Uff duh, such an auction.

If my head weren't so sweaty I'd have someone take a picture of me in my brand new Stetson, the  "Duke" model, and I'll be damned if it ain't, Pilgrim.

If I weren't so tired I'd go out in the shop and saw some more wood on my  big old cast-iron, 14-inch Delta band saw, which definitely isn't brand new, except to me. Which is good because it is a Delta. Let me explain:

There are two kinds of Delta tools. There are those, like this one,  from a generation-plus ago when the company still competed with a few other American tool makers to see who  could build the sturdiest, most trouble-free, most easily repaired, most elegant and straight-forward machines in the world.  The other kind come from the same firm which, in  about the 1980s,  discovered that "Delta" was  also an oriental slang term meaning  "built with celerity out of toad shit and tinfoil" -- and decided to bow to the Wisdom of the Mysterious East.

(The saw needs a cleaning after a few years in a barn, but with the barn swallow spoor brushed off and plugged in for a test, she ran quiet and straight and true. Errr, $55 with a couple spare blades,  if you must know.)  T'   hee.

Or if I weren't so tired I would go unload and stow the 200 pounds or so of lead and (no-kidding) Linotype metal.  Runs about ten cents pound out here in Bucolia.

Winchester and Federal primers were about a buck a deck, and Winchester Silvertip bullets in .308 and 125 grains were similarly given away. Not to mention the  Lyman mold handles I mentioned needing in a bleg a while back.

I feel so blessed. :)

Crime Fighting (Oregon Style)

The health cops and their elected bosses are on the ball in Portland where they found a seven-year-old girl assaulting the public health with an unlicensed lemonade stand.  An inspector tried to close her down.  Some nearby citizens reacted antisocially. The germ-fighting Dick Tracy had to get on his wrist radio and call for backup.

Much later, one of Portland's  elected scum detected a certain popular discontent with the idiocy. He  apologized to the little girl and her mother, but he was careful to defend his Microbian Knights for just "following the rule book."

I wonder how much open carry might do to encourage our masters' little minions to get their goddam noses out of the rule books and exercise a little common sense; to think  before opening their  noxious, gaping, tax-fed, mouths to harass seven-year-old girls who will  contribute  more to the world  before they are old  enough to vote than the bureaucrats will in a long lifetime of  tax-trough slurping.

The rule book needs a little help  itself, a good man or woman with a gross of blue pencils.

(Try to simply read through the sophomoric, fatal,  search for the cute in the AP piece.)

Not a dry heat

It's been several days since I unlocked the gun place and ran an  eye over blue steel and walnut. Too long; a scuzzy white fungus was getting a good start on the oil-finished stocks,  leather slings, and knife sheaths.

I caught it in time to avoid damage, and the lesson is learned.  Since Providence chose to make us live in a perpetual steam bath up here this summer,  a weapons wipe every couple of days is on the schedule.

How humid? Day before yesterday 94 per cent.

The Internet is Safe

I've always worried about the internet gnomes knowing all about my private stuff and thoughts and what I want to buy and like that.

Never happen. Amazon is an alpha gnome of "targeted" advertising,   and he or she just sent me a long pitch for "college essentials."  i-Thises and e-Thats.

The last time I bought a college essential it was made by Smith Corona and I got it in a store where the owner knew my name and threw in a little kit of stuff to clean the keys.

Stupid internet. Almost got a notion to post my SS as a gesture of contempt.