Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Guns, Health, Humor, Migraine, Preparedness, RKBA, Sleep, Survival, Violence
I haven’t mentioned it here yet, but the other day one of the cats tried to kill me, and almost succeeded. Evil little bastard. As I told a friend:
Dance of Stupidity & Pain
My afternoon was filled with a whole lotta screaming and cursing. Well, OK, “filled” isn’t quite right, since it was mostly compressed into one 10-minute period. Which started with me putting down a can for the dog, then turning to try and avoid stepping/falling on the cat coming to investigate. Damned cat. I now have three rather nasty punctures deep into the back of the web of my right hand, along with a ugly bruised big left toe, and a swollen left knee. Oh, and lots of pain associated with all of those, plus the spike in my headache following the adrenaline dump of trying not to kill either myself or the cat.
Well, the headache went on to become a nice little migraine, and the knee is still extremely annoying. Nothing to see a doc about – this is the knee I’ve had surgery on twice, and I know exactly what is going on. I probably broke the last bone in the toe, but the only thing they do with those is to take it easy and tell you to let it heal – I’ve done it too many times to count. Anyway, the low-grade pain has interrupted my sleep the last couple of days, the headache persists, and I’m more than a little grumpy. This may have influenced my appreciation of the movie last night, but I don’t think so – it was dreadful enough in its own right.
But I just came across something to make me chuckle. In one of the gun discussion forums I check out, the topic of “why do you carry” came up. I’ve written about this before, of course, and have my own reasons. Here’s this, though:
Remember the average response time to a 911 call is over 4 minutes.
The average response time of a 357 magnum is 1400 FPS.
Heh. The guy’s numbers are even about right. Well, for the .357. Response times for 911 calls vary widely, but all are measured in multiples of minutes.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Civil Rights, Constitution, Daily Kos, Failure, Government, Guns, Politics, RKBA, Society
No, not from blogging. And it is only tangentially related to yesterday’s post. Rather, from visiting some of my usual gun forums – the upcoming inauguration has caused a resurgence of hatin’ on “LIEBRALS and DEMONCRATS”, and I just don’t have the stomach for it right now. As I said in a diary I posted on dKos a month ago:
I have given up participation in some gun forums for being told that I cannot be a gun owner and still be a liberal. Seriously, sometimes it is impossible to get other gun owners to understand that this issue does not need to be one which breaks down according to party alignment (and isn’t good for gun rights if it does). Even my family and some of my gun-owning friends have a hard time wrapping their head around it. The most common refrain is that no “true” gun owner can possibly be a liberal, or vote for a Democrat.
It happened again to me last night in one forum I particularly like. But I’ve seen much too much such sentiment the last week or so, on a variety of such discussion forums.
It’s maddening. Maddening because it is so damned short-sighted. A lot of people would rather be “pure” than win – they don’t care if they lose an argument, or their rights, so long as they get to trumpet their moral superiority. And a whole lot of “gun-rights activists”, who have tied their activism to the tail of an elephant, and now are so aligned with that party that they can’t see that there is a better path to preserving their Second Amendment rights. A path where the RKBA, and all the rest of the Bill of Rights, is respected and preserved by *both* major political parties. No, they would much rather pay homage to the GOP, and so alienate most moderate gun owners that they seem to be extremists – and therein delegitimize their cause, perhaps even hastening new pointless gun control legislation.
Gah. Makes me crazy.
So, I’m going to take a break. Being off to the wilds of northern California next week will help. Maybe the worst of this outbreak will pass by the time I get back.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Ballistics by the inch Blog and UTI.)
Filed under: Climate Change, Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Guns, Health, Humor, movies, Nuclear weapons, Predictions, Preparedness, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Weather
Gah – it’s 55 degrees here. Inside, I mean. No, we don’t have the thermostat turned that low. The heating system, an old hot-water radiator setup, just can’t keep up when the temps get down to below zero Fahrenheit. Not in an old house with minimal insulation (and no simple way of adding any). So we wander around, playing Quintet, waiting for something resembling normal weather to return, trying to get done what we can.
It’s sobering. And instructive. In Communion of Dreams I stipulate a long period of harsh winters for much of the northern hemisphere, following the ‘small’ nuclear war in Asia. Having lived through some 15 Iowa winters, it was easy to imagine what that would be like. But I was younger, and memory is fleeting. Combine those cold conditions for a prolonged period with an economic collapse, and those years in my novel would be brutal – moreso than any of us probably understand.
And let’s hope it stays that way. When I read things like this, I wonder whether I have been entirely too optimistic about our future. Then again, not like these geniuses have been right about anything else for the last couple of years.
Wait – they’ve been entirely too optimistic, too, haven’t they? That’s what got us into this financial mess.
Gods, now I really am depressed.
And cold.
Jim Downey
I thought the anniversary for this was today. Turns out it was this past Sunday. Oh well. Thought it might be amusing to some.
From a plaque in my office:
The Columbia Police Department would like to recognize James Theodore Downey for his assistance in the apprehension of individuals accused of the Bank of America Robbery. On January 4, 2002, the Columbia Police Department responded to a Bank Robbery in progress at the Bank of America facility located at 5 Old Highway 63 South. At approximately 9:39 A.M. a male subject entered the facility wearing a red stocking cap or sweat shirt, having a mask over his face displaying a chrome-type handgun. The suspect then fled the bank to a nearby vehicle parked in an apartment complex nearby.
Mr. Downey was in the area of the Bank Robbery when he observed a subject running from the bank towards an apartment complex near the bank. Mr. Downey kept watch of the area when he observed a tan colored Dodge Stratus leaving the area very quickly being driven by a black male and appeared to be the sole occupant. Mr. Downey was able to obtain the Missouri Registration on the vehicle, 123-ABC which was immediately dispatched to officers in the area. Checking the Department of Revenue it was found that the vehicle was registered to an individual residing on North Parkview Court. Officers were able to place the residence under surveillance where the suspect was taken into custody a short time later near the residence.
Inside the vehicle was a weapon and money linking the driver to the bank robbery. However, the driver of the vehicle was a white male. It was later learned that the white male suspect had robbed the bank and had run to his vehicle parked in the area which was being driven by a second suspect, a black male that Mr. Downey had seen leaving the area in the vehicle. The white male subject is believed to have been laying on the seat, out of view to officers in the area. The subsequent investigation led to arrest of the two suspects in the robbery and the recovery of nearly all the money taken.
Mr. Downey is commended for his quick and decisive actions. By immediately reporting the crime and by accurately detailing the location, actions, and descriptions of the suspects and vehicle, these felons were apprehended. The Columbia Police Department and the citizens of Columbia thank James Theodore Downey for his intervention and involvement.
News reports here and here. I never had to testify – though I jumped through the preliminary steps of having to do so – the suspects worked out a plea deal and went to prison. I’ve been a bit circumspect in not naming names here, and changing the license number of the car in the item above, to make it marginally less easy for them or their friends to tie me to the arrests (though of course the item above is in the public archive of the city someplace).
Anyway, I get a kick out of it. Makes for a good story. No, I never got any kind of reward or even a note of thanks from the Bank of America. Figures.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
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: Ballistics, Flu, Guns, Health, Pandemic, Preparedness, Society, Survival
Naturally enough, given the backstory and plot devices in Communion of Dreams, I have written here many times about the threat of pandemic flu. And given my recent involvement in the Ballistics by the inch project, I have also written about ballistics fairly often. But it is still a little weird to see the two things come together.
Say what?
I was doing a little checking on the Bbti site stats this morning, since we created the site a month ago (didn’t go public with it until two days later). To date we’ve had just under (by about 2,000) a third of a million hits to that site. In looking at where the site had been mentioned (referring links), I noticed that early this month it had been posted in a thread over at PANDEMIC FLU INFORMATION FORUM.
Weird.
Sure, it makes sense. As I have argued here, being prepared for a pandemic may well mean being armed. And in making some intelligent decisions about firearm ownership, particularly for those who are not already firearms owners, having a resource like Bbti can be very helpful. This was one of the primary reasons we came up with the project, after all. Still, it was a little odd to see the site mentioned and discussed in the context of pandemic flu for me this morning.
Now if I could just get them to mention Communion of Dreams . . .
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
OK, this is a little weird.
I’ve created a monster. Well, not just me, but it’s at least largely my writing. Not that even my own sister could tell that.
See, the Ballistics by the inch project has been really successful. Really successful. Like over-a-quarter-million-hits-in-the-two-weeks-since-we-launched-it successful. I won’t know the actual number for a couple of hours, but already yesterday it was past that mark.
That’s more than twice the number of hits I’ve had to the Communion of Dreams site in the entire two years since it launched.
The Bbti blog now gets more hits daily than this blog does. And that’s with just a handful of posts and comments over there. Compared to the two years worth of writing and commenting here – some 565 posts, hundreds of thousands of words, hours and hours and hours of hard work and pouring out my soul. And in two weeks that other blog is doing better.
Now, I don’t begrudge other writers their success. We each do what we think is important, write for an audience of one (ourselves) and if others respond to our work, that’s great. But I feel like the guy who ghosted the Clinton autobiography (either one – take your pick), watching the thing skyrocket to the top of the bestseller lists, generating millions of dollars in sales – his (or her) work, but little or no credit, and the response is purely due to factors out of his control.
Well, OK, I do get credit on both the Bbti site and the blog. My name is all over those. But when my own sister called to tell me how cool the main site was, she was stunned to find out that I did virtually all the writing there. She was surprised to find that the light-hearted tone, the easy going humor, was all my writing. She loved it, mind, but she just didn’t recognize it as my writing style.
Man, talk about having mixed feelings. Um, thanks?
Well, anyway. It’s weird, being resentful of your own success.
Jim Downey
For those following along, here’s a quick update to yesterday’s post about Bbti.
As noted, the increase in traffic on Monday had seemed to be continuing, at least to some extent. The stats for Tuesday are 33,528 hits, for a total of almost 100,000 hits in just two days.
Wow.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 