You may recall that, back in July, I wrote about the somewhat bizarre case of Jenna Garland, who was charged criminally with violations of the Georgia Open Records Act.
Archive for December, 2019
Another one down, another one down, another one from the legal beat…
Friday, December 20th, 2019And speaking of Christmas…
Friday, December 20th, 2019I’ve been good this year, Santa. Do you think you could bring me one of these?
US SOF operator on a Toyota Hilux with a 7.62 minigun somwhere in Syria.
Trad blending of insurgency enginery with yankee firepower đź‘Ś pic.twitter.com/Ca7HDNvNFP
— Hillbilly Frogman 🌲 (@YeeHawTactical) December 19, 2019
I don’t need the tactical operator: just the truck and the minigun. You can even leave it in the driveway along with the ammo, so you don’t scratch up the hardwood floors.
Filled with the spirit of Christmas.
Friday, December 20th, 2019Remember that Christmas depression?
On the one hand, this is incredibly depressing:
There's a GoFundMe set up for the family of an Idaho lineman who died yesterday near here, falling into the Columbia River from a transmission line. Pretty sobering to see this guy was my age, and leaves a wife and five kids. https://t.co/qQHTW6lFBu
— Wood Borer (@galooticus) December 19, 2019
On the other hand, I’m more than a little cheered up by the GoFundMe page: right now, they’re at $119,205 out of a $25,000 goal. Maybe there are good people in the world after all.
(Hattip to Dean Bradley. And, no, I’m not asking y’all to donate, but please feel free to do so if the spirit moves you.)
Obits and firings: December 19, 2019.
Thursday, December 19th, 2019Obit: legendary college football coach Hayden Fry.
Firing: Tom Coughlin out as “executive vice president of football operations” for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Yes, I know this is a lazy post, but I just don’t have much to say about either event.
And another quick update from the legal beat.
Wednesday, December 18th, 2019Remember Thomas J. Spota, the former DA of Suffolk County? Bag of sex toys, porno DVDs, and cigars stolen out of the police chief’s car? Charged with covering up the chief’s beatdown of the alleged thief?
Tweet of the day.
Tuesday, December 17th, 2019No particular reason, other than I really needed a laugh today (after dealing with, among other things, car insurance companies), and this filled the bill:
My wife left me home alone with the kids to go out drinking with her friends. A lesser man might whine and complain, but instead I'm just playing Chumbawamba's 1997 hit "Tubthumping" over and over and over. On the jukebox at their bar. Using the TouchTunes app. pic.twitter.com/jqhbOLdddQ
— Henpecked Hal (@HenpeckedHal) December 17, 2019
(Related note: I remember when the first part of this story was circulating on Twitter a couple of weeks ago:
The contempt hearing for Chris Hooks, the CA lawyer who sent dozens of profanity-filled emails to opposing counsel, is basically a greatest hits list of things a lawyer does not want to hear from the judge https://t.co/BytdYcPepb
— Owen Barcala (@obarcala) December 17, 2019
And the general theme of the comments was, “Yeah, his conduct was kind of unprofessional. But, on the other hand, he was dealing with Allstate.”)
Update from the legal beat.
Tuesday, December 17th, 2019I’ve written before about VonTrey Clark, the APD officer who hired thugs to kill his pregnant mistress (Samantha Dean, a victim services coordinator with the Kyle Police Department) then fled to Indonesia when his plot unraveled.
He pled guilty yesterday.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, he’ll spend life in prison without parole and waives the right to appeal.
Kimberly Dean, Samantha’s mother, read an impact statement following Clark’s guilty plea on Monday. She spoke about how Samantha was a daddy’s girl, a hero and a gift from God. She said Samantha was smart, independent, loyal and a true and a fighter who had fought and beat cancer. She also spoke of her love for her granddaughter, Madeline Rose Dean.
“We are two less people because of you. I am the mother to Sam and grandma to Madeline. There isn’t enough paper to write down all my feelings. There are no apologies grand enough to minimize my disgust for your existence,” Kimberley said. “You have issued all of us a life sentence.”
Noted.
Monday, December 16th, 2019McThag has a pretty cool post up at his place.
Using the CBS News list of the “Deadliest US Cities”, he’s gone through and documented not just the murder rate, but also what party the current mayor belongs to, and how long that party has held power.
Banned in the UK.
Monday, December 16th, 2019Well, not really, but I thought I’d cause a commotion.
Spotted at a Big Lots over the weekend. Mike the Musicologist and I are thinking you could do a holiday special about a narwal: all we need is a name, and then we can write the script.
(I kind of like “Nathan the Narwal”, but would Nathan be saving Christmas, Chanukah, or Life Day?)
Obit watch: December 16, 2019.
Monday, December 16th, 2019Anna Karina, French New Wave star. She was in a whole bunch of Jean-Luc Godard’s stuff, including “Band of Outsiders”, “Made in U.S.A.”, and (of course) “Alphaville“.
Gershon Kingsley, Moog guy. You perhaps knew him best as the composer of “Pop Corn”. And I was going to embed the Muppet version here, but the paper of record has saved me the effort.
Merry farking Christmas, y’all.
Saturday, December 14th, 2019I was cautiously optimistic, tending almost towards excitement, about Christmas this year. I’m mostly getting along with almost everyone, and Daddy didn’t spend the Christmas money on brakes this year. (As a matter of fact, Daddy got his car inspected without any issues, got the oil and filters changed, got a minor repair done, and Daddy’s new vehicle registration is in the mail and should get here before Christmas.)
You know what depresses me at this time of year, though? (“Almost everything!” cries the peanut gallery.) They’re not too far off. But one thing that gets under my skin is car wrecks.
We live in a part of town where car wrecks are a distressingly common sight. The roads are heavily trafficked and carrying more than designed capacity. But car wrecks at Christmas really get me down.
I see someone with the whole front end of their car smashed to heck: obviously, this is a total loss. The ambulance is standing around nearby, and even if it doesn’t look like anyone was badly hurt, I’m thinking to myself what a shame it is. The kids were looking forward to that Playstation 5 (sorry, Playstation V) or the XBox 720 (“now with tint control!”) or the new Banana PCJR Pro, Mom goes out to the grocery store, and both parents come home hours later. “Sorry, kids. No Christmas this year. The car’s totaled and we’ve got to get a new one.”
I know I’m probably stretching a little: out here, I think everyone has comprehensive on their cars, and they’re probably not out more than the deductible (and the gap, if they don’t have gap insurance). But it still bothers me.
The other problem out here, oddly enough, is deer. The hooved rodents are belligerent and numerous, there’s strong opposition to doing anything about them (“They’re so cute! How dare you trap them!”), and people frequently have unpleasant encounters with them, even on heavily trafficked roads like RM 620 or SH 71. Our next door neighbor hit one a few weeks ago: it didn’t do a lot of damage from what I could tell, but her car was in the shop for a bit.
Last night, it was my turn. We were driving back from dinner down a two-lane road that’s a shortcut between US 290 towards Dripping and SH 71 towards Lakeway/Bee Cave when one bounded across the road in front of us. I saw it out of the corner of my eye as it was crossing the road towards the driver’s side but didn’t even have time to react: we clipped it pretty solidly on the passenger side.
The good news is, the car’s driveable: there’s some loose plastic around the passenger side wheel, and a fairly large dent in what I’d call the under-bumper. But there’s no hood damage, the headlights still work, and I think the front running light on that side does as well. There’s no evidence that the engine compartment took a hit, and I don’t see any fluids leaking. And the airbags didn’t go off.
I know it could have been a lot worse: we could have hit it square on and done more damage, it could have ended up going through the windshield into the passenger compartment…as I said, the car’s driveable, we have coverage, and Mom’s calling the insurance company Monday morning. We may even have dashcam footage if I can find it.
I guess what I’m trying to say this holiday season is: be careful. Look both ways. Turn with a light when you can, even if it takes you a little out of your way. Don’t pull a U-turn in the middle of the highway.
And if you’re in an area where it is hunting season and you have a license, take as many deer as you legally can.
I heartily endorse this event or product. (#17 in a series)
Saturday, December 14th, 2019It’s a store. That sells pecans. He does wholesale and mail order all year, but he has a retail store (buried in the back of a strip center off of 183, next to an animal hospital) that’s open during the holiday season.
His selection is amazing: Tennessee Honey or Jack Daniels flavored pecans? Got them. Amaretto chocolate? Dark chocolate? Milk chocolate? Cajun? Just plain ones for baking? Got it all. Looking to ship a sampler to someone? Just go in: he’ll take care of the packing and shipping. All you need is an address (and payment).
We’ve been there twice since the season started, picking up pecans for ourselves and to ship to relatives. The thing that finally pushed me into writing an endorsement, though, is this: Mark, the guy who runs the place (origin story here) is incredibly nice and flexible. It seems like everything we asked for (and granted, we didn’t ask for anything really exotic and outlandish), his response was, “Sure, I can do that,” as well as, “Sure, I can get those in the mail today. I’m going to the post office anyway.”
This is another one of those people who I want to have trouble sleeping at night: because all of those $100 bills stuffed in his bedding are making too much noise.
My impression is that he’s going to be open next week (if you want to do last minute shopping), closed Christmas week, and will be open again January 2nd. After the first of the year, he plans to have a fire sale to clean out inventory until he opens up again next winter.
If you don’t have a convenient Knights of Columbus branch selling nuts, or even if you do, throw some business Mark’s way. I want these people to stay around and prosper: they’re really good folks.
(I didn’t get anything for writing this endorsement. Not even free samples. I just wrote it because I really like Mark, and his store.)
Obit watch: December 14, 2019.
Saturday, December 14th, 2019Obit watch.
Friday, December 13th, 2019RoadRich has tipped me off to the death of the great Danny Aiello, but I think I want to wait until tomorrow to post obits, just so things have a chance to shake out.
Random silly custom gun ideas.
Friday, December 13th, 2019More random gun crankery.
I’ve written before about a couple of my silly gun ideas. I came up with another one a couple of days ago, and thought it’d be interesting to maintain a place to document them. Just in case I win the lottery or something. There’s no real point, or practical purpose, for most of these: they’re more “I think it would be amusing to have…”
- A Scout rifle build on the Browning X-Bolt Micro Composite platform. This is actually an idea that I think is both practical and useful: claimed weight for the X-Bolt is 6.3 pounds, so I’d estimate 7.4 pounds with a scope and sling. That comes in under maximum weight and the length is right. The only things I think are needed are a third sling swivel, and some way of mounting a long eye relief scope forward on the rifle.
- A 4″ revolver chambered in .17 HMR, built by Smith and Wesson on the Model 51 frame. Basically, a .17 HMR Kit Gun. (Of course it would have adjustable sights.)
- A N-frame or X-frame Smith chambered in .221 Remington Fireball.
- An old XP-100…rechambered in .224 Valkyrie. I’m not a gunsmith, but I’ve seen at least one XP-100 rechambered in .223, so this seems feasible. The .224 bullet is listed as 0.2245 inches in Wikipedia (I know, I know), while the .221 Fireball is listed as .224. .224 case length is 1.6 inches, versus 1.4 for the .221. SAAMI pressue is 55,000 psi for .224 vs. 52,000 psi for .221. The only problem I see is the base diameter: .221 is .376 inches, while .224 is .4207. On the other hand, instead of .221 Fireball, maybe you could go with 7mm BR: you’d have to change or sleeve the barrel, but the 7mm BR has a .473 inch base diameter. So maybe you could close up the 7mm bolt a little, instead of trying to machine out the .221 bolt? (I wonder if a 7mm bolt would physically fit into a .221 XP-100. Obviously, it’s not something that would fire without work, but do the parts physically interchange? Is it basically just the same bolt mechanism?)
I’m open to hearing other people’s ideas, if you care to leave a comment. I’m also open to comments from people who know more about gunsmithing than I do, especially comments along the lines of “You can’t do that, and here’s why…”