Another Memorial Day is upon us, another summer beginning. Before with get on with our sporting events, cookouts and get togethers, before we go on with our lives. Let us stop for a moment and recall what the day is really for, to keep in mind those whose lives ended early so that we could be free. Remember.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Remember
Another Memorial Day is upon us, another summer beginning. Before with get on with our sporting events, cookouts and get togethers, before we go on with our lives. Let us stop for a moment and recall what the day is really for, to keep in mind those whose lives ended early so that we could be free. Remember.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Saturday Funny
Okay so I did unashamedly rip this off from Cowboy Blob and his commenter, it's still funny. Makes a great poster too! (NOTE: Best if read with fake Russian accent)
Friday, May 27, 2011
Gone Shooting - Shoot a Magnum day
Being off from work today I decided to go shooting. The forecast predicted a chance of rain but I went anyway. It has been nearly 2 months since I've gone (mostly because of rain) and I was going crazy, I was getting an itchy trigger finger and starting to twitch. The only gun I took with me today was my Smith & Wesson Model 27-7, I've had it over a year and it was in danger of becoming a Safe Queen if I didn't shoot it soon. When I got there everything was already wet and muddy so I didn't stay long. I did stay long enough to put 100 rounds through it using 50 rounds each of Fiocchi 142gr target loads and S&B 158gr soft points. The 27-7 was a special limited run Performance Center revolver, with a smooth, silky 10-pound double action and a crisp 3 ¾ pound single action trigger this gun obviously got some one on one with a S&W employee that knew what they were doing. All shooting today was at 10 yards (just because I didn't want to trample back and forth in the mud) using a Weaver stance and Shoot-N-C 5-inch targets. Normally I like to only fire my double action revolvers in double action. I don't want to get in the habit of firing single action on any DA revolver that I might carry. Today I continued firing (almost) all DA although I did put a couple cylinders through it in SA just to see what it was capable of this first time. Top group is the only one I shot (on paper) SA and the bottom is one of my better DA groups this morning, as usual trying to fire as fast as I could. I also took some shots (SA) at a 10-inch steel gong at 50 yards and hit it seven out of eight times. If I could only keep one .357 Magnum revolver (BLASPHEMY!) this would probably be it. A 4-inch barrel is a good compromise for the caliber and having eight rounds of .357 goodness available makes this Smith & Wesson extra special. Despite the rain and mud and generally miserable conditions I still had fun shooting today and discovered that I have yet another "keeper."
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
If at first you don't succeed...
That guy that got a lot of people worked up saying that the Rapture was happening last Saturday has revised his prediction. Noting that he is still here he rechecked and found his math in error. New departure date, October 21st of this year. Keep trying fella, sooner or later you'll have to hit it.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Goodbye
A lot of people are saying the world is ending today. So just in case, nice knowing ya and thanks for reading my blog...
OH NOES! - UK Police adopt ‘unsurvivable’ bullet
Apparently UK Police have just discovered hollowpoint ammunition. Wonder if they would be upset to know you can go to nearly any gun shop, pawnshop or bait & tackle shop in the U.S. and get the same, maybe better. Worst part of the story, the Brits spent £80,000 in a study to discover that hollowpoint bullets were "more effective and posed less risk to the public." They could have just got a subscription to Guns & Ammo and saved a lot of money.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
People with guns collection # 36
"ALI'S A 'KILLER' - SAN MARCOS, TEX.: From busses to bullets, from 'Love Story' to 'The Getaway' - That's part of the Ali MacGraw film story. Steve McQueen teaches Ali how to handle a gun in San Marcos during filming of 'The Getaway,' a National General Pictures Corp. release. Ali had to learn for a scene in which she 'shoots' and 'kills' Ben Johnson." 3/15/72
What happened?
Apparently Blogger was having problems for several days, not being able to post, or them disappearing. I completely missed it, guess when you only post sporadically you do tend to miss important things...
Saturday, May 14, 2011
I carried a badge
A recent post by Guffaw about working as a security guard brought back the memories of my own brief stint as a pseudo law enforcement officer and working the mean streets of the city, well actually, mostly mean vestibules. Starting in '04 I spent over two years working as unarmed security for a local company. At the time I needed extra income to pay off some bills and this was the best job I could find that would work with my schedule.
I did mention it was unarmed security? The company told us that fact four or five times during our initial three-hour orientation. It must have been a big problem with new employees as it was mentioned repeatedly. They also told us as many times that being caught with a gun while working for them was grounds for immediate termination, whether you had a deadly weapons license or not. Know what else would get you fired right quick? Doing anything but observing. You see all of us fledgling "Security Officers" soon discovered that the only thing we were there for was to be a "visual deterrence" for criminals (mostly shoplifters) and to be a good witness if possible. What we were not supposed to do was jeopardize our safety or the company's profits while on their payroll. And they meant it, not even two weeks after we finished "training" one of the guys I started with helped some employees at a store he was working at, he "helped" them by tackling a shoplifter running out the door. Yep, you guessed it, fired on the spot. Poor sap must have thought he was a cop or something. He was mistaken. They tried to tell him numerous times during that extensive half-day training session before we were "signed off" and let loose on the world, guess he wasn't listening. They weren't paying us to "do something," basically we were being paid to stand around and look official and (in theory) we would scare away anyone that meant trouble for our customers. The scarecrow security theory. My first supervisor on the job put it succinctly, he told me to just "stand there and look serious, but friendly."
Being the new guy I got all those exciting jobs that the other employees didn't want. The boring jobs, the uncomfortable jobs, and of course the dangerous jobs. Because of my regular work I didn't have much time available on the weekdays but did on the weekends and I got to work a lot of them. It wasn't unusual for me to have 24-30 hours in before the regular work week arrived Monday morning. The company had a big contract with a local grocery chain and our mission was to stand there in the front vestibule of their store and frighten criminals. I got a lot of those jobs as many of my co-workers refused to do it, or at least found a reason to get out of it. You don't know what fun is until you've stood in the lobby of a grocery store going insane from the tedium, doing your twelve hour shift (usually midnight to noon) with only a very short restroom break every few hours. Good times!
But it wasn't all standing around with your feet killing you for boring hour after hour without end, there was other fun to be had. They also sent me more than a few times to a local downtown hotel notorious for a murder a couple years before, a drug deal had went bad in their secluded back parking lot. My assignment, if I accepted it, was to make a continuous loop, patrolling each floor of the hotel from top to bottom on the hour, including the aforementioned murder site. It was the graveyard shift (12A - 8A) and while it was lonely I wasn't completely alone. As I said the place was infamous for a relatively recent and well known murder and a known drug area. The local police made it a part of their regular beat and I would see them maybe three or four times during the long night. Otherwise I was on my own. The only good thing I can say about the duty was that it wasn't boring as standing looking out the front window of a grocery store for 6 to 12 hours at a time.
Those were the two main duties I had that first year but there were other memorable ones too. Once in a while I worked at a shopping complex in the city center and adjacent to it was a large Catholic Church. Every weekday at noon they would give out food to the needy. Let me tell you that was some fun trying to keep a 100 or more homeless (mostly men), many undoubtedly mentally ill, on the church property and from overrunning and damaging your client's. Your only weapons a harsh look and the threat of calling the real police. Good times!
Then occasionally, maybe once or twice a month, I would get assigned a "gravy" job, typically when someone called in sick or was on vacation. I suppose they were grateful that I took so many unpopular assignments that they would throw me a bone on occasion. It was during these times I would get my own patrol car, ours were little white Ford Focus sedans with a spiffy stripe down the side that read "******* Security" and had a light bar on top. I would usually get the night shift (or course) and would drive around in the nearly empty parking lot, listening to overnight A.M. talk radio while I protected the grocery or department store from evildoers! Good times! Really!
I was popular with my immediate supervisor because I was one of the few guys he had that would take anything offered. I did the dirty jobs many of his other employees wouldn't. Plenty of long shifts and boring posts. I didn't want to either but I had to, I needed the money. I did the work and didn't complain and I'm sure that's what he appreciated the most. In that first year the only job I ever turned down was working the front door at an abortion clinic, that's just something I could not do.
After about 15 months of that kind of "fun" I asked them to cut back my hours. I had paid off some bills by then, I still needed some extra money but I rapidly tired of working seven days a week. Because I had done a good work for them (and without complaints) I must say they made an effort to find me a regular post, something better than what I had been doing. They finally did find something, a nice Saturday only job at a local factory. I would go in the morning at seven and would stay until they were finished, usually three or four that afternoon. I had my own little office, heated and central air. My only duty to sit there at my desk and let people in or out. The rest of the time I could read or listen to the radio, but quietly, and absolutely no TV! Mainly I just tried to stay awake. Infrequently I would still find myself with the odd "interesting" assignment when they really needed me to. Finally I must say I bored of the exciting life of an unarmed security officer and found myself a somewhat better second job, at least it paid more.
Did I ever carry a gun in my "unarmed" security job? Sure did, plenty of times my Smith & Wesson 649 was right there with me. Usually in a holster around my ankle or occasionally in a "tuckable" holster inside my waistband. It was legal for me to carry and any time it seemed prudent to have a gun I did, like the murder hotel for instance. I was willfully violating company policy and knew I would be fired then and there if caught, but it was my life on the line so I decided to take that chance. The company knew to, at least I believe my "field" supervisor did. There were a couple of times he seemed to notice me "printing" but never said a word. They probably sent him on some dangerous jobs too when he first started.
I did mention it was unarmed security? The company told us that fact four or five times during our initial three-hour orientation. It must have been a big problem with new employees as it was mentioned repeatedly. They also told us as many times that being caught with a gun while working for them was grounds for immediate termination, whether you had a deadly weapons license or not. Know what else would get you fired right quick? Doing anything but observing. You see all of us fledgling "Security Officers" soon discovered that the only thing we were there for was to be a "visual deterrence" for criminals (mostly shoplifters) and to be a good witness if possible. What we were not supposed to do was jeopardize our safety or the company's profits while on their payroll. And they meant it, not even two weeks after we finished "training" one of the guys I started with helped some employees at a store he was working at, he "helped" them by tackling a shoplifter running out the door. Yep, you guessed it, fired on the spot. Poor sap must have thought he was a cop or something. He was mistaken. They tried to tell him numerous times during that extensive half-day training session before we were "signed off" and let loose on the world, guess he wasn't listening. They weren't paying us to "do something," basically we were being paid to stand around and look official and (in theory) we would scare away anyone that meant trouble for our customers. The scarecrow security theory. My first supervisor on the job put it succinctly, he told me to just "stand there and look serious, but friendly."
Being the new guy I got all those exciting jobs that the other employees didn't want. The boring jobs, the uncomfortable jobs, and of course the dangerous jobs. Because of my regular work I didn't have much time available on the weekdays but did on the weekends and I got to work a lot of them. It wasn't unusual for me to have 24-30 hours in before the regular work week arrived Monday morning. The company had a big contract with a local grocery chain and our mission was to stand there in the front vestibule of their store and frighten criminals. I got a lot of those jobs as many of my co-workers refused to do it, or at least found a reason to get out of it. You don't know what fun is until you've stood in the lobby of a grocery store going insane from the tedium, doing your twelve hour shift (usually midnight to noon) with only a very short restroom break every few hours. Good times!
But it wasn't all standing around with your feet killing you for boring hour after hour without end, there was other fun to be had. They also sent me more than a few times to a local downtown hotel notorious for a murder a couple years before, a drug deal had went bad in their secluded back parking lot. My assignment, if I accepted it, was to make a continuous loop, patrolling each floor of the hotel from top to bottom on the hour, including the aforementioned murder site. It was the graveyard shift (12A - 8A) and while it was lonely I wasn't completely alone. As I said the place was infamous for a relatively recent and well known murder and a known drug area. The local police made it a part of their regular beat and I would see them maybe three or four times during the long night. Otherwise I was on my own. The only good thing I can say about the duty was that it wasn't boring as standing looking out the front window of a grocery store for 6 to 12 hours at a time.
Those were the two main duties I had that first year but there were other memorable ones too. Once in a while I worked at a shopping complex in the city center and adjacent to it was a large Catholic Church. Every weekday at noon they would give out food to the needy. Let me tell you that was some fun trying to keep a 100 or more homeless (mostly men), many undoubtedly mentally ill, on the church property and from overrunning and damaging your client's. Your only weapons a harsh look and the threat of calling the real police. Good times!
Then occasionally, maybe once or twice a month, I would get assigned a "gravy" job, typically when someone called in sick or was on vacation. I suppose they were grateful that I took so many unpopular assignments that they would throw me a bone on occasion. It was during these times I would get my own patrol car, ours were little white Ford Focus sedans with a spiffy stripe down the side that read "******* Security" and had a light bar on top. I would usually get the night shift (or course) and would drive around in the nearly empty parking lot, listening to overnight A.M. talk radio while I protected the grocery or department store from evildoers! Good times! Really!
I was popular with my immediate supervisor because I was one of the few guys he had that would take anything offered. I did the dirty jobs many of his other employees wouldn't. Plenty of long shifts and boring posts. I didn't want to either but I had to, I needed the money. I did the work and didn't complain and I'm sure that's what he appreciated the most. In that first year the only job I ever turned down was working the front door at an abortion clinic, that's just something I could not do.
After about 15 months of that kind of "fun" I asked them to cut back my hours. I had paid off some bills by then, I still needed some extra money but I rapidly tired of working seven days a week. Because I had done a good work for them (and without complaints) I must say they made an effort to find me a regular post, something better than what I had been doing. They finally did find something, a nice Saturday only job at a local factory. I would go in the morning at seven and would stay until they were finished, usually three or four that afternoon. I had my own little office, heated and central air. My only duty to sit there at my desk and let people in or out. The rest of the time I could read or listen to the radio, but quietly, and absolutely no TV! Mainly I just tried to stay awake. Infrequently I would still find myself with the odd "interesting" assignment when they really needed me to. Finally I must say I bored of the exciting life of an unarmed security officer and found myself a somewhat better second job, at least it paid more.
Did I ever carry a gun in my "unarmed" security job? Sure did, plenty of times my Smith & Wesson 649 was right there with me. Usually in a holster around my ankle or occasionally in a "tuckable" holster inside my waistband. It was legal for me to carry and any time it seemed prudent to have a gun I did, like the murder hotel for instance. I was willfully violating company policy and knew I would be fired then and there if caught, but it was my life on the line so I decided to take that chance. The company knew to, at least I believe my "field" supervisor did. There were a couple of times he seemed to notice me "printing" but never said a word. They probably sent him on some dangerous jobs too when he first started.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Really sad to hear
Just read today where actress and singer Yvette Vickers' body was discovered in her home back on April 27th. She would have been 83 this coming August. Her body was described as "mummified" and evidently she could have been dead for nearly a year before being discovered. Yvette never was a big star but I loved those campy "B" movies she appeared in. She also held a special place in my heart for another reason (See below). I was truly shocked to read this news and I'm saddened that anyone would have to die like this. It's just hard to believe that this lady could be dead in her house for that long and not one person, not a neighbor or even the mailman could be bothered to check in on her in all that time. Just sad.The following tribute to Yvette was posted on my original website jwilsonsworld on 5/17/2004.
The year was 1972; my friend Bobby and I were secretly looking through his father's old copies of Playboy magazine. I opened the July 1959 issue and my eyes fell upon this provocative beauty. She was nude! Not only was she nude but she also seemed to be quite happy about it (which was completely contrary to my southern Baptist upbringing). Looking back today, her nudity seems mild, almost innocent. In these modern times you can see more nudity on prime time television, but in 1972 to a very young and impressionable boy it was rather exotic and exciting. Much later on I discovered "Miss July 1959" actually had a real name and was a real person, her name was Yvette Vickers. Yvette Vickers is a cult movie star today, best known for films like Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Reform School Girl and Juvenile Jungle. These movies (and Yvette Vickers' acting) are better than their titles would suggest, in fact they are really good and very entertaining. Watching these movies you can see the talent this woman has and the extra special something inside her that could have made her a really big star if someone would have given her a chance. I don't guess Hollywood really ever gave her that big chance, that's too bad for Hollywood and especially too bad for us movie fans, I think she would have been great.
Thank you Yvette, wherever you are, for giving a little boy his first look at a "real" naked lady and a grown man a very fond childhood memory.
Sunday, May 08, 2011
Another day too
Besides Mother's Day today is also the 66th anniversary of VE Day in Europe."Some WAAC's from Elveden. This is at London on V-E-Day near A.R.C. Club."
For Mom
A happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers out there! Sorry dads, you have to wait another month.
Thursday, May 05, 2011
Finally
Ruger has finally announced the production of their own 25 round magazines for 10/22 rifles. These will function with all 10/22s and Charger pistols and suggested retail is 29.95. I've been waiting for factory mags a while now and will buy several after the initial frenzy dies down. I'm not the only one that has been wanting these though so it might be some time...
Monday, May 02, 2011
CHAPTER TEN
Chapter Ten is now posted and it's the longest one yet. Enjoy, and remember comments can be posted here or with the story. Thanks!
Good
Finally that day we have been waiting years for has arrived. A big THANK YOU to everyone involved, especially for those with their boots on the ground risking their lives to make this all possible. Again, THANK YOU!