It's Back

It's getting to be all guns, all the time here.

Remember this gun?


I had it refinished to...this!



$200 for the gun, $220 for the refinish yields an $800 gun.

Posted

Just The Cutest Thing EVER

Why I Am Not Afraid Of Palin's Religion

She will allow me to remained ARMED!!

It's really hard to suppress an armed populace or force your values on them.

Quote Of The Random Interval

The world breaks everyone, and afterwards, some are strong at the broken places.

--Ernest Hemmingway.


Stand by to be strong.

Also At The Fun Show

I have never been happy with the stocks that came with my Springfield Armory M1911A1 GI.

The ones that came from the factory were a bit too wide and forced my thumb web where it would get bit by the hammer and beaver-tail.

I had a set of USGI stocks from a Remington Rand M-1911A1 my dad had given me. Those were severely beat up and never looked right on an otherwise pristine gun.

I found a cheap set of black plastic stocks for $5 that were identical in feel to the USGI and was reasonably happy with them.

Today at the show, I picked up a 1911 with smooth wood stocks and thought, "I like this!"

So we found a vendor selling them and here's the result...

Let's Talk Investments

DSA SA58 Standard in 7.62x51mm NATO.

No matter who wins the election, and no matter what the stock market does, having a rifle in .30 caliber with a large capacity detachable magazine is a good plan. Even if the end of the world doesn't happen, these things only increase in value.

We went to the funshow in Orlando today and The Lovely Harvey asked what we should be buying in case we got Obama and a ban. I said that I had a list. Topping this list was an FAL or an M1A. On the way home from the show I suggested hitting our favorite gun shop. There I fondled their DSA FALs. Springfield Armory makes a fine product, but it doesn't give the same familiar feeling as a metric pattern FAL. DSA makes an excellent gun on the Austrian StG.58 pattern. While I am reminiscing, Harvey says, "Get it; happy 40th!" I am stunned! So we got it wrapped up and filled out the paperwork.

It's missing the carrying handle and I am not sure if I want to keep the P-rail top cover. Both a carrying handle and a standard top cover are available for cheap from DSA.

Rubicon Has Been Crossed

Picked up the Mac Pro tonight. Dual 2.8ghz, 320mb HD, 2gb RAM, nVidia 8800GT upgrade. Got The Boy a purple iPod Nano, OSX 10.5.4 for The Lovely Harvey's machine (if she wants it) and a copy of Parallels.

Ordered two Dell Ultrasharp 2408WFP from Dell (duh).
Ordered two 1tb Seagate 7200.11 SATA drives and a copy of XP from Newegg. I would have ordered RAM, but they are out of 2x1gb kits. For just $50 more I could have gotten a 2x2gb kit, but I am unsure if I can mix and match 2x2 + 2x1.

Yes, I paid more for the box than I would have if I had just made a windows box. Games and CAD are all I want a windows box for; everything else I prefer the Mac OS and after my Linux experiment, have no desire to do another do-it-yourself-you're-on-your-own OS.

In a related bit of humor; FuzzyGeff is the person who talked me out of stealing music and into Apples. He refuses to use iTunes, buy an iPod or a new Apple because of their EULAs. He finally convinces me to switch, just as he gets fed up with them! Ah, irony, we meet again.

UPDATE: Add a desk to the pile. The Boy is getting the old one.

Additional Reading On The Financial Crisis

Dead National Post Link

And for the record, recessions are part of a market economy. They WILL happen. The market will correct itself when things are either too cheap or too expensive. This causes little ups and downs in the market. These are aptly called, "market corrections". The longer you prevent a correction on the price of a good that is mis-valued, the larger the correction will be.

I am also recently reminded that many of the same people who cried, "return of the great depression," when the dot-com bubble burst are the same people crying the same thing today.

Also, for the record, the 7% drop in the DOW Monday was actually the 17th largest drop in the DOW (by percentage), not the largest. Just like movie receipts, they keep forgetting inflation affects the value. Yes it fell 800 points, but those points are much smaller than those of 1950.

FUCK THAT PG13 RATING

Guns Of My Mother's Father

Here's a comparison of Grampa's .32 revolvers.


This is an Hopkins and Allen Safety Police in .32 S&W. I bought it for parts to repair grampa's gun. They are not the same inside, so now I have this one and...

His.


This is his Iver Johnson Safety Hammer Automatic 3rd Model, .32 S&W. The automatic refers to the ejection of spent casings.


Last, but not least is this Harrington and Richardson 2nd Model 1st Variation Automatic Revolver, .32 S&W Long. Both the caliber and capacity differ from the other three. This one holds six shots.


All the functional guns together.

Quote Of The Random Interval

"Secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy ... censorship. When any government, or any church, for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects, 'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

--Robert A. Heinlein, "Revolt in 2100"

Ha HA

I, in my back yard, armed only with binoculars, located and observed Andromeda!

Despite the light pollution around here, viewing conditions were pretty damn good.

Marv even saw it.

Today Eleven Years Ago

I arrived in Florida from Iowa with a sure plan. I was going to hang out with my friend Dumbass Fuckwad Shitheel, have a little fun, say goodbye and head down to Key West and shoot myself next to the marker for the "farthest South point of the US".

Today also marks the moment where that plan flew off the rails.  The Lovely Harvey and I fell in love.

We went out to JD Penguin's, I got drunk, she took advantage of me. [grin!]

Dumbass Fuckwad Shitheel warned me that this was just The Lovely Harvey having a fling and that it would only last for two weeks. Here we are, 570 weeks past expiration and still sickeningly sweetly in love!

Back To My More Usual Type Of Post

Some good break-downs of what happened with Fannie and Freddie.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0

http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-you-know-when-theres-problem.html

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/how-wall-streets-quants-lied-to-their-computers/

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

by Rudyard Kipling

I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will bum,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return.

New Game Machine

And I don't know what to do!

If I make an XP box, all it will be is a game box. I no longer like working on PCs now that I have gotten used to where Mac keeps things.

Mac OS 10.5 has a thing called Bootcamp. It allows a dual boot so you can run XP native. There is also an app called Parallel that allows you to run XP inside 10.5. AutoCAD runs fine under Parallel. Supposedly so does IL2. Not sure about Wings Over Vietnam.

The flight sims are better run under XP native, but there are several programs for XP that would be nice to have while the normal Mac stuff was running, like AutoCAD.

What surprised me is a Mac Pro is only about $500 more than an XP box if you match hardware relatively closely. There are, however, many lower levels available for XP that just don't exist when buying a Mac.

I just don't know what to do!

Comments welcome.

Military Cemetaries

I've spoken before about the crosses at the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.

There's a loud movement to get them removed.

I've said strong words about how I would stand between someone tearing them down and the memorial.

Yes, it is a religious symbol on Federal land and maintained with Federal money.

This fight is not about State Religion. It is about the rights of veterans to choose how their cemeteries look. We want the crosses there. The fallen have paid in blood for the right to have any symbol we want on the ground that is supposed to honor their, ultimate, sacrifice. We, the veterans, reject the whims, arguments and claims of those who have sacrificed nothing to decide how we choose to honor our dead.

The monies spent by the Feds is merely a small stipend that goes to pay back some of what these people gave. We owe them more than we can ever pay, and never pay in mere money.

If your feelings are hurt when I say that I would be more willing to see you dead than those crosses taken down, tough shit.

Well Well

Looking at the stock market lately, I am SO glad I foolishly bought a Corvette instead of "intelligently" left the money I got from Mom's 401k in the REAL-ESTATE WEIGHTED portfolio she had it in.

I have a car.

For some reason there was a residual $640 left in all the various funds and stuff. There's $90 today. That means that I would have just $20k left in the account if I had left it alone. The Vette is definitely worth more than $20k!

If my mom was still alive, this would have ended her retirement.

Please do not make comments about what gubmint entity caused this mess. There's enough blame for both parties in the public sector and the private side is not innocent either.

To All Political Types

Common sense: If it takes more than a paragraph to explain it to a random stranger on the street, it's not common sense.

Counter-Intuitive: Sometimes the common sense approach is exactly wrong.

These are not definitions, rather, they are more usage guidelines.

Historical Comparison

On top is a Laconic Arms VKb.07; below is a Springfield made M1 "Garand".

Snark

Asking the media about Barak Obama is akin to asking Goebbels about Hitler.

Asking them about McCain is much like asking the Klan about blacks.

Perhaps not near as extreme as that, but the media has picked a side in this. Any information from them needs to be considered in that light.

9-11

Hey, it's September 11th again already.

Lot's of maudlin, in your cups kind of retrospective out there to read today. It's easy to find, if you look.

I've been avoiding it.

What I want to mention today, on the 7th anniversary, is that we haven't had a follow-up attack since.

We're cleaning up after our victory in Iraq.

We're winning.

To paraphrase Chris Titus; Never challenge the nation that created the monster truck to apply that creativity to war.

Fiction Fragment

Gigantic, panoramic windows. Every passenger ship has them. The wellers like to look at the stars. Us spacers have teeny little ports near the docking controls. If we need visual, a camera is almost always much better than a naked eye through a pane. A camera doesn't add a fragile piercing to the hull either.

There they were, the wellers, staring at the stars. Not much to see, really. But I guess I am used to them. I used to say this with contempt, but I sun burned my tongue standing slack-jawed on Earth staring up at the sky. The baby blue just goes up for...well, all the way into space!

Picking A Teeny Little Nit

GURPS High Tech Pulp Guns Vol 1 has stats for the Mossberg Brownie. The Brownie is a neat little hold-out gun with four barrels each firing a single shot of .22 LR. The striker rotates to fire each barrel in turn with each pull of the double action only trigger. In other words, four shots as fast as you can pull the trigger.

The nit I am picking is the category that it is filed under, "Non-Repeating Pistols." Um, fires more than one round without reloading and it's double action, it's a repeater. I don't think he understands the term.

Becoming Numb

If you use the same insult enough, the words lose their power to insult.

If you use insults to attempt to affect another person's behavior, the repeated use of the same insult will also lose effect.

Calling me a racist all these years for virtually every activity under the sun no longer works, if indeed it ever did. I have been called a racist for merely being white.

Now I am being called a racist because I don't support Mr Obama. Him being a politician from Chicago has a lot more to do with my opposition than his race.

But thanks for wearing the last but of guilt off of the racist accusation for me!

.32 Cubed

Here's a comparison between three rounds that used to be extremely popular and have become somewhat rare today.

Left to right; .32 S&W (1878), .32 ACP (1899) and .32 S&W Long (1896). The S&W Long is a wadcutter, a more conventional bullet would protrude from the case like the other two.

.32 S&W long is literally a .32 S&W with a longer case, so you can shoot the shorter round in guns chambered for the longer ones, like .38 Special/.357 Magnum, but there's not a lot of power difference between them in the smokeless loadings, unlike .38 Special/.357 Magnum. Modern loads typically have a 98 gr bullet running about 705 fps for a whopping 115 ft-lbs. Black powder loadings were 85 gr at 680 fps for 90 ft-lbs for the .32 S&W and 98 gr at 780 fps for 132 ft-lbs for the .32 S&W Long.

.32 ACP typically fires a 71 gr bullet at 905 fps giving 129 ft-lbs of energy.

Both the S&W rounds were originally black powder. .32 ACP was one of the very first smokeless rounds.

John Moses Browning Super Genius

Doing some comparison studies.

Here we have three of the the five Automatic Colt Pistol (ACP) cartridges.
From left to right; .25 ACP (1906), .32 ACP (1899), .380 ACP (1908), and .45 ACP (1904). Not shown is .38 ACP (1897) because it's hard to find the ammo and guns to shoot it any more.

.25 and .32 are shown in FMJ, .380 and .45 are in JHP.

.25 ACP, .32 ACP, and .380 ACP are popular in Europe as 6.35x16mmSR, 7.65x17mmSR and 9x17mm respectively. .38 ACP never really had a chance against 9x19mm in Europe, so it didn't last long. It's also another example of a round cursed with a clunky gun. The Model 1903 Pocket Hammer was poorly balanced and looked disproportionate when compared to the Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless.

Three generations of guns designed by John Browning, in order of both design and manufacture.
From bottom to top; Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless in .32 ACP, made in 1912; Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket in .25 ACP, made in 1919; Springfield Armory M-1911A1 GI, made in 2005.

Poverty

I rant and rage a bit about Welfare. Some people don't understand why I get so damned upset about the useless dangling from Uncle Sugar's Teat.

Because I was honest to Gohd poor once! I am not any more.

What got me out of poverty in childhood was the hard, honest work of my mother. We got government assistance for one whole month before some apparatchik decided that the child support that my father wasn't sending put us over some etherial line and made us ineligible.

I returned to a level of poverty because of my stupid decisions later on. My fault, but some honest work and better judgement later, I am not what I would call poor.

My experience has left me some things to look for when deciding if someone else has really been poor or is just putting on the mantle.

Do you know what fried bologna is?

Do you have an opinion about what BRAND of ramen is best?

What kind of commercial cheese-food is most like the Government cheese brick?

I tend to fixate on the food items.

The Lovely Harvey comes from poverty as well. Her family was ineligible for welfare because her mother was married and Bubba supported his family. Hard work has put The Lovely Harvey out of poverty as well.

We're bitter because we watch people like Thunder McThighs and Dumbass Fuckwad Shitheel spawn child after child get welfare for being irresponsible. We're sick of watching them get more money from a tax 'return' than they paid in taxes, sometimes thousands more. We're sick of the government moving these dregs of society into the house next door and paying their rent for them while they destroy the house and suck my property value down with it.

Hard work and responsibility boot-strapped both of our families out, we expect nothing less of others.

PS, The Boy doesn't get a penny of support from Gubmint. The Lovely Harvey apparently makes too much to qualify.

Sarah Palin

The conservative base is energized by her addition to the ticket.

I cannot help but wonder if they are hoping that McCain croaks in office so she can get to be in charge since there's so much about him they don't really care for. I would have said 'we' but I am not a very good conservative outside of a few issues.

More Old Guns

This is a Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless in .32 ACP. This particular gun was made in 1912, perhaps my oldest gun.

The corrosion is not as bad as the picture makes it seem. It's merely the blue worn off and a patina forming, it's still glassy smooth, just not uniform in color anymore. A neighbor of a friend asked me "what's it worth?" I told him I would give him $200 for it. He bit. It's worth a lot more, like $600 in this condition without a box.

Together with its younger cousin, the Model 1908 Vest Pocket in .25 ACP.

Quote Of The Day

"If you do not understand what is wrong with wearing a red shirt with a huge graphic of Chairman Mao on it while carrying a ratty-assed backpack plastered with “FREE TIBET” stickers, there is no help for you."

Huh?

Me: Obama has no executive government experience, his voting record is in full accord with Das Kapital, Socialists and Socialism are dangerous and cannot be trusted.

Libtard: The daughter of McCain's VP pick is pregnant!

Me: I stand skewered on your rebuttal.

More Research

I discovered something last night on the Garand that was a little disappointing. Marked on the receiver is "RRAD 11/64" with an electric pencil. That means that in November of 1964 my gun was rebuilt a the Red River Army Depot. Since all of the parts are Springfield marked and have numbers that are correct for the November '44 manufacture date, it could just be that my gun was refinished as the M14 entered service and the Garands were put into storage.

The stock is marked with "RRA" meaning it came from a gun rebuilt in the Red River Arsenal.

I am pretty sure that RRAD and RRA are the same place.

I mentioned before that the Springfield stamp on the stock was for a gun made between August 1943 and October 1944. CMP guns are commonly restocked before distribution, so no biggie.

Having Some Fun

Marv has an old Smith & Wesson Victory model revolver in .38. It used to be his dad's and may likely have been the gun his father was issued in WW2.

And here is sixty-seven years of heritage in one picture. The stainless is my 640 in .357.

Some Things Are Binary

I find it really hard to explain what I mean by that.

Infringement on my rights is binary, it's either happening or it isn't. There's no nebulous gray area. No room for compromise.

I get into a snit about property. Is this mine or not? If I own it, then you don't get to tell me what to do with it unless it's encroaching on your property. For example: If I stop mowing my lawn, vermin can begin to use that as a breeding area and then spread from there into your house. You can reasonably demand that I keep my lawn mown so that my vermin do not spread into your property. You don't get a say in my changing the purpose of one room of my house to another. I want to change my bedroom into a study, you have no say. I want to turn my sun room into a study, you have no say.

Permits are a formalized method of you telling me what I can do with my property. Because of said permits, to legally convert my sun-room into a study I would have to spend $30k. To do it on my own illegally, $4k. The house was $69.9k when we bought it. Adding the extra room legally does not increase the value by the amount it would cost to add it. It adds more like $10k. The cost exceeds the value. Want to guess what the main cost is? We have to raise the floor to match the rest of the house to be in compliance with code. If we do that, the east end of the room is too short (ceiling will be too low) by (get this!) two inches. I intend to line that wall with book shelves, I will never stand there. Doesn't matter. It's just stupid. Don't even get me started on the room having to survive hurricane forces that will knock the remainder of the house down.

I think what we'll end up doing is bricking up the screen walls, putting in some windows and a real door. That should be relatively cheap and under the radar for code enforcement.

The Subject Has Come Up With The Selection Of Palin

Abortion.

Talk about a sticky wicket.

I do not oppose abortions. I have never felt that abortion was murder. The line in the sand there is primarily religious and I am not a member of a religion that feels that life begins at conception.

I am more inclined to believe it's a human when it starts paying its own rent...(I kid!) But it's a child when it's breathing on its own.

I am getting very sick of the militant, "RIGHT TO CHOOSE!" screaming getting shoved up my nose. Fuck you, bitch, I agree with you, now go yell at someone else for a while! Jeebus! All these unpleasant encounters do is get me to thinking.

My conclusion is that Ms Righttochoose should have chosen to exercise her right to not fuck. Ain't getting no babies without fuckin. Abortion is a non-issue of there's no unwanted pregnancy. Can't get pregnant if you don't have sex. I KNOW that this basic biological fact about mammals was covered in High School Health Class. One could take the position that, yes, you have the right to control your own body but the decision point was when you allowed penetration and is not when you discover you are pregnant.

Please note, I think that Ms Righttochoose SHOULD have chosen abstinence, not that she MUST and after first hand experience with the results of watching the uncontrolled breeding of the Shitheels (and watching my total tax contribution going into their pockets), I don't want anyone who cannot mentally or financially handle being a parent to have a child. If it takes abortion to stop things like Shitheels, then kill all you want.

Edit:
My position tends to make me unwelcome with conservatives. Too many people assume that because I am pro-gun that I am also all-in on being a conservative. Um, nope.

More Mundane Matters

This week has been an assault of minor irritations from failing appliances.

The livingroom converter box for the Dish is no longer locking onto Sat 119 reliably. I called their tech support line and got them to send out a tech. Said tech called Thursday at 9:10 in the 8-12 window and flat stated they weren't coming out until Monday morning. Labor Day. Wanna bet nobody shows?

The drier that The Lovely Harvey bought used in 1988 when she first moved down here finally failed in a way I couldn't fix. There's a sheet metal duct that is completely clogged, I can't get it out of the machine to clean it. This is making us run the drier for 3-4 cycles just to get the clothes dry. This problem is fixed, I bought a refurbed drier from the place up the road. Not only does the new one work its auto-dry function works, unlike the old one.

Today the damn DSL quit. The status light indicated that the problem was upstream from the "line in" to the modem. That normally means the pole outside has a fault. For the first time The Lovely Harvey got to witness me dealing with Verizon's DSL morons in Calcutta. She thought I was extremely rude until she heard me say, "Dial tone? I am talking to you on the line that the DSL is plugged into, how can there be a dial-tone?" She asked, "Were all of the stuff they wanted you to check that dumb?" After I got them to schedule a tech for Tuesday, we discovered that the line splitter had failed. I'll play dumb with the tech and ask him to check for water in the pole. This is an epic fail for customer support from Verizon. They need to train their techs that someone is going to be upset about their internet being off for no reason. They need to hire people who speak English as a first language, or at least can converse idiomatically. The trouble-shooting procedure is first done while you are still talking to the robot. Then the tech in Calcutta wants you to repeat all those steps. Then he adds several steps and refuses to answer simple questions like, "why would swapping the line from one end to the other help?"

Quote Of The Day

From: http://www.neptunuslex.com/2008/08/30/saying-that-like-its-a-bad-thing/

"Because many of us prefer thinking about government - when we think of it at all - for a hobby rather than being forced to fixate on it as an uninvited guest that nags us about the unhealthy things we’re keeping in the fridge and the parlous state of the garage and Simply. Won’t. Leave. After all, for most of us our closest personal experience with government comes in the renewal queue at the DMV, an experience that may not have fully endeared us to the notion of Wise Government Bureaucrats in Charge of Important Things."

"Because most of us realize that the quality of our lives is almost entirely dependent upon the quality of choices that we make and the efforts we put for to improve it, and - having reached our majority and moved out of our parents’ houses - resent the notion of further, creeping dependency and constrained choices and just make sure you’re home by 10."

They've Picked Veeps

The candidates have picked their running partners.

We're back to racist and sexist again... I kid.

I was pretty firmly not an Obama voter already. But he picked Joe AWBiden. Joe's on the list of "must get rid of the traitor" list.

I'm not all that excited about McCain, the best I can do is "better than Obama". Come to think of it, that's what I thought about Bush Jr; look how that's turned out. Well, maybe not as bad as it could have been. If Gore or Kerry had been picking USSC justices, we prolly wouldn't have gotten Heller.

As old and decrepit as McCain is, we might just get our first female president (if he's elected).

I will predict, not endorse, that if we get a President Obama, we will also get a President Biden before 2012. Someone is going to get stupid, and I think there's enough stupid that someone will also get "lucky". Even though I don't like him, someone shooting him would set what little gains the pro-gun side has made in the last ten years evaporate like they never were.

Generic Whine

A couple of the people I consider friends are just plain drifting away.

These things happen, I can be philosophical about it, but it's still kind of a bummer.