Post Fodder From Arfcom

There's a thread asking if our adult gun purchases have exceeded our childhood expectations?

In a word, "Wildly."

I think I still own one of these guns.

 

Though if I traveled back in time and told Young Thag, "You will never own that Galil ARM, but it not bother you you don't."

Young Thag would not believe me.

Further, if I told him, "Your favorite rifle will be an AR-15," I think he would try and get the crazy old man talking to him committed.

That, of course, means I'm talking to the Thag who's just discovered role playing games and is slowly coming to the realization that you actually could just buy some of these guns.

Not all that long before that, despite my interests in military history and technology, he'd have been shocked that someone could amass such a collection.  Nobody NEEDS a gun, after all.

FuzzyGeff, talked me down.

Fat Ass

Way back when...

I was 156 lb.

This was when I could run, bike and walk without a limp.

Today I am 275 lb.

I can get the -3 points for being Fat in GURPS.

Joy.

This is the second time I've been this big.

Right after getting out of the Army I ballooned up to 300 lb.

I had kept eating like I was doing PT every morning, but wasn't because I could barely walk.

I reduced my intake and got down to 200 lb. and stayed there for years.

Sadly, my metabolism has slowed again and I gained a great deal back.

I am at a loss as to how to address it within the confines of being crippled. 

Relationship Advice

Make them happy.

That is all.

If they aren't happy, then they will make damn sure you're not happy either.

It doesn't even have to be diamonds!

An order of boneless chicken wings will suffice when you promised to check on seeing if the local brewery's food truck had them.

Pay attention and it pays dividends! 

Starting Wealth

TL8 starting wealth is $20,000.

Under standard, settled lifestyle, assumptions you can spend 1/5 of that on "adventuring gear."

Want a humbling moment?

Add up all of your assets and calculate how many starting wealths it takes to cover them.

My freaking house, according to Zillow, is $179,200.

If that's 4/5 of what I own then I need $224,000 for a starting wealth.

"Wealthy" is $100,000.  20 points.

"Very Wealthy" is $400,000.  30 points.

I'm somewhere between wealthy and very wealthy.

I don't FEEL wealthy, but here we are.

I can no longer relate to myself as a character.

Several of my friends are in better financial condition based on their home's value.

What the actual fuck?

I Am Now A Psychologist

Once upon a time, no shit there I was...

I embarked on being a psychologist.

In my senior year, I did an (unpaid) internship with a practicing psychologist and discovered that, not only, did I not have the temperament for the job; I didn't have any interest in the work.

I loved the science and the research part, but not what 99.5% of psychologists do.

While my grades were OK, they weren't near good enough to get a position at the university or to continue on to a masters with the money available to me.  So I quit with six credits of English untaken to complete the degree.

So I fell back on my mechanical design degree to keep the lights on and motored away.

About ten years later, I got a bachelor's in business administration.

The situation with The Boy prevented me from ever working with my BA, and I have been a, relatively, happy house husband ever since.

But a friend kept harping at me to put in the English credits from my BA into my first degree...

And here we are!  I am now a graduate of Iowa State University with a bachelor's degree of science in Psychology!  Class of 2026!

Hurray me...  It only took 30 years to complete.

I plan on doing the same thing with the degree I did without.

It's been a while since I looked into working in the field and I don't have any licenses or professional memberships cultivated so getting a job looks like a bigger pain than it'd be worth anyway.

So Different

I am so enamored with Dottie's current configuration that I grabbed Tabitha to see how they compared...

They both have early furniture, but the slightly heavier Dottie points so much better.

I'm at a loss.  Dottie just feels better than Tabitha.

There's so many ineffable gun things.

Classified

No shit, there I was...

We were finished with gunnery at Graf and were loading the tanks onto the tank transporters.

This is the most nerve wracking thing I've ever done with a tank because you cannot see where you're going.

The nose of the tank is WAY up in the air and all you can see of the ground-guide* is their hands as you creep past the center of gravity and the bow falls back down to normal.

I hear they replaced the trailers we used with better designs that take more weight and have a shallower angle so you can see what the ground-guide is telling you better.

So...

With the nose in the air, hands just barely peeking above the bow, sliding back in the seat...  There's a strong temptation to pull oneself up to see better.

The only thing to pull on is the steering bar.

Me?  I'd listened to the pre-load brief and adjusted my seat so I didn't slide back and could still see.

But someone from 1st platoon didn't.

They pulled themselves up on the steering bar and managed to gun it AND steer hard to the left!  Now there's an M1(IP) on its side next to the tank transporter trailer.

Worse, the impact tore open the front skirt section and the Chobham armor within was exposed for all to see.

I seen't it!

We all got rounded up, once a tarp was put over the exposed, and classified, armor, and got briefed on how we never saw that.

Everyone in the battalion knew 1st platoon had dumped a tank and exposed the armor.  So, of course, everyone asked, "what'd you see?"

We were sworn to secrecy and we kept the secret!  It did not stop us from making shit up. 

Our favorite story was how there was a pink, toothpaste-like material in there and that was the secret.  "I saw the pink goo oozing out!"

Or we mentioned that it was just sand in there.

One guy said it was Styrofoam with black flecks.

I sure hope we messed with the Soviet espionage efforts! 

* A ground-guide is a person on the ground giving the driver hand signals to maneuver the tank in tight spaces or with precision because the driver cannot see where they are going. 

A Matter Of Tips

I just read that it's been 33 years since Dateline NBC tried to convince America that Estes rocket motors were OEM parts on 1973 to 1987 GM pickups.

I had something of a personal connection to this story.

Michael "Boom Boom" Gartner left NBC to come back to Iowa and run the Ames Tribune.

He'd order pizza from the place I worked as a delivery driver.

We'd fight over who had to take that order because he was a notoriously bad tipper.

As far as I know, I was the only driver who knew about his connection to Dateline NBC.

The other drivers just knew the tip would be bad and it'd happened enough they remembered the name and address.

We were very aware of the tips.

On the other hand there was a Mexican restaurant and a motel we fought to get the delivery.

Both were excellent sources of tips.  Interestingly, the motel was the one the dancers at a local strip club stayed at.  Strippers are EXCELLENT tippers.  They were also very casual about getting dressed when answering the door.

Victim Of The End

From what I've been able to find...

We transitioned to the M1A1(HA) just before the Berlin Wall came down.

I question this transition actually happened with my memories being so very messed up from my very bad evening when the wall did fall.

I know we did the training, and I'm reasonably sure the tank I took a swan dive from was an A1...

What makes me doubt my recollection is that 1st Infantry Division was GONE from Panzer in 1990.  Mere months later.

What makes me sure of my recollection is we had no idea Cold War was ending and the change to newer tanks was long planned.

Considering how hard it is to find ANYTHING on 3-34AR, it's hard to confirm or deny my memories.

I definitely remember rolling out the gate when the "unrest" in Berlin started and staying out at the company maneuver area for the next three days and learning about The Wall coming down while we were camping.

And falling off the tank while we were packing up to head back to post...  Though for years I had trouble reconciling the dates on my records with events.  Trauma does that to your mind, in case you didn't know. 

Anniversary

36 years ago, today, I stopped being being able to walk without a limp!

Oh, and the Berlin Wall came down too. 

Gifted

A long, long time ago, my local school did IQ tests on everyone.

If you scored really well, you got put into the "gifted" program, which was a "work at your own pace" kind of deal and I started it in 4th grade.

Except for math, I was doing 7th grade level stuff by the end of 5th grade.  I was still at 4th grade for math.

Then my parents divorced.

The school in my mom's parents hometown, where we relocated, didn't have a gifted program, so I was put into classes with my age group.

6th grade.

I complained bitterly that I'd already absorbed this material and I was bored out of my fucking mind.

But I KNEW the material and it was easy to get A's without doing any work.  So I stopped doing work.

I was fine until we moved again and I started 7th grade.

I'd forgotten how to do the work.

My grades plummeted, though I did finally manage to "get" math.

By the time I'd relearned how to learn, I got dumped onto my father and into a school that was two years of being bullied for being the outsider.

But now I knew how to learn again, but I didn't learn the classes.  I learned how the school itself worked.  That makes it a lot easier to get over on the teacher.

At the very end of living with my dad, I also learned how to deal with bullies.

Just in time to move back to Mom's and teach the bullies who'd forgotten me while I was away...

The Iowa schools were so much easier to game than the Minnesota schools too.

Simple things like spotting that the detention teacher doesn't know you're supposed to be there unless you take the slip from the office to them.  And the office trusted me to do so.  As long as the teacher that put you into detention didn't spot you and remember you...  It was a period of doing anything I wanted.

It should be noted that none of my clever machinations did a thing to help my grades.

I was a C average student leaving High School, and I didn't care because I was going into the Army and not college.

And, having blown the curve on the ASVAB, I selected combat arms.

If I ever get a time machine I am taking young McThag out behind the woodshed and beating some sense into him and forcing him to change his MOS to something useful outside the military.  And erasing my existence, I am sure. 

I Feel This Pic

Got it from Ace.

I suspect that Weer'd Beard is similar.

FuzzyGeff can confirm what a flaming lib I used to be and how patient he was about talking me down.

It didn't really take until I'd gotten out of the Army.

Going to exotic places and seeing just how thin the veneer of civilization was...  It's illuminating.

I never felt that I'd moved much politically, but that the people who wanted my vote kept shifting away.

While I understand HOW gay rights and gun rights end up on opposite sides of the center; I still don't Grok WHY.

I really don't understand how or why it became mandatory to hate the people who disagree with you and I'm as shocked as anyone that it's the accepting and tolerant Left that's the party of hate.

To see that they were never accepting and tolerant was my political awakening.

On The Tree

Found this pic on Facebook: 

I had been driving for a few years before I encountered a car that had "three on the tree" or, in my mind, a stick shift with the shifter where an automatic trans selector should be.

All the manuals I'd driven, to this point, were on the floor and all the automatics on the column.

I remember being relieved and disappointed to find it was simply the same H-pattern as a floor shifter; just rotated 90°.

I was expecting something a lot more cryptic.

 

Poverty Cycle

Nostalgia has driven me to repeatedly get a 1911.

My first one was my dad's Rem-Rand.  I regret trading that one for my Glock 21, and I keep that Glock just to remind me.  I like the G21, but it's no Rem-Rand M1911A1!

Number two was an AMT Hardballer.  I didn't really care for it.  Something was off about the feel and I sold it to a buddy.

Three was a Springfield M-1911 A1 GI.  The goofy lock in the mainspring housing bugged me, but not enough to swap it out.  I toted this gun for quite a while.  It got sold to a buddy when my CMP M1911A1 entered the chat.

Four is a Colt Gov't Model 38 Super.  My only Mk.80 lockwork, and she shoots a dream.  This one got tinkered with a great deal.

Five is the mixmaster Ithaca M1911A1 I got from the CMP.

I've managed to get the number to two and stay there for years!

Huzzah for me!

Glock 17's slip through my hands a lot too.

I had to sell the first Gen 1 I got from Patch Rod and Gun club because of the circumstances of how I purchased it.  The dispensation to get it didn't extend to bringing it back into the states.

The second Gen 1 was a used one.  I think it was part of the same trade as the Rem-Rand.

My first Gen 2 went to AuntTheBat because she needed a pistol for home defense once we broke up and she kicked me out.

I went a long time without a 17 until the Gen 2 that's in my safe now showed up.

I almost got a Gen 5, but that got subverted into a Glock 45.

I am poised to get a Lipsey's Gen 1 Classic to fill the niche of "issue" guns that the Gen 2 fills right now.

It's nice that I haven't HAD to sell a gun for a long time to keep the utilities on and a roof over my head.

I am sure my mom tried to explain this stuff, but it didn't take until I'd made all the mistakes.

Red Dawn Trivia

Driving home from visiting my Dad's parents in Homeland, CA we happened to stop at a truck stop that had three helicopters packed onto flat-beds.

I was quick to spot the Soviet markings, but they were mostly under tarps.

There's so much military in the Southwest, we had no idea what they could be.  Real gear being tested?  Vis-mods for training?

Some months later, in a theater, I shout, "I saw those packed on a truck in a truck stop!"

I'm No Good At This

Often times among my friends I am just the MOST socialized.

That doesn't mean I'm well socialized.

I routinely get the signals wrong.

With depressing regularity, I will end up depressed about how someone said something and take days or weeks to come to grips that it was just an offhanded remark.

You'd think I would be better at this by now.

Things You Can't Do Anymore

In 1984 or 1985 the motorcycle gang club my dad was a member of decided to do a winter road trip to Mexico.

We started in Minneapolis.

In WINTER.

If you rode the whole way, you got a special patch!

Since I already had all the winter gear from riding three-wheelers in the snow, I opted to ride the whole way.

I, foolishly, left my patch jacket with my dad when I moved back to Iowa. 

However, this story is not about that!

This is 500 bikers descending on Mexico in January for three weeks.

Actually, it's not a story.

It's mentioning that I climbed the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan.

That is no longer allowed.

I can understand why.

Still, it's neat to be able to say I did something like that.

It also occurs to me that seeing both the Teotihuacan site and several Egyptian pyramids (though from a distance) makes me a bit unusual.

The trip to Egypt was taxpayer funded and the whole battalion got to go play in the desert with our tanks.  The exercise was cancelled because of a terrorist threat, so it was really camping in the desert with tanks rather than a real joint exercise.

The ride on the ship across the Med was fun.

Odd Feeling

Neither of the buildings I attended school in Ames still exist.

Welch Jr High is gone.

Ames High School is still on the same site, but they tore down the building I went to school in.

The school I attended in Nevada, Iowa for 5th and 6th grade, Milford, is still there, but it's a house now. 

Oddly the school in Bolingbrook, Illinois I attended from K to 4th grade is still there.  I was there on day one when Wood View Elementary opened.

The schools I went to in Blaine, Minnesota for 9th and 10th grade are both still there.

The university that I graduated from is both out of business and the building is gone.

I'm not old enough for the world to have changed this much!

Finish Line In Sight

My mortgage is now 21 years old!

I bought it a drink.

Since we've been adding a little principle every month for a while, our 30 year mortgage is prolly a 26.5 year.

Feels good to be getting there.

Places That No Longer Exist For 600

The Biscayne SS was, originally, the chief of police of Carlisle, Iowa's car.

He got the department to get him a cushy Caprice Classic instead of a spartan 9C1.

Wright Chevrolet was the dealer the department bought the cars through, logically enough.

I stumbled across the badge I removed years ago.

There is no longer a Wright Chevrolet in Carlisle, Iowa.

There is no Chevy dealer at all in Carlisle, Iowa.

That is a bummer and I have the sads.

David Freiburger loves pictures of this kind of thing.  I think he mourns for the loss as well.