Iceland Destroys World

As if that woebegone country didn't have enough problems, it is now responsible for continued global cooling of the kind that reduces job opportunities for Al Gore's otherwise unemployable acolytes.

You'd think a nation that could pass laws making everyone happy, womb to tomb, could manage to arrange some legislation forbidding its domestic volcanoes to erupt.

Take this form and shove it.

With the best of intentions I walked out the door and headed for the office and the pile of tax papers. but my eye fell on the saw. My other eye fell on the dead burr oak on the northwest corner of the base.

Maybe I'll do the taxes tomorrow. Or just wait for the black helicopters.

Airy ripoff

According to my most dependable travel advisor, I have a brand new reason for not flying. How about up to $90 bucks to carry a large attache case to where you're going and back?

Even when flying was fun (the piston era through the days of the first hijackings), it was credibly argued that anything under 500 miles could be covered more efficiently and pleasantly by car. Make that 1,000 now, at least.

Open carry?

A good discussion over at Caleb's place got me thinking about open carry.

Not counting hunting and backwoods hiking, I believe the last time I strapped visibly on was in the 80s during a long sojourn at Tortilla Flat in the Superstitions. Even there where open carry was common, it was mostly a matter of forgetting to take the damned thing off when I came in from a hike.

A gun on my belt just tends to make me feel a little on the foolish side. I say that meaning no disrespect to the good guys who feel differently, although I still question the political and public relations wisdom of making a big point of carrying at meetings, demonstrations, and the like.

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Boats have been a large feature of my life, and a man working around line is a man who better have a good knife very handy, and that means a fixed blade carried outside of everything else -- trousers, jacket, so'wester. And so I did, usually the beauty pictured.* But, again, it resonated with me as the toy of a little boy playing Mike Nelson. I usually stuck it in a drawer immediately on arriving back at the slip. I admit it may be flawed thinking.

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*It is the happy result of an embarrassing mistake. As a newly acquired pristine USN deck knife (Mark I, the RH Pal 35) it went camping with us near a fur trade rendezvous. Some of mountain men were contesting their knife-throwing skills. I couldn't resist and joined the game. What you see is what fell to the dirt immediately after the first hard hit on the log end. As far as I know the front inch and a half of the blade is still buried in the stump.

Judicious grinding left me with a sturdy and entirely satisfactory little hunter which holds an admirable edge. It's is the companion of decades, but I still feel half silly every time I slip the belt trough the sheath.