon Chaney classic. Made in 2010, it stars Anthony Hopkins, Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, and Hugo Weaving. She could only watch about 15~20 minutes or so of it, up to when Lawrence goes to the Gypsy camp, and then it got too gory for her, so we turned it off.
But it started me thinking of a project I had considered many years ago when I was learning the basics about reloading from my best buddy Joe.
We joked about making real silver bullets, so me being the 'egghead' of our hot rod, shooting, and general carousing crowd, I started looking into it. When I found out that silver melts at 1760*F, compared to 620*F for lead, we kinda gave it up. I also found out from some jewelery-making girlfriends that silver also shrinks quite a bit when it cools, which would make for a loose-fitting bullet.
Back to the present......
Since we didn't have the Internet back then, I punched "silver bullet" into my favorite search engine, and out popped quite a few hits, along with a recommendation to search for "silver ammunition".
Paydirt! Seems I'm not alone in my curiosity.
The best one I found, by far, are the "Silver Bullet" pages on Patricia Briggs' website. One of the more interesting observations made, is that since it's not exactly easy to cast a a properly sized silver bullet, why not just put silver bits and pieces into a shotshell, and use that? And lo-and-behold, the jewelry people already sell "BB size" silver spheres!
So, whether you want to make up some werewolf killin' shotshells, or go to the trouble of actually casting your own silver bullets, it looks doable.
Now I just have to convince my wife that I need to buy some BB-sized silver pellets.
Maybe I can tell her I decided to start doing some "jewelry making" as a new hobby......

I Am A Radioman

After having a few visitors ask me about the "UMSC" patch on the side of the blog, I explained that although I know how to shoot fairly well, my primary "job" would be as a Radioman. I could have said Signalman, or, actually "Signaller" these days, but I'm rusty on my flags, and ALDIS lights aren't very stealthy without the proper filters.
So, I'll elect to call myself a "Radioman", even though I'm pretty good with most other aspects of communications using a variety of methods, both wired and wireless.
I started looking for The Signalman's Creed, or The Radioman's Creed, but couldn't find anything even remotely suitable.
So I "wrote" my own, which I'll present here to all my Radioman brothers out there to use.
With all due apologies, and the greatest respect to Major General William H. Rupertus, I present "The Radioman's Creed".

I Am A Radioman

This is my radio. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My radio is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My radio, without me, is useless. Without my radio, I am useless. I must tune my antenna true. I must broadcast stealthier than my enemy who is trying to intercept my signals. I must DF him before he DF's me. I will...

My radio and myself know that what counts in this war is not the signal we send, the noise of our keyer, nor the smoke we do not make. We know that it is the traffic that counts. We will send traffic...

My radio is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its tuning and its antenna. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage. I will keep my radio clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...

Before God, I swear this creed. My radio and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!

DF= "Direction Finding"

Long Beach Sending Lay Off Notices to ONE THOUSAND School Employees......

Good grief, how many do they have?
The local newspaper says it will be "777.5" (HALF a teacher??), but my inside source says it will be more like one thousand, including teachers and "other" positions.
Considering it can take a WEEK to get some light bulbs or fluorescent lamps changed, I wonder how many union "jobs" will be cut?

Happy Valentine's Day!

To any and all female readers of this little blog.

It's also my first wedding anniversary to the wonderful gal I married after being divorced and on my own for 16 years.

Took a long time to find her, but she's a keeper!

Guys.....do something NICE for your wife or girlfriend today, please?
It's not being a wimp, a wussy, or showing you're pwocked.
It's called being a gentleman, an appellation that really used to mean something in the old days.
I know so because I read it in a Jeff Cooper book, OK?
Flowers, candy, a card, whatever. Just do something for her that you wouldn't ordinarily do, even if it's the dishes, a load of laundry, or vacuuming the house.
Trust me, she'll appreciate it!