It's been a year already?

So it looks like I haven't actually posted anything in a year or more. Thats a shame really. I know I got all caught up in doing the youtubes but I have to admit, personally I read 10 times as many articles on the internets than I do watching videos. I detest having earbuds in my head, so watching anything that has audio is out of the question almost all day long. The only time I would not be a nuisance to someone else with audio playing is during my short commutes, but watching a video and driving is not the brightest idea. So in short, I tend to read a lot more than I watch. The weird part is, when I am making content I do almost exclusively video with a little instagram and facebook mixed in.

That's going to change for 2016. I am going to do my best to focus on writing my thoughts out on a subject, maybe add some photos and make content that I would prefer to see. First things first, this place needs a facelift. I'll get on that and then start figuring out whats going to go on this page.

In the meantime, a Good Yule to you all!

Fuck the NSA

So, I'm taking this class from the Learn Liberty Academy. It isn't super involved but it's very enlightening. I surely recommend you take a look at the classes they offer.

Anyway, I'm partway through the class government power vs individual rights. The general gist is "Are the NSA activities legal/constitutional?" Of course if you are reading this, most likely you agree with my point of view of "Fuck no, that shit isn't legal nor constitutional!" Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but mine has been popped too.


It really looks like everything that they do is legal. Now, I sure as fuck still am against them, but suing them wont accomplish squat. They appear to have their bases covered. Now the constitutionality of those laws is dubious. They use some pretty thin precedents that have not made it to a point where we can expect an opinion on them. To the common man, we would call it sleazy. But considering the sleaze that is in DC, I doubt anybody there would take issue with it. The anointed ones in black robes certainly cant be trusted to issue their opinion strictly based on the constitution given their recent history.


Since they appear to be well within the law, and those laws aren't likely to be found unconstitutional, there are fewer choices left to combat this scourge. First off, vote some fuckers in that will fight for you. Lets get some new legislation. See my previous post about voting HERE.


Second, lets support the states that want to screw them over. I think it's funny when states and communities want to shut off the water or shut off the power. Of course I'm a bit demented with my sense of humor. We know the endgame, the feds will use violence to take the water or the electricity. I say good. If they prefer using violence on us, lets get it out in the open. Will that be the song we start the prom with? I dunno, but I sure am curious to know the answer. Lets stop the beating around the bush. If they are looking for that result, lets just get this dance started.


Lastly, well I guess we got to that already. There will come a point when it might be time to vote from the rooftops. My only advice then is remember the words of Tecumseh "When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home."

I'm positive I took this in a direction that the great folks who are putting on the class didn't expect it to go. But we live in a cold, hard world with no limit to the capacity for violence. I'm just calling it how I see it. Neither side to this issue is filled with people full of righteousness and one side is prone to use violence first and try diplomacy only as a last resort. That can be avoided, and this isn't likely the thing to set the powder keg off. But it's another step down that road. Without the rose colored glasses on, it sure does seem like we're picking up speed as we take this trip.

At any rate, catch me over on bookface to chat about this, or just comment here. Don't forget that I have a youtube channel with some new stuff on it, and some more stuff on its way.

Gear

I haven't been posting much lately. I'm currently taking three online classes from The University of Washington, Yale, and The University of Maryland. In addition to having a family and work, I've also been doing some filming for youtube videos. (Mostly gear reviews lately) All that has just left me with very little time.

As I was talking to folks over on bookface about what gear reviews they'd like to see, I got to do some thinking. There is some gear that I don't think I could do a proper video review for but still would like folks to know that I support a product or company. So I thought I'd do a few short reviews here on this blog.You can be sure this will be about the last gear review I do over here. I'm going to stick with youtube for that. I refuse to let my blog be about gear.

Blue Force Gear-
  They make some cool shit. I absolutely love their ten speed pouches. Those are genius. But the thing they do better than all others is slings. There is no other brand of sling that even compares to the excellence that is BFG. I'm currently running a convertible, padded Vickers sling (VCAS). This is the Rolls Royce of slings. I compared it directly to a Viking Tactical VTAC last week, and the Viking seemed like a Renault in comparison. The Viking is a fine piece of gear, but the BFG completely blows it out of the water in all categories.

Magpul-
Really, everybody knows Magpul. They have the best fucking magazines made, period. For that matter, if there is a piece of gear that they make, there is a high likelihood that it's the best piece of gear made.
Before you go all "What about the MBUS?" on me, let me ask you who makes a better plastic sight? Even the AFG, which I hate. It's likely the best angled foregrip on the market. The only area that they let me down was on their sling. The convertible idea was fucking awesome. I run a convertible too. I didn't like the webbing, but with the newest rendition, they appear to have changed it and are more in line with BFG there. But lets get back to the mags. I will base gun purchases around compatibility with Pmags. I can think of three rather high profile, bad ass boomsticks that dont like Pmags......HK416s, LWRC REPRs, and the FN SCAR heavy. You know what? I would own any of those. You could give me one and I'd trade it on something else, the P-mags stay.

Daniel Defense-
There are other companies that make rails, a lot of them suck. DD is the Rolls Royce. Sure, Larue is good. Geisselle is good....Ok, my list is done. And so far, they haven't done that gay fucking keymod shit. Keymod was so high tech in the early 20th century. And I'm pretty sure, that if you go flying down a stairwell at top speed and hit your flashlight on a door frame, you'll push those two little bolts back to the large opening and off she'll come. At least HK put the holes on the right way so you couldn't push your rail mounted stuff off by using it as a shooting brace. But, enough of keymod shit, back to DD......Sure great rails, The bolt up system is stronger than the host gun and for the most part, they come in lighter than comparable rails. On top of the rail situation, they make full guns that are top notch. They are one of three companies that I recommend to folks buying a complete gun.

Special Operations Equipment - 
John Motherfucking Willis is the man! His gear is absolutely the strongest, best built gear that money can buy. You might not be able to solely use SOE gear since they don't make every piece of gear, but they make a lot and it's all good. It may not be the latest, lightweight, but it will last longer and you wont find better sewing on anything. I have had John make me custom stuff, I use regular stock items, and he even sent me free gear when paypal was unhappy with me using them for gun purchases rendering me without a way to pay him. On top of that, if you follow him on bookface, you will be entertained.

That's my list. There are a lot of other companies that make good gear. Hell, I own a lot of other companies gear. But these are the ones that stand above their competitors. The ones I have faith in their products to be the absolute best. I'll still do gear reviews on individual pieces of gear over on my youtube channel, but I wanted to put in writing somewhere how strongly I feel about the above companies. Keep tuning in, I'll try to get more blogging in between all the other stuff.

Stop by my bookface if you want to hear the daily ramblings or have some more interaction.

Get offended much?

So over on my personal facebook page, I ran a little experiment. There was all this backlash against the duck tv show guy saying he didn't approve of some peoples choices and there was a line of people waiting to jail him, lynch him, torture him etc.

So I decided to make my own list of people who I didn't approve of. Took me a over a week to put them all out there. My list is in the MILLIONS. Much larger than the duck guy. And while nobody called for my death (yet) unlike the duck guy, people actually were offended. What the fuck? If you meet someone, and they say, "ya know, after finding out what you did, I don't think we can be friends" Why the fuck would you whine and complain, stomp your feet and scream "You must like me, we must be friends"? Who the hell want to be friends with someone that doesn't like them?

Now, out of my list. there wasn't one recorded instance of me harming any of those people in any way. I never once did anything negative to them. I believe in "Live and Let Live". That's exactly what I do, all day, every day. But I had to field complaints that I'm an asshole because while I don't approve of peoples choices, I don't act on that at all. I'm not sure what people want from me. If they expect me to be friends with everybody,  too fucking bad.

I have pretty high standards to be in my inner circle. If you aren't in that circle, you are out of it. No varying levels, in or out. And you know what? If you aren't in it, I'll still interact with you and treat you the same as everybody else. But to expect me to just let everybody in that circle is ridiculous! There is no participation award, I don't give out a trophy just for playing. You earn the right to be my friend, or we aren't friends. That doesn't make us enemies, we just aren't friends. Maybe we will become friends, maybe not, who knows.

According to the internets, because there are people out there that I don't like based solely off of their choices, I'm either A: a racist, B: an asshole, or C: a racist asshole. I'm still not sure how so many people can decide your a racist if you don't like the things other people do. But I guess it's the default, love everybody or you're a racist. So at any rate, according to the internets, you should stop reading these blogs.

Nobody gets out alive.

As far back as I can remember, at least for my entire adulthood, I have been very "matter of fact" about death. It happens to every one of us. Face it, we have 100% mortality rate. A friend of mine that I respect greatly likes to remind people that your birth certificate came with an expiration date, you just don't know what it is. A long time ago, I decided it was nothing to concern myself with since I couldn't change it. Many of my friends thought I was "a bit off" but seeing people be so afraid of death was appalling to me. I didn't want to be them, so I simply chose not to be. I read a quote a long time ago attributed to Genghis Khan: "I had no place to hide from thunder, so, I am not afraid of it anymore."  I liked that and it continues to influence me to this day.

A bit later in life I decided I wanted a good death. That could mean something different to different people. For a Spartan it might have meant being defeated on the field of battle by an overwhelming opponent, while making him suffer as well. And I have to admit, the romantic in me says that would be a pretty cool fucking way to go. Hoards of barbarians storming the walls, making your final stand. At least it would make a good book. Now in essence, what I mean by a good death, is one I experience. I do not want to go in my sleep. Dying is something we are likely to only do once. I don't want to sleep through it. I don't want to miss it for any reason. If I only get one chance to experience it, I want to actually experience it.

Now to the interesting part.... Recently, I have seen an article or three about what our mind does when we die. It didnt sound like mad science. When we experience something new, our brain instantly searches its memory banks for a similar experience so it can apply a reaction that will likely lead to self preservation. We see that happen very frequently as a normal part of life. When the brain cant find something similar it expands its search in our memory banks to find anything that might be useful. People who say they saw their entire life play out before their eyes in a near death encounter recollect this often. Science has shown that everything we have ever done is stored in there. Now the newer things I read just happened to be news feeds that popped up on bookface or the random stories that show up on my news app on my phone, but they all seemed to drop in the last few weeks. What they showed was that when the brain activity flatlined, showing that the cortex ceased functioning, that the hippocampus activity went off the charts. The hippocampus controls memories. This led scientists to believe that when the brain was experiencing death (certainly a new activity) memories came flooding into the mind to find a way to stop it. One of the reports mentioned that the activity in the hippocampus was 30 TIMES greater than ever recorded during consciousness. This lasted for up to a minute after death. Nothing sounds ridiculous to my ears with this theory.

So now I'm looking at, sure we all have to die. I hope it's doing something cool, but I really want to know when it's happening. And when it does, I may spend a moment with a vivid, filmed in technicolor, replay of all of my memories laid out in front of me like a giant panoramic view of my life. Doesn't really sound like a reason to be afraid at all. Being that I'm nearly 40 (pay attention to that number, it'll be important in a minute) there are a LOT of memories that are now hazy and faded. Ones that I try daily to recall in greater detail. Mostly of my grandparents when I was a child. For my last act on earth to be recalling those in rich detail seems like a swell way to go. Almost like a gift from the Force, or God or whomever one happens to believe in.

Now, this kinda shit runs through my head at random times throughout my entire life. Sometimes I feel like my mind works like a woman with the remote to the TV, constantly flipping from one thing to the next. So this channel gets tuned in randomly just like everything else. But why did I choose to jot it down? Well ever since I was in grade school I had this eerie premonition that I would die when I'm 40. Not "before I turn forty" not "In my forties" but during the time that I was 40 years old. Now, if it turns out to be true, whatever, it's not like I can or will be doing anything about it. But in 2 months if this blog suddenly stops cause I bite the dust, at least you'll know where my head was on the subject. Is there an afterlife? Hell I don't know, and I'm not going to worry about that either. But if so, hey, I'll get to be with loved ones that I miss. But if there isn't, it still seems like I'm going to get to spend a little more quality time with my Pap before I become maggot food. So all in all, I still cant find a reason to fear the inevitable, there might even be an upside to it.

BTW, If I make it to 41, I'll be sure to make an "I made it!" blog.

And as usual, come on over to facebook if you want to chat. Or swing by my youtube channel, as there is a few new ones in the works. Dont forget podcasts with That Libertarian Guy. And there is still a chance to vote on Decide the Fate of the Beard contest.

Next time, I'll fill you all in on my really cool Yule celebration.

Time well spent.

I was in the woods for a few days. Went out on opening day with the eldest Daughter. Saw one buck but had a really good day. We put about 8-9 miles in some really cool historic spots. A little chilly, but overall a great time.

Spent yesterday in a new spot with the younger daughter. Fresh snow on the ground was great for tracking. We put in about 15 miles. 6 of which weren't really planned on. She was awesome and never complained once, even after her feet got wet (and cold). We literally stepped out of the woods, 4 miles from our rendezvous, at the very last sliver of light.

Now, the guys we went hunting with were a bit concerned, but the two of us and our hunting buddy, Nate, weren't concerned at all. I don't take a full blown bugout bag when I go hunting, but a small assault pack from Grey Ghost Gear always goes along. Not only was I confident that we'd be back in civilization promptly, I wasn't really concerned if some weird shit went down and we'd need to hangout in the woods for a night. I've spent a night or two in the woods with much less gear. But having a bag full of essentials was beyond comforting. I know that Mindset is drastically more important than Skills, Tactics, and Gear. But, what I've noticed, is that when a person has confidence in their gear, when they have practiced their skills, and when they have tried their tactics, you just cant help from having a great mindset. I always thought of those 4 things in a linear fashion, but they really do affect each other, they are quite intertwined.

Speaking of gear and mindset, I was inspired by some of my gear. Ok, maybe not inspired but "impressed" just doesn't have the same level of importance. I want to rave about a bit of gear. I am convinced that the now discontinued OTB Bootisatn is the worlds best cold weather/ hunting/ mountaineering style boot. New Balance really fucked that up. They bought a great company and then promptly stopped making those products. They didn't even do it to kill the competition since NB doesn't even make military boots. At any rate, I ditched the ortholite footbeds and dropped in some Powerstep Protech Orthotics in there as I have been battling plantar fasciitis for a decade and these work as well as my $600 prescription orthotics. Inside that I wore issue Navy Ski Socks. They are plain heavy wool socks. I could walk till I drop in this combination and never have a foot issue. I just cant stress highly enough how important quality footwear is.

At any rate, the bugout video is a work in progress, the Every Day Carry video has been live for awhile. The first podcast with That Libertarian Guy is up and were recording #2 later today. Feel free to vote in the fate of the beard contest. And check in on facebook if you want to sound off about something.

Training

Everybody I know comes to me to talk guns and tactics. In my social circles, I'm that guy. However, they will heed my advice when it comes to what gear works, ways to utilize that gear, measures to help with their home defenses, and prep activities. The two areas that they don’t seem interested in are bugging out and training. The odd part to me is, I think these are two enthralling subjects and I stress them more than anything else yet it's the most ignored advice in those circles.

Obviously, I touched on bugging out last week. I'm going into more detail with that in the upcoming weeks. I started filming a bugout video for youtube. A buddy and I will be doing a bugout exercise in a couple of weeks that I'm going to include so that project has to wait until whitetail season is over.

That leaves training on the table. Guys will buy gun after gun, assuming that makes them more dangerous. Maybe to themselves and their comrades, but not to their enemy. It may have been Elmer Keith that said “ Do not fear the man with many guns, fear the man with one gun for he likely knows how to use it.” I know folks who count themselves among patriots who are not to be trifled with, and yet they own guns that have never been fired. I cant take that seriously. They give me the wink as they say “When the shit hits the fan, you and I will kick ass and take names” I try to be polite, but in short, if we haven't trained together I'm not real sure I want you around. If you haven't trained at all, I prefer you stay far, far away from me.

With all the quality trainers in the US right now, it's hard for me to imagine not going to some classes. On top of that, too many guys don’t practice anything. I can find a thousand videos from quality instructors with great advice on how to practice . Hell, I invite dozens of folks to come practice. Usually met by excuse after excuse. Back when I competed, I always had multiple shooters available to practice with. When it comes to defending ones self, there is LESS interest in practicing? I don’t get it.

I know that ammo is scarce at the moment, but the practice I see needed most doesn’t even require ammo. We could all be more accurate and fast shooters, but the area that is most neglected is weapon manipulation. Watch somebody, or even yourself handle your pistol. Does the draw look smooth? How about the reload? I see guys with 10 handguns and 15 rifles and when they load up a semi-auto pistol it looks like they have never racked the slide previously.

I ran a dry practice idea past a pal of mine that paid huge dividends. He followed all the standard dry practice rules and he did one drill, for 15 minutes a day and in under two weeks he handled his Glock like a pro. He had two magazines so we worked with that. 5 dollars later, he had 10 dummy rounds. Deal was load each mag with 5 dummies. The drill was to draw, aim in, and press the trigger. Giving him repetitions on his draw. Obviously there was no shot, so he could go right into a failure drill. Tap the mag, rotate it outboard an rack the slide. Immediately followed by getting the sights back on target. Trigger press at that point didn’t matter. Reholster and repeat. When the mag locked back on the last failure drill, it was time to reload the fresh mag. There were times that he reloaded to the fresh mag at random times as well. Now when he goes to the range to use up some precious ammo, he doesn’t fumble fuck his weapon handling and focuses on putting holes in the paper where he wants them to go. He got much better in a short amount of time with little to no cost. Why aren’t we all doing this? It's rhetorical , no need to answer.


FYI, for those of you who think that I must be the guy with dozens of guns in my closet, you would be wrong. I own 1 carbine, 1 full size handgun, one compact handgun, one pocket pistol. And 2 .22s (one rifle, one revolver) that have been passed down from family members. I don’t own a deer rifle, I don’t own a shotgun. No AK, FAL, no 30 caliber guns at all. The 22 will serve for small critter gathering, and I'm sure the carbine can handle larger critters. I spend the rest of my gun budget on ammo and training. A few years ago all that training and practice paid some dividends. I made IDPA master class in 2 divisions and won a state championship. I don't think that would have happened if I just would have plugged my budget into more 1911s and multiple AR15s.

Get in touch with me over on facebook if you want to practice. I haven't taught a class in awhile, but I think I'm going to put some more focus on that in the upcoming months. I certainly can point you towards some quality training if you are interested.

Podcasts are coming soon, I'll post them here when they are good to go. Be on the lookout for a youtube video on my everyday carry gear. If there is anything you'd like to know about, leave a comment or post it on facebook and I'll do my best.