Tuesday, 21 June 2016

By on June 21st, 2016 in personal, science kits

11:36 – We’re labeling and filling more containers, mostly in batches of 120 or 150 at a time. (The labels we use come 30 to a sheet). We’ll be doing this for quite a while, as each kit contains from 25 to about 50 containers. Then we’ll go back and do it all over again until we have thousands and thousands of containers ready in preparation for the summer rush from mid-July to mid-October.

Bonnie, our 90-year-old neighbor, called Barbara yesterday evening to report that black bears had been seen in the vicinity. Bonnie was concerned about Colin. Black bears are unpredictable, certainly, but they’re also very smart. A bear puppy learns by the time it’s in kindergarten that wolves and humans are a threat, and to a bear Colin with his prick ears and stalking behavior looks very much like a wolf. Bears certainly know that humans are a deadly threat to them. Human young are tasty and easy to catch, but adult humans often have thundersticks, which are a Very Bad Thing. Sure, they’ll come in close to human homes to find food but they really don’t want to confront people. I’ve seen dozens of black bears over the last 50 years, but in nearly every case I saw only the south end of a bear running north. The closest I’ve ever come to confronting one happened 30 years or so ago, when Barbara and I were tent camping. Barbara heard a noise outside in the middle of the night. She opened the tent flap, looked out, and said it was a big dog. I put my flashlight beam on it. It was, of course, a black bear, rummaging through the 55-gallon drum that was provided at the site as a trash can. I just said “Hi, Bear” in a loud, deep voice, and it took off running. Of course, I had a heavy-caliber pistol in my hand at the time.




49 Comments and discussion on "Tuesday, 21 June 2016"

  1. OFD says:

    “A bear puppy…”

    More commonly known as a “cub.”

    They generally do take off when confronted by adult homo sapiens sapiens but out in the deep woods it might be closer to a 50-50 chance, so I’d be carrying a heavy-duty thunder-stick myself. Adult moose can actually be more dangerous, but they tend to hang out in very wet boggy areas and off the trails. Although the one adult moose I’ve seen up here so far was galloping down a very busy rush-hour Route 2 one morning in South Burlington, heading away from the Loyal Order of Moose hall a few blocks from there.

  2. Ray Thompson says:

    Although the one adult moose I’ve seen up here so far was galloping down a very busy rush-hour Route 2 one morning

    Cankles missed her motorcade?

  3. MrAtoz says:

    If you were going to invest in a FLIR device, would you go for a handheld or rifle mounted scope (use the RM scope as handheld when needed)? I know they cost a fortune but just looking for recommendations.

  4. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    I don’t know much about night vision, but just on general principles I’d go with the RM scope because it can serve both purposes.

    But wouldn’t gen 3 or even gen 2 night vision serve the purpose as well as IR does?

  5. MrAtoz says:

    I’ve used both IR and NV while in the Army. IR is so much better and versatile you’d be amazed. But that’s milspec. For GP we used night vision for flying. All “shooting” at distance is IR for resolution. IR can show detail in the shadows NV can’t. I’d still want a hybrid IR/NV, but don’t have $100K lying around.

  6. OFD says:

    Some info on NV devices here:

    http://forum.maxvelocitytactical.com/forums/topic/flir-scout-iii-vs-scout-ii/

    It’ll be quite a while before OFD can spring for any of that stuff.

  7. lynn says:

    Bonnie, our 90-year-old neighbor, called Barbara yesterday evening to report that black bears had been seen in the vicinity.

    I am fairly sure that a mountain lion is living next door to the office property in the 40 acre underbrush that is my neighbor’s property. I’m not sure which is more desirable, a 400 lb black bear or a 200 lb kitty cat. Either seem a little difficult to deal with to me.

  8. JimL says:

    If it came right down to it, I’d rather see the bear. The kitty is more likely to attack, and the meat is less desirable.

  9. brad says:

    having the qualities that you expect a particular type of person to have

    Definitely the kitty cat. They purr…

  10. lynn says:

    Some info on NV devices here:

    http://forum.maxvelocitytactical.com/forums/topic/flir-scout-iii-vs-scout-ii/

    It’ll be quite a while before OFD can spring for any of that stuff.

    I would like to get a somewhat workable night vision device for $150 or so that takes AA batteries. My latest book, “Once About A Apocalypse”, firmly made the point that some night vision is way better than zero night vision. And said that Gen 2 devices work somewhat if they have some moonlight to work with. Nothing like a Gen 3 device but who can afford a couple of Gen 3 devices ?

  11. lynn says:

    If it came right down to it, I’d rather see the bear. The kitty is more likely to attack, and the meat is less desirable.

    He / she is very skittish. I watched him jump from my main road to the overgrown place next door one night about 10 pm. He jumped at least 25 to 30 foot from a full run and cleared the barb wire fence by a good 2 or 3 foot.

  12. Dave says:

    I’m not sure which is more desirable, a 400 lb black bear or a 200 lb kitty cat. Either seem a little difficult to deal with to me.

    Given that the kitty is almost as agile as a house cat, I would choose to deal with the bear.

  13. nick says:

    @lynn, you’d be surprised. Look on ebay. Don’t buy anything that’s available from 100 different sellers.

    I have purchased a few scopes at the surplus auctions, and there was just one lot that had a couple of head mounted NVGs. They go for hundreds not thousands….

    They are BIGGER than current stuff, but still produce good images, even gen 1 is useful.

    There is a flir thermal camera you can plug into a smart phone and it’s only $200….

    nick

  14. MrAtoz says:

    lol! Gimme dose pancaaks!

    Two sisters have been arrested after a Saturday night brawl at IHOP in Whitehaven.

    The fight happened at the IHOP near Southland Mall in Whitehaven.

    The General Manager told police that employee Janika Nellums and her sister Shanika Strickland got into a fight with other restaurant employees as a baby sat just a few feet away.

    A video of the fight has been circulating around social media. You can watch it in the post below, but be warned the video does contain adult language.

  15. nick says:

    hah, just did a google search with ZERO results. That hasn’t happened to me in a while….

    n

  16. OFD says:

    “There is a flir thermal camera you can plug into a smart phone and it’s only $200…”

    You can also mount the phone/flir gadget right on your rifle.

    “Two sisters have been arrested after a Saturday night brawl at IHOP in Whitehaven.”

    Fun time had by all! Yo, them warthogs ain’t missed too many triple stacks of pancakes, hab they? Got a coupla questions for them:

    1.) Why ain’t none o’ y’all fummamuckers called the po-leece?

    2.) Yo, where my GAWD-dam pancakes, girl???

  17. lynn says:

    “World’s First 1,000-Core CPU Runs on AA Battery”
    http://www.pcmag.com/news/345433/worlds-first-1-000-core-cpu-runs-on-aa-battery

    Wow! Every time I think that I have seen it all, somebody in the industry wows me again.

    I note that they did not say if it is 32 bit or 64 bit. I suspect 32 bit.

  18. MrAtoz says:

    8-bit cores? The Sistahs won’t be cooking dose pancaaks over dat ding. Minecraft server?

  19. MrAtoz says:

    President Obola: “Congress failed the American people by not passing knee jerk gun legislature.” Doosh, you *failed* the American people. Can’t even call an Islamoterrorist by name.

  20. lynn says:

    What the heck do you run with an 8 bit core? Sounds useless to me.

  21. OFD says:

    Yo! Where my dam pancakes, y’all???

    And I ordered extra buttah!

    Side of grits, too!

    And BACON!!!

    Tell dat baby to STFU!

  22. OFD says:

    “When men were men and nothing stood in our way…”

    Micro-aggression again. When will you learn?

    OFD is torn, torn, between saving up the bucks for a used, 4WD pickup truck with a manual transmission (can’t use the slang “tranny” anymore for obvious reasons) OR, a used jeep. Ah well, many other items on the expense priority list here anyway….

    Gorgeous day on the bay; got more mulching and other yahd work done and figured out some more stuff we gotta get this week for it. Real ambitious. Chatted very briefly with the other ‘Nam vet across the street; he ain’t exactly a chatterbox. And read up on some hateful ultra-rightwing Roman Catholic stuff, wherein the papacy has been VACANT since Pius XII died.

    Other than that, giving the back and hip a rest for now, and back at it tomorrow.

  23. Ray Thompson says:

    What the heck do you run with an 8 bit core?

    DOS 3.01

    Sounds useless to me.

    On second thought, you are correct.

  24. lynn says:

    “Sotomayor Issues Scathing Dissent in Fourth Amendment Case”
    http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sotomayor-issues-scathing-dissent-fourth-amendment-case-n595786

    Oh my goodness, I agree with Sotomayor !

  25. DadCooks says:

    @lynn: “Oh my goodness, I agree with Sotomayor !”

    I’m with you but people need read the entire article otherwise they may draw the wrong conclusion.

  26. nick says:

    Got almost a full inch of rain this afternoon, and that took the edge off the temps. Only 82F with 85RH at the moment.

    Had nice pig dinner wrapped with extra pig. Even the side dish had pig in it. Carrots from the garden provided a crispy and bright counterpoint to the white meat and green brusselsprouts. Yum.

    n

  27. OFD says:

    SCOTUS and other lawyerly decisions go back and forth over the decades; what suits this year’s goose may or may not suit next year’s gander. When I was a costumed minion of the State, we could kick the bejesus outta people all night, then go out and get bombed on booze and drive home; if we got stopped for weaving all over the road, the other officer/s would drive us the rest of the way or have us pull over to sleep it off. Miranda had been around a while but it was considered a joke and we saw the beginnings of the War on Some Drugs walk all over multiple Bill of Rights amendments and it still does.

    The “wise Latina” may have got a couple of comments right this time like a stopped clock is right twice a day; the rest of the time she’s a totally reliable Bolshevik justice in league with the ruling junta. All we got left is Justice Thomas, and he may bail out pretty soon himself. Doubtful now whether Obola can replace Scalia in time before he leaves, but if Field Marshal Rodham gets in and Thomas leaves, they’ll pack it worse than Pharaoh Roosevelt II did back in the day. And kick off a full-scale assault on 2A.

  28. Spook says:

    Rick H says:
    16 June 2016 at 21:38

    Noticed that Harbor Freight has (plastic) ammo boxes for $5/each:
    … …

    Walmart has Plano brand ammo boxes (two different shapes,
    about the same capacity) for about $5. They also have metal
    30 caliber, I guess, ammo boxes for about $13. Sam’s Club
    sometimes has a two pack, metal 30 & 50, for about $35.

  29. Ray Thompson says:

    Sam’s Club sometimes has a two pack, metal 30 & 50, for about $35

    As does Costco. Saw them last week. May not be there anymore.

  30. nick says:

    My costco still has them. Appear to be chinese copies, not NOS or Milsurp.

    n

  31. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Geez, I remember buying 10 lightly-used 50-cal cans in 1978 for $20.

  32. OFD says:

    “Geez, I remember buying 10 lightly-used 50-cal cans in 1978 for $20.”

    Those or similar can be found at gun shows, yard sales, etc. maybe costing a little more, depending on condition. I’ll be researching ammo storage options soon myself.

    Mrs. OFD reports temp at 97 in Norman, OK tonight and she’s deuced happy to have A-C where she is; doesn’t understand how peeps can live with that most of the year. I told her that homo sapiens sapiens can get used to anything if he or she is stuck with it for long enuff, as was her husband during all the time I stacked in TX and SEA, not to mention central Maine in the dead of friggin’ wintuh. Peeps from TX and OK might find this area a tough nut to crack in said wintuh, and they’ve told her they dunno how we manage it. What’s really funny is getting through weeks of subzero chit here with the wind howling off the lake ice, and then we get a warm spell when it rockets up to the teens and peeps are out on the streets in shorts and tee shirts.

  33. pcb_duffer says:

    Re fight at the IHOP: During my many years sojurn of helping to run my sister’s 24 hour per day diner, fights on graveyard shifts were an all too common happening. The one unifying factor in every incident was the over-consumption of alcohol. One night, while I was waiting tables and trying to control the chaos, a brawl broke out between two groups who were seated very far apart. It turns out that they’d previously scuffled in a local tavern, which was know for the strong drinks they served and the joie de drink demonstrated by the clientele. The deputies arrived and hauled everyone off (after they paid their tab) and explained all this. I just shook my head as to how badly one had to malfunction to get tossed out of N* in the first place.

  34. OFD says:

    I remember all the post-last-call fights and brawls while I was working as a costumed thug for the State back in the day; booze always a factor, and sometimes speed and coke to make them wide-awake drunken assholes. They rarely responded to reason, persuasion or for that matter, love, haha, as the AG thinks we should use against terror, for instance…

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/21/loretta-lynch-most-effective-response-to-islamic-t/

    Gee, Loretta, rather than love, my thinking, sad though it be, is to use the only friggin’ thing those fuckers understand, and which has been utterly true since they were spawned by the Devil: immediate, lethal and overwhelming force and violence. Just as it was for ol’ OFD back in ancient times, when the PR-24 and maybe a good splash of CS tear gas or Mace did the trick in the wee hours.

    There was a big-ass club on Route 9 (Boston-Worcester Turnpike, formerly a First Nations path between Boston Hahbuh and the lakes and rivers to the west) back in the late 70s, and weekend nights in the summuh were truly special. Almost always a mass brawl either inside and/or outside in the parking lots at closing time, with biker groups involved. The Westborough PD would respond first, while putting it out on the regional police net as they were enroute; so the guys in the surrounding towns, like mine, would also start that way. Soon we’d be wading in with billy clubs, PR-24s, saps, knuckle dusters, etc. and just having a grand old time. At some point the MA State Police would show up, with German shepherds, and everything suddenly, magically, ceased.

    Then we all repaired to Harry’s Clam Bar, also on Route 9, and had a big feed together. Small towns, so not much usually happened in the wee hours to detract from this event back in them while we were busy. The good ol’ days. This sorta thing would be seriously frowned upon nowadays.

  35. SteveF says:

    IIRC, OFD was speculating that the Orlando pigs might have been a bit careless in their shooting last week. Tsk-tsk. OFD is too young to be so cynical. Alas, cynicism is just another word for “experienced”.

  36. OFD says:

    Well, it ain’t rocket science; when the huckleberries stage outside a building crowded with citizens who can’t get out and then decide to roll in with their guns blazing like it was the O.K. Corral, there is gonna be “collateral damage.” And as the chief sez, basically, fuck it, it’s on the perp. Not really, Chief. Not entirely. Y’all better step up and find better ways to go after mass shooters, and the techniques are out there; one of them is you don’t take three hours to respond and sit outside while the perps are massacring people.

    I also expressed a questioning attitude to the idea that there was only one gunman in there; how do we know that for sure? At least one witness claims there were more. And as noted, it was three hours before the heroic warrior cops rolled in.

  37. MrAtoz says:

    Y’all better step up and find better ways to go after mass shooters

    What does SWAT stand for? Why even have SWAT if you don’t use the “tactics” portion? Me thinks pussification is in play with the Orlando cops.

  38. OFD says:

    “Me thinks pussification is in play with the Orlando cops.”

    And methinks it’s not just them but in most, if not all, modern departments; again, the Primary Directive is for you to get home at the end of your shift without a bruise, scratch or even feeling bad, and the corollary to that is the default setting for lethal force. Screw the usual SWAT scenario, anyway; the very first responding officer/s on the scene should move directly to the shooter/s and take them out or die trying. Period. While backup units are enroute immediately and communicating between them all.

    One of the early reports I saw stated that an officer who was on duty at the door fired at the shooter and evidently missed, as did two other officers nearby. Then I never saw anything else about that; WTF???

  39. Dave says:

    One of the early reports I saw stated that an officer who was on duty at the door fired at the shooter and evidently missed, as did two other officers nearby. Then I never saw anything else about that; WTF???

    There is something very wrong when news accounts have fewer details over time. And unlike some of the other people here, I am not a conspiracy theorist.

  40. SteveF says:

    News agencies are not conspicuously reliable in early reporting of flashy news. They’re not conspicuously reliable at all, to be sure, but less so for breaking news. They routinely get details wrong. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if they took a “bang bang bang! Shots were coming from everywhere!” report from someone who claimed to have been on the scene, only for it to be unsubstantiated.

    That said, it’s easy to believe that details not supporting the official story have been suppressed. Hell, look at the Oklahoma City bombing, the video allegedly showing another, unidentified, person, and the strange failure to release those tapes for public view.

  41. OFD says:

    “…and the strange failure to release those tapes for public view.”

    So very strange, and yet so common now. If we see their lips moving, they’re lying. If their lips are NOT moving, they’re lying, or withholding information.

    A partial cross-section of our very strange rulers and assorted SJW and prog types, no doubt:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7WwveeyfDg

  42. Dave says:

    News agencies are not conspicuously reliable in early reporting of flashy news. They’re not conspicuously reliable at all, to be sure, but less so for breaking news. They routinely get details wrong. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if they took a “bang bang bang! Shots were coming from everywhere!” report from someone who claimed to have been on the scene, only for it to be unsubstantiated.

    Agreed, but usually as time goes on there are reports about the details in the early reporting that were wrong. What surprises me is not that they said something, and then dropped it as though it never happened, rather than report that they reported something that did not pan out.

  43. lynn says:

    At some point the MA State Police would show up, with German shepherds, and everything suddenly, magically, ceased.

    My wife’s youngest uncle was a New York State Trooper. He was a K-9 unit back in the 1980s with the biggest German Shepard that I have ever seen in my life. The dog’s name was Brummer and I’ll swear that he was over 100 lbs. Fantastically trained and able to handle multiple targets.

    Unfortunately, her uncle passed away in the 90s at the tender age of 48 from lung cancer. Left eight kids and only a couple of them were full grown.

  44. OFD says:

    Smoker?

    The USAF Security Police had regular working police dogs, usually German Shepherds, and usually run by the law enforcement specialists on the stateside bases, and then in hostile fire/combat zones, the security specialists had “sentry dogs,” also German Shepherds, for base perimeter duty between the barbed wire, mines, trip flares, all that good chit. These dogs only responded to their handlers, and if anyone else showed up in those zones, they were dead meat.

    The local VSP station up here has a K9 unit, too, once again, German shepherds.

  45. lynn says:

    Smoker?

    He was only a couple of packs a day.

  46. OFD says:

    That’s kind of a lot; forty ciggies per whatever number of waking hours. I did a pack a day for about six years and quit cold-turkey in 1978. Your lungs go from charcoal to a nice healthy pink in the first year or two off them. We seem to see LOTS more peeps smoking than we used to, esp. among young’uns.

  47. lynn says:

    My father in law used to smoke those ciggies that came in the K-Rations back in the 1950s and 1960s. He then smoked a pack a day until the price went to 50 cents a pack here in Texas in 1983 or so. He had a lung lobe removed in 2010 by the VA.

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