So, Saturday I stopped in at my local gun shop, needed to pick up some components for a reloading project yesterday. They were busy, which is good to see, so it took a bit before I had a chance to chat with Dave.
“Had a chance to check out the Ballistics by the inch site yet?”
“No, not yet – busy with the holidays and stuff. You know.”
“No worries.”
“Going well?”
“Yeah, we’ve had over 350,000 hits in the month since it went up.”
“Wow.” Pause. “Um, is that a lot?” (They’re not real big on computers, these guys, which is why there’s just a link to a Yellow Pages listing for them off of our website.)
“Heh. Yeah, that’s a hell of a lot. It’s gotten quite a lot of attention. More and more, I see it cited as a reference when people are talking about this or that caliber performance.”
“Huh. Well, I guess. But everyone knows that it’s just basically 25 fps for each inch of barrel. Simple.”
“Well, no, actually the data we got shows a much greater range . . .”
“Oh, yeah, might be a bit more with some calibers, some weights of bullets and powder charges, but that’s a pretty good rule of thumb.”
Another guy had a question about a lever gun behind the counter, and Dave turned to help him. I took my powder and primers up to the front counter and had the new kid ring me up.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the Bbti blog.)
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Daily Kos, General Musings, Health, Preparedness, Sleep, Survival
Well, as I mentioned yesterday, we had an Open House here for our neighborhood all afternoon. Which meant a lot of cleaning and prep beforehand (we’re still dealing with all the leftover stuff from the estate division for Martha Sr), the crunch of which has occured in the past week. And then I was on my feet all day, pushing my extrovert batteries to the limit of their enduance by playing host to strangers in my home. In short, by the time everyone left and we got the worst of the mess cleaned up and put away, I was exhausted.
A bit over a week ago I wrote about getting an assessment of my health here sometime after the first of the year. As it happens, a couple of days later I had reason to wonder whether I needed to do so in a more immediate manner, thanks to a clear-cut case of peripheral edema which was the result of being on my feet a lot, more or less in one location. Now, the beta blocker I am taking is a known culprit with this kind of swelling, and I have seen some problems with it off and on over the last couple of months. But this time it was really bad. Made me wonder whether it was evidence of a much more serious problem with my heart. First chance Monday of this week, I called to see about getting in to see my doctor.
Naturally, she is out of the office until next week.
*Sigh.* Well, rather than have to go through and explain everything about my life and condition for the last few years to another doctor, I decided that I would take some reasonable precautions, but just make an appointment with my doctor for next week. And I have no real regrets about doing so – if something serious happens, I can go to the ER about three minutes from here.
Anyway, all of this is a bit of prep for explaining what I decided to do last night. Following the clean-up from the party, and getting a bit to eat, I was beat but my legs were aching – both from being on them for much of the day, but also from making about 50 trips carrying boxes up to storage that morning and the day before. I also had some significant swelling again. A friend suggested a soak in the sit-up jacuzzi tub we’d installed for Martha Sr a couple of years ago, and I thought it sounded like a good idea. Before bed, I went in, got things ready, and climbed into the tub.
As I sat back in the tub, which is really pretty small (to fit into a little nook in our downstairs bathroom), my left elbow came back and smashed a plastic cup containing ice-water. It’s one of those 16-ounce ‘to-go’ cups you’ll find at about any pizza place, intended to last longer than a disposable cup so you can see the logo for the place where you got it. No big deal, right?
Well, not exactly.
But sorta.
See, this one was a nice red. Only one in the house like it. Meaning that during parties or whatnot, it was easy for me to find *my* cup, if I set it down and wandered off to do other things. By tacit agreement with my wife, this had become ‘mine’ – she didn’t use it. Bit silly, really. You know how it is.
So, it busted. Caught it perfectly positioned against the wall, the entire force of my body sitting back focused on it. Didn’t explode or anything dramatic, and I wasn’t doused with a lot of ice water. But it busted beyond repair, a couple of chunks of the red plastic dangling, nice crack around the top.
Coming at the end of the New Years Day celebration, I couldn’t help but sit there and reflect on the appropriateness of the busted cup, as the tub continued to fill around my aching legs.
As I’ve said before, I’m not religious. But many years ago I was a fairly serious student of Zen, until I figured out that for me that was a bit of a contradiction in terms. And from that time I still carry along some perspectives that I have found valuable. One of them is about the inherent ephemeral nature of all things.
So I sat there in the tub, thinking about my poor broken cup. And about my aching legs, and what they may signify. And I felt touched, in a funny way. Letting the cup go – letting it stand as an unintended metaphor for the past year and the changes and costs it has seen, was easy. Allowing that same attitude to seep into me as the water covered me was somewhat more difficult, but eventually worked.
I may find out Tuesday that I have a serious heart condition. That the cost of being an Alzheimer’s care-giver for those years was higher than I or anyone else expected. Or I may not. Either way, my wife and I will cope with the news, the facts, and move on with our life to the best of our ability. Because unlike my special red plastic cup, I am not busted.
Happy New Year.
Jim Downey
Cross-posted to Daily Kos.
Filed under: Feedback, General Musings, Promotion, Publishing, Writing stuff
It’s interesting to look back a year and see where things were, and where we’ve come in the intervening time.
Downloads of the novel itself has been almost exactly the same: 6,288 in 2007, and 6,182 in 2008. That is remarkably consistent and more than a bit surprising to me. I also find it curious that more people have downloaded the novel than actually visited the site last year, by about a thousand. In other words, the link to the download of the book has been shared elsewhere, allowing people to download the thing (in either audio or .pdf form) without having to visit my site. Interesting.
This blog has grown by about double in terms of hits and readership – 10,834 in 2007, and 21,959 in 2008. Last year I wrote 333 posts total – an increase of 86 over how many I posted in 2007. Not as prolific as some, but I like to think that my quality is what brings the huge traffic. *cough*
Well, I have something else to get ready for this morning, but as I said last year: Thanks to everyone who visits, links, comments, or helps to promote this blog or my novel. Stick around and I’ll try and keep things interesting (I already have some new ideas and projects I’m working on).
Cheers for 2009!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Apollo program, Art, Astronomy, General Musings, NASA, NPR, Science, Space
The rocket blasted off with a huge spread of flame and hurled the men into space. They became the first earthlings to watch their home planet grow smaller and smaller and smaller, until it was floating far away and tiny in the darkness.
From this morning’s NPR coverage of the Apollo 8 mission to orbit the Moon 40 years ago. Most of the world remembers it best thanks to Earthrise, the iconic image from the mission, which gave us all a new perspective of our fragile little home.
It’s a good story. As I said elsewhere in a discussion of my memories from the event, I expect there will be few other such moments in my life.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Ballistics, Book Conservation, Failure, Feedback, General Musings, Guns, Marketing, RKBA, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
One afternoon last week I was delivering a batch of work to a client here in town. Everything went fine, and after we had gone over the work I had done and the charges, the person I was meeting with asked whether I knew anyone in the area from whom they could learn a particular skill.
“Sure. Contact Professor X in the art department at the University. They should be able to help you out – either get you into a workshop or tell you who you can get private lessons from here locally.”
“Wow, thanks.”
“No worries. Tell them I sent you – I used to represent Professor X at my gallery.”
“Gallery?”
“Yeah, I ran an art gallery downtown for 8 years.”
“Huh. I didn’t know that.”
* * * * * * *
I got copied in on a note from Jim K to a magazine editor he is working with for an article about our ballistics project. It was discussing the reaction that people have had to the whole thing, and it reminded me of this passage from a post last year:
Well, from that discussion emerged an idea: conduct the necessary tests ourselves, compile all the data, then make it freely available to all on a dedicated website. Sounds like one of those great ideas which no one will ever get around to doing, because of the time and expense involved, right?
Well, as you know, we did do the whole project, and it has indeed been a pretty phenomenal success. But 18 months ago, it really was just one of those ideas that people would dismiss. That specifically happened to me at my favorite local gun shop, when I told the sales guy I usually chat with about the upcoming project.
“Oh, they did that,” he said, “back in the 30’s. Guy chopped down a rifle, measured the velocity drop-off.”
“But no one has done it with modern handgun calibers,” I said.
He laughed. “Yeah, true. So, when you going to get it all done?
“We’ll probably do it next spring.”
“Yeah, right.” It wasn’t said sarcastically. Well, not completely so.
* * * * * * *
The last few days have been filled with the news of the Madoff debacle, the latest in a long string of examples of poor judgment and questionable ethics in the financial sector, all of which have played a major part in the economic collapse that we are experiencing. This one meant losses of some $50 billion last I heard, though of course there is still a lot of uncertainty about the actual numbers.
It’s weird, but it actually makes me feel somewhat better about the losses I caused my investors with the gallery.
See, for 8 years we struggled to make a go of it. Most of that time I (and my business partner) did without a salary, scrimping and saving to make the most of the capital we had. Still, when the end came I felt really guilty about having cost my friends and family members the thousands of dollars they had invested in the business, because I couldn’t make my dream work out exactly the way I wanted. In spite of their disappointment, I don’t think any of my investors agreed with my sense of guilt – they knew they were taking a risk and that I had done all that was possible to make the business succeed.
But still, I have continued to feel guilty about it. Blame my Catholic upbringing.
Now, that sense of guilt has been blunted a bit. I wasn’t running some Ponzi scheme, violating the law and the trust of my investors. I wasn’t living high on the hog, bilking people of their entire life’s savings. I was doing my level best, and we just failed (financially – the gallery was a success by about any other measure). That’s life. I still have debts to pay, and will be getting to that this next year if my bookbinding business holds steady.
* * * * * * *
In spite of my (mock) complaining about resenting the success of the ballistics project, I c0ntinue to be very pleased with the ongoing (though slowing) spread of my novel. The ‘official’ tally on the website is 12,500 but this last week alone almost another 150 people have downloaded the book. Yeah, I’d still love to see it conventionally published, with a “Bestseller” table at the local bookstore featuring the book – but given the broken nature of the publishing industry at present, that is pretty unlikely.
And I’m looking forward to getting more serious writing done this next year. First, a book on being a care-provider, then the long-delayed prequel to Communion. Something to look forward to.
* * * * * * *
Tomorrow I deliver another 104 volumes to a client, as I mentioned on Monday. I have confidence that the client will be quite pleased with the work, and consider my fee for doing it more than fair.
And as I have worked on these books the last couple of weeks, I have been doing a lot of thinking. Some of that has peeped out here on this blog, but a lot of it has just been simmering. The comment from the client I mentioned in the first section of this post sort of gelled a number of things for me. That client, and the one tomorrow, consider me to be a talented and successful craftsman. And that is a good feeling.
But it is also only one aspect of who I am.
On gun forums around the world people now know me as one of the guys involved in the ballistics project that almost everyone praises.
Over 12 thousand people have downloaded my novel. It’s just a guess how many have actually read it, or how many of those found it interesting, but I do get some positive feedback about it on a regular basis.
My art gallery was something of an institution here in my community for almost a decade. Now there is a used CD store where it used to be.
My Paint the Moon project captivated the imaginations of many around the world – but also gave plenty of fodder to those who wanted a good laugh.
Things change. Most people know you for only one slice of time, from seldom more than one perspective. What does it all add up to?
I dunno. But the common thread for me through it all is passion. Coming up with an idea, evaluating it, then attempting to do it whole-heartedly. Being passionate enough to be willing to risk failure.
I don’t care if people don’t know something about me. But I do hope that what they do know about me reflects my passion about that one thing.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Government, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Society
I have a friend who complains that when he goes to check his usual blogs on Monday mornings, he has to brace himself about the bad economic news I’ve written about on Sunday. I hadn’t really realized that I had this weekly schedule, but what the hell. In that spirit, if you want another insight into just how f*cked-up the Wall Street financial crisis really is, spend some time with a long piece by Michael Lewis, author of Liar’s Poker. Here’s an excerpt from The End:
To this day, the willingness of a Wall Street investment bank to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to dispense investment advice to grownups remains a mystery to me. I was 24 years old, with no experience of, or particular interest in, guessing which stocks and bonds would rise and which would fall. The essential function of Wall Street is to allocate capital—to decide who should get it and who should not. Believe me when I tell you that I hadn’t the first clue.
I’d never taken an accounting course, never run a business, never even had savings of my own to manage. I stumbled into a job at Salomon Brothers in 1985 and stumbled out much richer three years later, and even though I wrote a book about the experience, the whole thing still strikes me as preposterous—which is one of the reasons the money was so easy to walk away from. I figured the situation was unsustainable. Sooner rather than later, someone was going to identify me, along with a lot of people more or less like me, as a fraud. Sooner rather than later, there would come a Great Reckoning when Wall Street would wake up and hundreds if not thousands of young people like me, who had no business making huge bets with other people’s money, would be expelled from finance.
He’s talking about his experience on Wall Street over 20 years ago.
It’s long. It’s fairly dense in places. But it does a phenomenal job of explaining how we got to the point we have, and how the situation is actually much more grim than most people realize.
OK, I’ll try and post a nice cheery travelogue later.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Government, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Society
Why, yes I did!
OK, this is basically S&L Crisis, Part II: Revenge of the Greedoids. You, and me, and every other US taxpayer are now on the hook for trillions of dollars of bailout money. Why? Deregulation and unwise real estate lending.
That was Sept. 7. And someone in the comments at UTI called me on it, saying that I was grossly overstating the case.
$2 Trillion
Total Fed lending topped $2 trillion for the first time last week and has risen by 140 percent, or $1.172 trillion, in the seven weeks since Fed governors relaxed the collateral standards on Sept. 14. The difference includes a $788 billion increase in loans to banks through the Fed and $474 billion in other lending, mostly through the central bank’s purchase of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds.
OK, I’m not just posting this because I want to say “I told you so.” Rather, take a look at this opening passage from a long piece in today’s Washington Post:
The financial world was fixated on Capitol Hill as Congress battled over the Bush administration’s request for a $700 billion bailout of the banking industry. In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention.
But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion.
The sweeping change to two decades of tax policy escaped the notice of lawmakers for several days, as they remained consumed with the controversial bailout bill. When they found out, some legislators were furious. Some congressional staff members have privately concluded that the notice was illegal. But they have worried that saying so publicly could unravel several recent bank mergers made possible by the change and send the economy into an even deeper tailspin.
“Did the Treasury Department have the authority to do this? I think almost every tax expert would agree that the answer is no,” said George K. Yin, the former chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the nonpartisan congressional authority on taxes. “They basically repealed a 22-year-old law that Congress passed as a backdoor way of providing aid to banks.”
OK, it’s a long piece, so let me summarize: This provision of the tax law limited tax shelters which would arise during a merger of large banks. For over two decades conservative economists and lobbyists for the banks wanted to repeal this law, which would make mergers more attractive (and thereby push consolidation of the banking/financial industry). But Congress – even a number of Republican stalwarts such as Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa – refused to budge on this. So, under cover of the financial crisis, Sec. Paulson just got rid of it by fiat – had it murdered quietly in the night. The result was to make a number of the mergers which occurred in September and October more likely, because the tax liabilities for the resulting larger banks would be much smaller.
This may have actually been a good move in terms of helping to save the financial industry, but it was very bad governance. And that gets me to the point of this post: when I said that the US taxpayer was on the hook for trillions of dollars of our tax money, I was saying so because I understood all too well the prevailing attitude of the Bush administration: “Ignore the law. Trust us, we know what is best. And yes, you will pay for it, whether you like it or not.”
When we have seen the actions and behaviour of the Bush administration in action for almost 8 years, it was fairly easy to conclude that they would use the panic in the financial markets to do just whatever the hell they wanted, and that the initial sums being talked about were likely just the tip of the spear about to skewer the American taxpayer. As I said, these actions may actually have been the right ones – when you come across a car crash, you don’t worry about breaking into someone’s vehicle, you just get the people away from the burning car. But given the ineptitude and crass violation of law demonstrated by the current administration, it was also fairly easy to predict that even if they got through the crisis there would be all kinds of extraneous extra-legal stuff happening to further their own goals and please their friends.
Damn, sometimes I just hate being right.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Been a busy few days, getting everything ready for heading to Patagonia tomorrow morning, so I apologize for the sparsity of posting. And chances are I won’t have a chance to post anything else tomorrow. However, while I am on vacation, I’m having some old posts from my archives queued up for your enjoyment. Most of it is stuff few people have seen, and hasn’t been posted here previously. Some of it is rather long – much longer than what I usually post – and I hope you’ll enjoy it.
If you’re interested in following the progress of the tour we’ll be on, a friend of mine who is going has set up a blog and supposedly the organizers will be posting pix and text from along the trail as we go. When I get back I will certainly be writing up entire thing, as I have done with most of my other trips abroad.
Even though I never got around to learning more than a few bits and pieces of Spanish, I am very much looking forward to this trip. It’s been almost three years since I have had a real vacation, and I think that this will be an important component in my ongoing recovery from caring for Martha Sr for so long. But I’ll miss blogging, and the comments I get – don’t expect responses to either comments or emails until I get back and have a day to recover a bit.
Chat with you then.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Blade Runner, Connections, General Musings, Health, movies, Philip K. Dick, Ridley Scott, Science Fiction, Survival, Writing stuff
As I mentioned the other day, I’ve been very busy getting ready for our trip to Patagonia, including some long hours to wrap up work for clients before I leave.
But I took some time out for a follow-up visit to my doctor. A good thing that I did.
* * * * * * *
As I sat waiting in the exam room for my doctor to come in, I looked around. All the usual stuff. But high up on top of a cabinet, only barely visible from where I sat on the exam table, was a wooden box. Some light-colored wood, perhaps pine or a light oak. It was a bit battered, but in decent shape, about the size of loaf of bread. Not one of those long loafs of sandwich bread – a short loaf, of something like rye or pumpernickel.
One the end of the box bore a large seal, the sort of thing which was popular in the late 19th century. Big outer ring, inner motif of a six-pointed star, cross-hatched on half of each star arm to indicate motion or something. Center of the star had three initials: JBL. Around the ring was more information: “TYRELLS HYGIENIC INST. NEW YORK CITY U.S.A. PATENT JANUARY, 1894 AUGUST, 1897 JUNE 1903.” Outside the ring, one in each upper corner, and one below in the center were three words: “JOY. BEAUTY. LIFE.”
You can get some idea of what this looked like from this image. So far, I have been unable to find an image online of the box I saw.
* * * * * * *
I’d gone in first part of the week to have blood drawn, for tests my doctor wanted to run. I still have the bruise where the aide who drew the blood went a bit too deep and punctured the back of my vein.
My doctor looked over the lab results, looked up at me. “Not too bad. LDL is a bit high, so is your HDL, which helps. Fasting blood sugar also a bit high, but not bad. I think we should give both of those a chance to settle out some more, as you continue to get diet and exercise back completely under your control. The rest all looks pretty good – liver & kidney function, et cetera. Nothing to be too worried about.”
She handed over the sheaf of papers to me. “But I want to do something more about your blood pressure. It is still dangerously high, though you seem to have made some real progress with the beta blocker.”
Yeah, I had – I’d been testing it. And it was down 50 points systolic, 20 points diastolic. About halfway to where it should be.
“Would you be willing to try something else? Another drug?”
Echo of the first conversation we had on the topic. “What did you have in mind?”
“Calcium channel blocker,” she said. “We could still increase the dosage of the beta blocker you’re taking, because you’re on the low end of that. But I would like to see how your system responds to this additional drug, also at a minimal dosage. Then we can tweak dosage levels, if we need to.”
Another good call. “Sure, let’s try it.”
* * * * * * *
My doctor returned with my prescriptions. “Do you have any other questions?”
I pointed at the box up on top of the cabinet. “What’s the story behind that?”
Caught off-guard, she looked at the box, confused.
“I mean, what was in there? Is there a particular reason you have it?”
“No, not really. Nothing’s in there. I just came across it at an antique shop some years ago.” She looked at me. “Why?”
“There was an author in the 60s & 70s who wrote a lot of stuff I like. Philip K. Dick. He had a lot of health issues, and I can imagine him sitting in a room not unlike this one, looking at some variation of a box like that.” I got down off the exam table. “One of his most important books was made into the movie Blade Runner in the early 1980s. In that movie one of the major characters goes by the name Tyrell, and he has a connection to . . . um, the medical industry. I just thought it an interesting coincidence.”
“Oh.” She was completely lost. I’ve worked with doctors enough to know that they do not like this feeling. “Well, we’ll see you after your trip, check out how the new meds are working, OK?”
“Sure.”
Jim Downey
Filed under: Civil Rights, Constitution, General Musings, Government, Politics, Privacy, Society
Md. Police Put Activists’ Names On Terror Lists
The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday.
Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was disclosed in July.
“The names don’t belong in there,” he told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. “It’s as simple as that.”
The surveillance took place over 14 months in 2005 and 2006, under the administration of former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R). The former state police superintendent who authorized the operation, Thomas E. Hutchins, defended the program in testimony yesterday. Hutchins said the program was a bulwark against potential violence and called the activists “fringe people.”
Yeah, we can’t be having those ‘fringe people’ who opposed the Iraq War enjoying the protection of the Constitution, you know. Who the hell do they think they are??
*sigh*
Is it time to get our country back from the fascists, yet?
Jim Downey
(Via John Cole. Cross posted to UTI.)
Communion Of Dreams 