The founders of this country were more than just casually worried about the potential abuses of a standing army. We’ve had a standing army for about the last 225 years, and in that time, liberty has been more harmed by the existence of a standing legislature. I’m not sure if that thought is my own, or if I picked it up somewhere. In any case, it’s true.

Independence Day weekend was something of a marathon for me.  This, primarily because the wife and thepacked up and headed to Arkansas to visit her relatives on Thursday morning.  I had determined to keep busy so as not to miss them as much.  

Wednesday night, my grandparents and two of my dad’s sisters came into town, staying at my uncle’s house near Athens.  We visited for a good while, and got home at about 11:30; at which time my wife told me that she had an appointment on her way out of town to get the truck serviced at 8:30 Thursday morning.  This of course, necessitated her getting packed that night, and leaving not later than 7:45 the next morning to make it to Decatur on time.  She finished, and got in bed by 1:30 and was out again by 5:30.  I never can understand how she functions on so little sleep.

Thursday night was designated as “camp-out” night at my uncle’s.  After work, I stopped by the local sporting goods store, and got a small air-mattress.  After going home to load my tent and a few extra sleeping bags, I was off to Christopher’s to feed a very grateful Harley the Cat, then straight to my uncle’s.  I had a nice, quick supper of fresh catfish, and headed down to the camp site.  I got everything hauled-in and set-up in about half an hour.  It was by that time, about 7:30, and darkness would be coming soon.  Not soon enough, because it just didn’t seem to want to cool down.  Indeed, this would continue to be the case until about 5:30 the next morning.

We had a good time, sitting around the camp fire, and doing the family thing.  Stories were exchanged, some of them scary, some of them had their scariness augmented by an unnamed camper leaping out from behind a tent and screaming at an unexpected interval.  At one point, I feared our little group would loose cohesion when a certain aunt was terrorized by an unapologetic amphibian croaking in a near-by pond.

At about 10:00, we’d all said good night, and zipped up our tents.  I was alone in mine (save my immensely powerful Beretta Neos in caliber .22 LR), but my cousin, David, slept in a hammock between my tent and the others.  We were all-assembled, quite a crew; some dozen in number with our youngest being around 10 years of age and my grandfather being precisely that eight-times over.  

It was uncomfortable like a camp-out is supposed to be, but not the worst I’ve attended.  Even though it was just a bit too hot, the bugs weren’t a-bugging, it wasn’t raining, and the fire was in no way inhospitable.  At 11:45, my phone rang and I awoke just in time to catch the voice-mail telling me that Ms. Maggie Elizabeth Bailey had arrived in Seattle not thirty minutes earlier, at 7lbs 14oz!  Good news, indeed!

I slept for some time, a bit restlessly at first because I had no pillow and had propped up my head on my lumpy back-pack.  Then, I head a bit of commotion about, pulled on my glasses, and looked out of the tent.  There, I saw everyone milling about, and my 80-year-old grandfather packing it up for the house.  After 80 years, he’d apparently exceeded the lifetime maximum for camp-outs.  I didn’t wish to argue, as he’d earned his rest.  Speaking a testament to his former days as a drill instructor in the USMC; about half the troops followed him up the hill to the house.  They didn’t need any coaxing.  For my part, I was curious to know what was going on, but not so curious to be worth putting on my boots to go investigate.

The next morning, I woke up at 7:00, 7:30, and 8:00.  By that time I’d gotten comfortable, but I could tell it was warming up fast.  At about that time, my uncle Greg was coming out of his tent.  When I asked how many made it, I knew the answer before he gave it: “Just us two.”

As we put the kettle on for some rough camp-coffee (again, NOT the worst I’ve had), he told me that the girls (my cousins Kim, Emily, and Lydia) had been troopers and held-out until about 0530.  They couldn’t take any more after that.  Apparently the cause of the commotion the night before had come at about 0130 when David, Greg, and Kathy were awoken by a pair of foxes playing in the creek-bed just behind my tent.  I asked if he was sure it wasn’t just my snoring, and he assured me that it wasn’t.  If I heard any foxes, I surely wasn’t bothered by them, but David was a bit moved.  By this, I mean he packed his kit and moved it up to the house with all speed.  Had we been in darkest Africa, I surely would have been gobbled-up by a lion, and David safe.

Had cousin David awoken me, I would have like to have taken my flash light and chased the little buggers down.  He suggested the next morning upon discovering that I had the little Beretta that we could have simply exterminated the fox.  I would have done so such thing.  I like foxes, and it would have been nice to catch a glimpse of them in their own environment and earning their living.  David had gotten a fairly good video of him a week or so before, standing out in the open bold as the face on a clock.  In any case, David would be wise in recounting the story to introduce the faintest trace of flair into his narrative.  Something along the lines of him chasing off the mutant fox who was in the process of nobbling poor old grand-dad’s leg off and killing poor cousin Emily TO DEATH should suffice.

After coffee, we had a bit of breakfast, then broke camp.  It was a fine little adventure, and I’ll probably not see the like for many a year.  I let David take a crack with the .22, and I’m here to tell you that CCI “Stingers” are HOT.  High velocity .22s come in the 1100 FPS range, and the CCI Stinger is rated at 1640 FPS.  1640 is much too high for tin-can duty, and standard High Velocity rounds do cycle the Beretta’s slide.

Later on Friday, we re-assembled the crew for lunch at my favorite closed-on-Sunday-chicken-sandwich establishment.  I swear they put an addictive ingredient in their chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly.  After lunch, we headed over to the theater to see Wall-E, which was brilliant.

Friday night, I slept the sleep of the righteous.  

Saturday, I got up and drove to Arab, about an hour away for an IDPA match.  I did terribly, but it was fun.  Saturday night, Greg took us to dinner for his birthday.  That doesn’t make any sense unless you know how generous my family all are, then it makes perfect sense.

On Sunday afternoon, I managed to make it to another IDPA match in Manchester, TN, about an hour and a half away.  I didn’t do too bad here, but I suspect most of the people I was shooting with are all classified better than MM.

On Monday morning, I made it to work just in time; I needed the rest!

It’s been a really tough year for the conservative movement first with the loss of William F. Buckley Jr., and now with the loss of Tony Snow.  I’ve talked about Tony in these pages once or twice before, and described him as an overgrown boy scout, and possibly the nicest guy in media.  Tony was down-to-earth and as confident as you’d need to be as an adult man playing a flute in a rock band.  Tony was always optimistic and polite.  We’ll miss that.  There aren’t enough like him to go around, and our prayers go out to his family.  His death is a detriment to the nation.

We at the Daft Musings Hall have had a flurry of activity disrupt our normally sedate and sedentary lives of quiet contemplation.  On the Friday after Liberty Day, we drove to Pell City to participate in the matrimonial proceedings of our brother Robb.  This being the second such arrangement for each of the principals, we were amused by the bride’s suggestion that she complete the ceremony with her three-year-old daughter on her hip.  Fortunately for all concerned, she didn’t go through with that amusing plan.  The service was simple and short.  Indeed the pictures drug on significantly longer that the ceremony.  

Both bride and groom managed to get through it without any significant gaffes (such as failing to remember to kiss the bride).

We gifted Robb with an excellent Weber One-Touch grill and the admonition that neither rain, nor snow, nor dark of night should ever keep him from using it.  Also, we threw in a nice Vulfix shaving brush and the most excellent Taylor of Old Bond Street Lavender shaving cream so that the groom could fail at being scruffy on his wedding day.

As best-man, the heavy responsibility of the bachelor party was to me.  Again, this was a simple affair replete with the absence of debauchery.  We arrived at one of Robb’s formerly frequent haunts at about 10:15.  Robb had a couple of Newcastle Brown Ales, and because I didn’t notice the beer list, I had a single Amber Bock (which is neither and amber nor a bock) while we enjoyed our Rocky Patel Vintage 1990 Churchills.  We were back at the hotel by 12:30.  We had a great time despite being menaced by a very tall and excessively drunk man who insisted on standing between me and the exit.  I don’t know what he wanted and he probably didn’t either.  I think that was as close to condition red I’ve ever been.  Fortunately, being sober I was able to outrun and outsmart him by walking around a table.  Mitch Hedberg was wrong.  This dude had legs and was flammable, and he was blocking a fire escape…  Total cost of the bachelor party: $37.

After the reception, we headed for home, and the ToS slept the whole way.

On Sunday after church, we headed out to the Huntsville International Airport for the 2008 Air Show.  The plan was to enjoy the excitement of the Blue Angels.  We got a good deal more excitement than we could enjoy, but the Blue Angels stayed on the ground.  

There was a thunderstorm headed toward us as we got out of the truck.  We talked about it, and Amy ran back about 50 yards to the truck and grabbed her umbrella.  While she was coming back toward us, I heard the air boss on the radio, lining up the next airplane.  He told the pilot that the storm was about 10 miles wide and moving fast, but that the worst part of it had pushed up to the north.  He also said that there was clear weather behind this storm.  The air boss didn’t expect it to last long, so the pilot should hold his position while air show operations were suspended for a few minutes while it passed.

We walked on into the gate, paid our $10, and tried to move on to the exhibits and vendor booths.  As we crossed in front of the six F/A-18 blue and yellow planes, nature betrayed us.  The rain that had been light sprinkles a moment before was now peppering us.  We turned the ToS’s stroller perpendicular to the wind, pulled down her canopy tight, and put the umbrella out to block the wind and rain.  I put my left shoulder into the stroller to keep it from blowing over, and Amy held on to her umbrella like Mary Poppins in a tornado.  

And the wind did blow, and the wind did howl, and all we could do was hold on and laugh.  Yes, we laughed.  The world was coming apart around us, and we laughed.  The ToS didn’t cry, scream, or even look concerned.  People were screaming, but there was nowhere to run.  My guess is that there were over 50,000 people there., caught out in the open  while the storm intensified over our heads.  There was nothing anyone could have done.  The wind and rain were so intense that you couldn’t have seen to run even if you’d have had a place to run.

There wasn’t much lightning, and that which was there seemed to have developed on the east side of the storm after that part of it had passed over our heads.  I remember that during my scouting days we were taught never to sit under a tree during a lightning storm.  Regardless, our first instinct during a storm like this is to seek any kind of shelter.  In this case, that turned out to be the exact wrong thing to do.

Amy swears it lasted ten minutes.  I’d be shocked to learn that it lasted as much as four.  After an eternity huddled behind our umbrella, the horizontal wall of rain gave way to a light vertical sprinkling.  Then the rain stopped, and the sun appeared.  Then the ambulances and fire trucks appeared.  Then the announcer told everyone that the air show was cancelled.  What we would later find out had been a microburst had turned over at least a dozen of the VIP tents.  It was apparent immediately that people had been hurt.  What we didn’t know until the next day was that a 5-year-old boy had been killed when a generator fell on him.  The only available shelter in sight was that row of tents, and ironically they were the least safe place to be.

Again, we are given a somber reminder of how fragile we are, and no matter how much the hippies like to pretend otherwise nature is not the green mother.  She is unkind, unfeeling, unpredictable, and extremely dangerous.  We hope that given the history Huntsville has with the aerospace industry, we get another air show soon.  I worry that with the litigious culture we’re cursed with, it will be many years before we see another.

I hereby declare June 26, 2008 Liberty Day.

Now, run right out an exercise your right with the purchase of a new handgun. We suggest a nice 1911, but ours turned out to be an excellent Beretta Neos in .22 LR caliber.

Today, before I left for work, I was treated to the ToS forcefully saying the word “Momma!”

And, yes Amy was holding her at the time.

Yesterday, the Tot of Steele said what I consider to be her first word… About 1000 times a day, we look at her and say something to the effect of “Hey, little girl!”

So yesterday, I got home and Amy said: “Watch this… HEY!!!” Grace: “HEY!!!” Mimicking mom’s sounds or not, at 4 months and 2 days old THAT WAS A WORD!

You’ll never convince me otherwise.

Back in September, a couple months before Grace was born I found out about an IDPA affiliated club that meets in Huntsville. I knew that before the baby was born and for the first couple of months after would be a bad time to get involved in anything new. I signed up for the email list, but held off attending any of the shoots.

Eventually, they generated enough interest in new shooters that they decided to do a new shooter’s orientation class last Tuesday night. I attended as did a few guys I work with, and we all had a good time. Last night was a scheduled shoot (first and third Tuesday of each month), and was my first match. According to the score sheet, I came in last place in my division. I’m not too worried about that because this was my first time out, and I made my share of rookie mistakes. Most importantly, I had a good time, and didn’t accidentally shoot anyone.

The division that I chose was Custom Defensive Pistol, which means pretty much any .45 ACP pistol but mostly 1911s.

There are a couple other options for practical pistol competition, most notably IPSC/USPSA in which Nathan competes. I’m not going to turn it down out of hand, but IDPA seems more my style. For one thing, IDPA is fairly restrictive about what modifications you may and may not make to your pistol. This makes it more production-friendly. Meaning, my normal carry rig will do just fine. I don’t have to worry about going out and buying $3000 worth of tricked-out, match-only hardware to be competitive. The only things you really need to compete are:

• A pistol or revolver of at least 9×19mm calibre
• A good holster
• Two spare magazines
• A magazine carrier
• A good belt
• A cover garment of some sort
• Proper PPE (earplugs and safety glasses)
• The $10 – $15 match fee

I might add that the satisfactory Springfield Armory XD comes with most of what you need in the box. This piece in most calibers qualifies for Enhanced Service Pistol division, and I think that in .45 ACP it might qualify for CDP division. I might also add that starting this year, Springfield has added the option of a thumb safety to the XD. The XD’s trigger is better than most, but still not quite up to 1911 standards.

I had most of that stuff already, so it was easy for me. Also, since I reload, I can keep things fairly cheap. Some things to make it easier on myself are fairly cheap to come by:

• Redding Powder Dispenser for faster reloading: $100 or less
• Extra magazines: $16 – $35 each, depending on what you get
• Better front sight, with fiber insert: About $40 plus installation
• Range bag to cart all this stuff around in: $25
• More bullets/powder/primers to load: $160 or less per thousand

You get the point. Nothing outrageous that’s going to keep my kid from going to college.

The down side? Well, there were a couple of people who took it all too seriously. In their defense, most of the ones who did really knew how to shoot. So I guess they were justified… Except that one guy plagued with the “California Twitch.”

Quoth Jeff Cooper:

We are amused to see the prevalence of the “California Twitch” on the range. This manoeuver, executed by the shooter after firing and before making safe, involves pointing to the right and the left of the target while wearing a fearsome scowl. It serves no purpose except to show that the shooter has been to a school which picked up his mannerism in the confusion. Once acquired, the “California Twitch” is almost impossible to eradicate, something like a tattoo.

I’m not one to make fun of people more experienced than I, but man you look silly doing that.

The only other bad thing that I can think of is that I’ve never been too fond of .40 S&W as a cartridge. Particularly not at an indoor range. The damn thing is just too loud for me (and remember that I’m a drummer). As loud as the .40 S&W is, its little brother is worse. TWO people insisted on shooting short-barreled pieces in caliber .357 SIG. This mean little thing was designed to get close to .357 Magnum ballistics from an auto loader. I don’t understand why we need it, since everything I’ve seen shows that .40 S&W will throw a heaver bullet the same speed or faster… and .357 SIG is just a .40 S&W case necked-down to .357 caliber… We don’t need it, but we have it. And it. Is. LOUD! I had ear muffs on top of plugs, and it was still way too loud from even 25 yards away.

Seems that the mayor of Toledo, Ohio has a problem with the Marine Corps doing drills in his city, and has ordered them to leave.

The only appropriate response from the Marine Corps is: “Make us.”

So, tonight while Amy and Grace are hanging out with the fams in Mobile, I opened a bottle of Rogue Smoke Ale that I’ve had in the cabinet since probably 2004. This is a big-ish beer at 5.8 ABV, that should have withstood the extra lagering time in a cool, dark environment.

To my palate, it is a passible American interpretation of a German Rauch Bier (Smoke Beer). For the life of me, I can’t detect even a hint of smoke. Like most Rogue beers, I really want to like this beer but I don’t. And I think I know why. I believe (and have for some time) that it has to do with their yeast. According to the Rogue website:

Yeast: Rogues proprietary ale yeast is PacMan. “Pacman is really great yeast; everything about it is good. Pacman attenuates well, is alcohol tolerant, and it produces beers with no diacetyl if the beer is well made. Its very flocculent, which makes it a great choice for bottle conditioning. I ferment almost all my beers at 60deg.F; once in a while for certain styles Ill ferment as high as 70deg.F, but never higher. Use lots of oxygen, and a high pitch rate. I never repitch past the 6th generation, and I always use Wyeast Yeast Nutrient.”- John Maier, Brewmaster, Rogue Ales

Wha? Attenuation is good. It converts sugar into alcohol and CO2. Alcohol tolerant is good. That means that the yeasties can work their magic for longer before the alcohol puts them into stasis. NO diacetyl? I think we have a problem! Diacetyl is the chemical responsible for putting butter and butterscotch flavors into beer. Now, style guidelines say that the presence of diacetyl is verboten in Classic Rauch Bier. However, Classic Rauch Bier is a lager, and Rogue’s PacMan yeast is an ale yeast. According to the style guide they nailed it. But I like diacetyl in my most of my beers(dry stout is obviously the exception)! Perhaps what I really wanted was another Bass Ale, but it was all gone.

Rogue’s PacMan yeast just doesn’t work for me. From “Dead Guy Ale” to “Shakespeare Stout” I really WANT to like these beers, but I can’t. I just don’t like something in the flavor profile that I can’t yet define. It has been said that most breweries develop “house” flavors. These are flavor components that are common to all of the various styles any brewery makes. Young’s has theirs. Fuller’s has theirs. Give me a new beer from either brewery, and I can probably tell you which it was from (if either of these were more available in Alabama, I promise I’d have done enough research to be able to definitively tell you). Give me a Rogue beer and don’t tell me where it is from, and I will tell you “This is from Rogue!” Their house flavor is that distinct, and again I think it is because of that yeast.

What Rogue does right is that most (if not all) of their ales are bottle conditioned. This is quite important. It makes the beer taste better, and gives each beer a better texture. Essentially, this means that Rogue is kind enough to leave us live yeasties in the bottle. That is good for a number of reasons, not the least being that it makes the beer quite healthy for you to drink. It isn’t a beer for beginners, nor for lightweights because it ships in 22 oz bottles. It certainly has a flavor, and plenty of it. Almost enough for me to like, but not quite.

7/10