20 February 2018

It's Not That We Aren't Listening

It's that we've heard it all before. Gun control, yadda yadda, scary rifles, blah blah blah, FOR THE CHIIIIILDRENNNNN (and may I point out to you that accusing us of not loving our children is not conducive to getting us to agree to your inane schemes that have proven to a) not work and b) be extremely destructive of personal liberties).

Observe:

Evil AR-15 thundercannon murderstick
 This is an AR-15. It is the generic term for a rifle originally designed by the Armalite Corporation (hence the A in AR) and sold to Colt in 1959. It is a semi automatic magazine fed rifle chambered in .223 Remington. It has been available to the civilian market since 1964, but after the original patents expired in 1977 the market really exploded. The select fire version, designated the M-16, went into service in 1961when the US Air Force purchased 8500 of them. The AR-15 is the most popular sporting firearm in America today. I probably should own one some day.

Nice Ruger Mini-14 like Grandpa used to have
This is the Ruger Mini-14. It is also a semiautomatic magazine fed rifle chambered in .223. Functionally there is absolutely no difference between the two rifles; they are chambered in the same cartridge, have the same size magazines available, and have the same rate of fire (just as fast as you can work the trigger). The Mini-14 is also a very popular sporting firearm.

If you show these two pictures to a hoplophobe they will most likely wet their pants in sheer terror of the first one and not mind the second one so much since it looks so much like Grandpa's squirrel rifle. After all, they are trying to be reasonable, they don't want to take your guns...right?


Ruger Mini-14 Tactical
yeah...

OK, fine...

I have been taken to task for my lack of blogging.

Not really, but it was pointed out to me that I haven't done it for a while.

So, here's what I've been up to:


 This dollhouse has been a work in progress for several years, Laura bought it ten or eleven years ago. I finally got it done and took it to Florida for the eldest grand-daughter. She's going to have to finish the shingles on the roof, but all the structure is complete at least.

 Along with the bathroom we are also pulling up all the carpet in the house. We got the front room more or less complete (SWMBO still hasn't decided what final floor covering she wants) and moved the bookshelves in what will become the library when I get around to relocating a few walls.

 My Little Pony got a styling bar for my birthday, I've wanted to put one on it for a while and now I have.

 Eldest Boy finally moved out and I got my train room back!



 I had some passenger equipment custom painted. Above is a 4-6-4 Hudson streamline locomotive in Erie paint. To the best of my knowledge the Erie never had Hudsons, much less streamlined ones, but it sure does look good. It leads a set of streamline cars that I also had painted in the Erie scheme...just before finding a full set of factory painted cars at the local hobby shop.

Below is a set of heavyweight passenger cars in Norfolk and Western paint. Of course, as soon as I had them painted a set of factory painted ones showed up at a train show...

 I also had a semi-streamlined Pacific painted for the N&W. Again, as far as I know the N&W did not have semi-streamlined Pacifics. It was a fine running locomotive when I disassembled it for paint. Unfortunately it isn't any more. It will look good on the display line I guess.  Maybe one day I'll figure out how to get it to run properly again, but until then I have a pair of J class locos to pull the varnish.

Last but not least, yesterday was the third anniversary of my first date with M. It was snowing, so the restaurant was empty and we had the full attention of the wait staff...which wasn't so good when I was trying to monopolize her attention...but the date went well.

And that's about it.