Archive for May, 2018

Obit watch (and other things): May 15, 2018.

Tuesday, May 15th, 2018

I decided to put the Margo Kidder obits here: NYT. WP.

Adam Parfrey, publisher of weird stuff under the Amok Press and Feral House imprints.

My feelings about baseball in general, and the New York Yankees specifically, are well known. But this is a nice story:

For the past three years, the Yankees have been quietly sending flowers to the families and police departments of slain law enforcement officers across the country.

While the flowers usually arrive without warning or explanation beyond the message on the card, the gesture can elicit strong emotions. In Fargo, when Officer Jason Moszer was shot and killed in the line of duty in 2016, his 11-year-old stepson, Dillan Dahl, was devastated. When the flowers from the Yankees arrived, Dillan took them to his room and watered them, trying to keep them alive for as long as possible, said his father, Tim Dahl.
“It was the first time he smiled in days,” Dahl said.

This is a good story, too, and one I didn’t have time to blog on Sunday:

Obit watch: May 14, 2018.

Monday, May 14th, 2018

This is a placeholder for Margot Kidder obits: once they start going up, I’ll add them here.

In the meantime:

Chuck Knox, noted NFL coach.

Ernest Medina, one of the central figures in the My Lai massacre.

Captain Medina went on trial in September 1971, defended by the prominent criminal lawyer F. Lee Bailey, as well as a military lawyer. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter of at least 100 civilians, the murder of a woman and two counts of assault against a prisoner by firing twice over his head to frighten him the night after the massacre.
The defense contended that Captain Medina was unaware of large-scale killings of defenseless civilians until they had already occurred. The prosecution argued that the defense account was not credible since Captain Medina had been in continual radio contact with his platoons. The court-martial panel of five combat officers returned not guilty verdicts on all counts after an hour’s deliberation.

Doreen Simmons.

“Who?”

She was born in England, studied theology and classics at the University of Cambridge, and taught school in Singapore.

She was best known as an English-language sumo commentator for NHK from 1992 until March of this year.

“At the beginning, there were three play-by-play men who had experience of broadcasting games like baseball, but their knowledge of basic sumo was newly acquired and pretty limited,” she said in an interview last year with The Daily Express, a British newspaper. “They wanted the color provided by commentators like me who were hired because we were already knowledgeable about some aspect of sumo.”

Obit watch: May 11, 2018.

Friday, May 11th, 2018

Sammy Allred, noted musician and later local radio host.

Allred’s band, the Geezinslaw Brothers – who once opened for Sun Records-era Elvis Presley – were regulars on the “Louisiana Hayride” radio show based in Shreveport in the late 1950s.
James White, owner of the Broken Spoke restaurant where the Geezinslaw Brothers played, told the American-Statesman in 2007 he remembered the first time he saw them perform on a flatbed truck in 1954 at the opening of the Twin Oaks shopping center in South Austin.

Allred, a member of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame, joined KVET-FM in 1969, and in 1990 joined Bob Cole for a morning show that played country music before Allred was fired from KVET in 2007.

Historical note, suitable for use in schools.

Friday, May 11th, 2018

42 years ago today, a truck fell from Loop 610 West in Houston and landed on the Southwest Freeway below the overpass.

The truck was pretty much obliterated.

It was carrying 7,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia, all of which was released when the truck crashed.

Six people, including the truck driver, were either killed outright or died shortly afterwards. A seventh person died in 1979 of complications from their injuries.

HouChron retrospective. My family was living in suburban Houston at the time: we were well out of the danger zone, but I remember it being a huge deal for several days.

Firings watch.

Friday, May 11th, 2018

Dwane Casey, NBA coach of the year, has been fired by the Toronto Raptors.

Casey was 320-238 over seven seasons:

Casey, 61, led the Raptors to four Atlantic Division titles in five seasons, and three consecutive 50-win seasons. The Raptors had their eyes on an appearance in the NBA finals after winning a franchise-record 59 games in the regular-season, including 34 wins at home — tied with Houston for best in the league.

Obit watch: May 9, 2018.

Wednesday, May 9th, 2018

NYT obit for James Avery.

Anne V. Coates, noted film editor. She was nominated five times for Oscars, and won for “Lawrence of Arabia”.

Her other Oscar nominations were for “Becket” (1964), directed by Peter Glenville; “The Elephant Man” (1980), by David Lynch; “In the Line of Fire” (1993), by Wolfgang Petersen; and “Out of Sight” (1998), by Steven Soderbergh.

George Deukmejian, former governor of California.

Random notes toward an after action report: Dallas.

Tuesday, May 8th, 2018

This is a catch-all for random and undifferentiated thoughts that didn’t make it into my previous NRAAM reports. I’ll put in a jump, since this is running long…

(more…)

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#50 in a series)

Tuesday, May 8th, 2018

Lawrence beat me to it, but: Eric Schneiderman out. Go over there.

State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman called his Sri Lankan girlfriend his “brown slave” and wanted her to refer to him as “Master,” the woman says.

Attorney General of Gor was my personal favorite John Norman novel.

Firings watch.

Monday, May 7th, 2018

On the road back from Dallas, but quickly:

Stan Van Gundy our as Detroit Pistons head coach.

Blogging from the passenger seat of a Mazda RX-8 (or really any moving vehicle) is harder than you might think. Updates to come.

Three days straight.

Sunday, May 6th, 2018

And I ain’t been doing what I should.

Swag of the day: probably my signed Jerry Miculek hat.

Yes, I am rocking the “Archer” shirt that Lawrence bought for me and dared me to wear to the show. Only one person commented on it, and that was to ask me if I had kids who played lacrosse. When I explained it was an “Archer” reference, he got it.

And that person was…American Rifleman editor Mark Keefe, who gave a pretty good presentation on John Garand, the M1 rifles, and the touchy relationship between the military and AR when the rifle was first introduced. He was also kind enough to speak with me for a few minutes about some research I may be doing in the near future, gave me his card, and said “email me, I’ll see what I can do”. I saw him do this for a couple of other people, too. Good guy.

Purchased: a snazzy “tactical backpack” from Viridian. Don’t know quite what makes it “tactical”, but it’s a nice design. I may try to use it as I ease into long range shooting, or I may just use it as a backup for my existing pack.

I also bought one of the KR Training endorsed TUFF prodcuts iStow packs. I like the idea: I want to see how it holds up in the real world.

Speaking of KR Training, you should go read Karl’s blog post, especially for the part about concealed carry clothes. I have some thoughts quasi-related to his about Carry Guard, too, but I want to wait until I can put them into better form.

Someone who isn’t me purchased an EFK Fire Dragon barrel, so I hope to have some feedback on that soon. It seemed like they were doing a land-office business, which just goes to show: quality swag bags work.

At this point, I’m hungry, exhausted, and my feet feel like the soles have been beaten for three days by Nazis trying to get the plans for the M1 gas system out of me. (That’s a subtle joke for those of you who attended Mark Keefe’s presentation.) As soon as I hit publish, I’ll probably think of something I missed. Updates to come. Maybe.

Update one: Forgot about food. I thought the buffalo sirloin at the Uncle Buck’s Steakhose and Brewery was kind of disappointing. It seemed tough and it, and the sweet potato with it, should have been warmer. We did have a pretty good breakfast at Commissary, which was packed to the rafters.

Update 2: Junk on the bunk?

No, swag in the bags.

Also: Royal China is a pretty good old-school Chinese restaurant. Recommended if you’re in town.

Day two.

Saturday, May 5th, 2018

Starting this in the car on our way to Grapevine. The blogger screams for buffalo meat.

We had a pretty good meal Friday night at Campisi’s in downtown, and a so-so one at the Press Box Grill.

Best swag bag: EFK Fire Dragon. Thoughtfully designed, with a long enough strap so you can hang it off your shoulder. Runner-up: Brownells.

I have so many bags, I can go grocery shopping for the rest of the year without reusing any.

Best swag: hard to say. I got a free moon clip from Ranch Products, and had a good conversation with a guy in the Eley booth (who also tossed in some swag).

More tomorrow, I think. Time for to go to bed.

Day one notes.

Friday, May 4th, 2018

Never do a LINUX distro upgrade while on the road.

The NRA convention is huge: 15 acres. Tulsa is 11, for comparison. We were afraid we wouldn’t be able to see everything: it takes two days to get through Tulsa, and much of that is at a dead run.

But we spent the early part of the morning with Karl of KR Training, who only had a few hours for the show. And we saw quite a bit of it, albeit at a dead run again. But we’ve also got time to go back to the stuff we didn’t get a chance to consider thoughtfully, and we did do slower browsing of a significant part of the show this afternoon. While NRA is bigger than Tulsa, it is also much less densely packed, which makes things easier. We even have time to hit some of the seminars.

Most interesting thing I saw today: My Case Builder. You go on their website. They have a tool that allows you to layout your own custom foam insert. You can use their predefined shapes (about 1200, they claim) or you can use another tool to “trace” an item and input dimensions. Once you’re done, they’ll custom cut a foam insert either for a new case (which you can purchase through them) or an existing case you already have of any brand.

Seen much, much less than I expected: scout rifle scopes. Leopold had none in their display. I did see two Leopold scout scopes, but they had no model markings on them and they were both attached to scout rifles at the Savage and Steyr booths. Vortex had one that looks promising.

Purchased: a spring kit from Apex Tactical for a J-frame. $20 plus whatever it will cost me to have a smith put it in.

Noted: Robert K. Brown was selling autographed copies of his biography, I Am Soldier of Fortune: Dancing with Devils, which I was previously unaware of. May have to go back and pick one up.

There’s a first time for everything…

Thursday, May 3rd, 2018

I have been a NRA member for about 41 years now.

(If you’re thinking I’m awful old or else I joined young: Dad got me a junior membership when I was 12, I think. Maybe earlier.)

In all those years, I have never been to a NRA Annual Meeting. Until now.

Does this mean that I plan to abandon you, my faithful readers, while I run around the convention gun geeking? Of course not!

Carl Kolchak cosplay, anyone?

(I didn’t bring a seersucker suit or a straw boater with me. But I do have a hat and a camera and my phone records audio. And Kolchak cosplay seems to be much cheaper than Steve McQueen cosplay.)

(Did you know you can design your own press pass online, and have it professionally printed and sent to you? Thanks to LawDog for the inspiration.)

I’ll post as much as I can as and when I can.

Obit watch: May 2, 2018.

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018

Missed this one until it showed up on the NYT obits Twitter: noted film director Michael Anderson.

Among his credits: “Logan’s Run“, “Around the World in 80 Days“, “The Dam Busters“, and “The Quiller Memorandum“.

We’ve talked about watching “The Dam Busters”, but it won’t be this weekend even if we had the DVD, and that DVD is a touch pricey. I wouldn’t mind watching “Quiller” either, and I’ve never actually seen “Logan’s Run”.

Today I learned…

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018

..the Hebrew for “Hold my beer”.