Suggestion for Kydex sheath makers...

I recently took delivery on a sheath modification for a knife I've owned for a few years but never carried because the sheath drove me crazy. I wanted it to be more like the Kydex sheath on my everyday knife, which is inferior to this other knife but much easier and more comfortable to carry.


This is my everyday knife. You'll probably recognize it as an old Camillus Air Force knife. I love the design, except for the saw teeth, and the size is just perfect for everyday utility use. The only real problem I have with this knife is that it will not hold a useful edge. I'll bet I sharpen this thing every other evening. If you have to whittle points on more than two posts in a day, you're screwed. Not acceptable. I've had this knife for going on 30 years, and for going on 30 years the inferior steel has driven me nuts. But I keep digging it out of the drawer because in every other way it just fits perfectly. And the sheath is perfect: I had this one made by a guy in Georgia about six years ago, when the original sheath fell apart. I'd plug him here, but he seems to have gone out of business.


This is the knife I want to be my everyday knife. It's a Cold Steel UWK. It balances like it was made for me, and the steel is far superior to the Camillus. But I hated the sheath. It's like a high-quality but ill-fitting pair of jeans: Doesn't matter how good the denim is, you won't wear it if it chafes you. It's a little longer than I really like, but I can live with that; the sheath design was the problem.

So I sent the knife and sheath off to a guy via a friend, and got it back yesterday. He saved me some money by modifying the existing plastic part of the sheath, ditching the long, floppy nylon hanger and adding a loop just under the guard swelling. Seemed like a good idea at the time.


But look at the way it lays on the table in its sheath, compared to the way the older knife does. Guess where that hilt wants to go, when each is riding on your belt. The older one is very comfortable to wear; the newer one feels like it's stabbing you with the wrong end.


Here are details of the hanger for each sheath. If you make these sheaths, or know someone who does, or if you're specifying a sheath for yourself, please: Top one baaaaad. Bottom one, goooood.

A hefty dose of cute

The babies at nine days. So far no additions to the extended family, but any day now.

She really HATES haters!

Round Up Hate-Promoters Now, Before Any More Holocaust Museum Attacks

It's not enough to prosecute these murders as murders. They are hate-motivated crimes and each of these men had been under some sort of police surveillance prior to their actions. Isn't it time we started rounding up promoters of hate before they kill?

And who gets to decide who's a "promoter of hate", Bonnie? You? I dunno, you're a pretty public person, and it sounds as if you're promoting, er, you know. Might want to watch those glass houses and stones.

Truth is, prosecuting a murderer for his murder seems pretty fair and just to me. But then I and mine might be on your list of hate-promoters, so likely you won't figure my opinion means much.

Really? Ya Think?

Analysis: US must limit Afghan civilian deaths

You might think this is a no-brainer from every conceivable moral and ethical angle. This is, of course, not the reason the military brass is considering the possibility of not slaughtering innocent people limiting civilian deaths. No, indeedy. There's an important reason.

Gates emphasized the imperative of avoiding civilian casualties, calling the deaths "one of our greatest strategic vulnerabilities."

Yeah, it probably took Alexander the Great a while to figure it out, too: Dead Afghanis invariably have lots of live relatives. Heavily armed, vengeful, live relatives. Whose actions subsequently become indistinguishable from those of the people you say you're there to fight.

It probably didn't take him eight years to figure it out, but I'm sure it took time. Way to go, anyhow.

So...what, you've only got three rounds in your pistol?

That leaves one for the dogs to gnaw on, which will make them happy and provide healthsome exercise!

Woman narrowly survives harrowing encounter with ... coyotes? Yer shittin' me.

Mary Burke, 47, was out walking her four Labrador retrievers at around 7 a.m. Monday in an area off Groveland Road in the town of Groveland, which is adjacent to Haverhill, when she looked up and saw a coyote staring her down.

"I was talking on the phone to a friend when all of a sudden there was one, then there was four, and they surrounded me," Burke said today. As I turned around, I started crying, I said to my friend, 'Oh my God, I'm not going to make it out of here.' "
---
The police were able to locate Burke's exact position using their enhanced 911 system, which pinpointed Burke's cellphone, said Kirmelewicz.

"The GPS feature proved to be a great tool in this instance," Kirmelewicz said. "If we hadn't been able to locate her, who knows what could have happened?"

The dispatcher was able to guide Burke out of the woods as officers rushed to help, but the coyotes kept pursuing.

Okay, I admit I didn't even know there were coyotes in Massachusetts. I can see why they'd move there, though; the Labs, and apparently the people too, are all bred to be good little lapdogs. Lapdogs are food. Save me, Big Brother! Save me! Sounds like a target-rich environment to me.

Afraid of coyotes. That's just disgusting. You know, I really don't like the word "Sheeple" - it's such a cliche, and insulting to boot. But can you name a more accurately descriptive word? Because right now it really seems to fit. Fit this lady with an RFID chip, like the ones no doubt already in her dogs, and she'd not only feel safer; she'd arguably be safer. Clearly she needs the protection of her shepherd at all times.

I mean, what the hell kind of "woods" was she even in, if a police dispatcher could talk her out of them over the telephone?

New neighbors

The two stakeholders who are moving in arrived early yesterday afternoon after a long, slow but thankfully uneventful trip. There was food and other arrangements to work out, a big trailer to empty, a few tons of stuff to find places for; it's basically never going to end, I think. One of them has been gradually moving his stuff for a month or two, the other came all at once and is a little overwhelmed at the moment.

We left him to his work, getting his lair cleaned out and stocked with that small percentage of his belongings he can use right now. Meanwhile we unloaded the trailer, filled it with trash that's been needing to go to the local landfill (no point wasting a perfectly good trailer), then cleaned it out after the landfill and returned it to the rental place. One of them brought some long patch cords, so I could finally get the wi-fi router moved outside and located where it could get anyone who wanted online. And now I'm out of the scriptorium and back to tapping keys in my lair.

Naturally with all this work to do, it turned really hot early. So we all burned it through the morning, then finished up whatever projects we were working on and pretty much crashed. And that's where we are now; I've got to decide what I'm doing about dinner since nobody else is really up and on-line yet, kitchen-wise. A day or two of my very limited cooking will serve as incentive, I'm sure :-D

To. The. Moon. ALICE.

So we've got a little time on our hands. I got a call from one of the stakeholders, saying they wouldn't be in until sometime mid-day tomorrow. There's bread in the breadmaker, it unexpectedly rained like hell overnight, and I got to thinking 'let's take an afternoon walky, and see how our friends' new culverts are holding up; see if there's any new erosion. By the time we get back, the bread'll be done.'

So we bee-lined down the slope, across the wash, up the opposite ridge, and right across till we got to the cliff. This clif isn't exactly Everest, right? I mean technically it's a cliff, but there are lots of places even I can get up and down it. So I didn't think anything about it, just looked for a likely place to go down.


Ghost can pretty much sprint up and down any surface in the desert, no matter how vertical. Magnus does pretty good. Fritz, not so hot. Little Bear, of course, is still learning. Plus he's got those stumpy little legs.

So I wasn't very surprised when he got a few feet down in the rocks, got scared, and started yelling for help. (This post isn't about Little Bear.) I coaxed and called, and he refused to budge another inch. Crap, this was holding us up. I looked down to the meadow between the cliff and the wash: Ghost was already down there, of course. To my surprise, so was Fritz. I was stuck now; LB wasn't moving, so Magnus and I went back up and walked along the top to find an easier way for Little Bear. This post still isn't about Little Bear.


We find a spot he finds acceptable and head down. This is taking time - truth is that it's taking a lot of time, and this was supposed to be a quicky. I'm getting a little annoyed. Ghost joins us halfway down, and we all go to the meadow together.

Fritz is nowhere to be seen. I wait for him for a minute, and start to call. Wait some more. No Fritz. Fritz has disappeared like the earth swallowed him.

If Ghost pulled this, I wouldn't give it a thought. He does it all the time, and he always knows where we are even if I don't know where he is. I don't worry about Ghost. But Fritz has never, ever pulled this. He always stays pretty close to Magnus, and Magnus always stays close to me. But now he's just gone. I'm starting to worry. I search and call, search and call. No Fritz.

After maybe a half hour of this, I'm starting to freak. They're all my boys; I don't love one more than the other and it'd kill me to lose any of them. And Fritz can be such an idiot; he may have gotten himself into real trouble somehow. What the hell am I going to do? He just isn't here!

There's a dim possibility he took it into his head to go home. Either way I'm afraid of losing the puppy, who's getting pretty tired anyway. I'll go back home, lock the boys in Gitmo, lose the rifle, get some water, take the bread out of the maker, and go back myself. No way I'm calling it a day until I find Fritz.

Of course you know what happened next. We went back up the cliff, across the ridge, and I'm heading back down toward our loop of the wash. And who should I meet but...


And he's all like "What?" And I don't know whether to hug him or wring his neck. Y'know, this isn't the sort of thing you should do to a guy with an AK47.

And the song in my head eludes me...

I've finally given up, after realizing with shock that I spent two hours looking for it. The only lyrics I remember are:

Life goes on, given the slightest chance
For the weak or the strong, life goes on

and it would have transformed your life in Ghandi-esque ways, but now I guess not so much.

Total waste of time, and I have no time to waste. Two stakeholders will be arriving tomorrow evening or maybe Thursday, and I've work to do to welcome them properly. Woke up this morning at 3:30ish, and all was well: Magnus taking up about a quarter of the total floor space, Fritz on the other couch, Little Bear in what has become his favorite space beside my bed, cuddled next to my plastic leg, Ghost under a juniper outside, guarding his domain, Click on her bed in the loft. Since Butch bought it some months ago I can't relax on waking until I've inventoried all the critters and assured myself that nobody's disappeared during the night. Little Bear always starts his nights asleep on the porch and then comes in sometime during the night; if I ever reach down on waking and not find his fuzzy hide under my hand, I'll probably panic right through the roof.

Little Bear is now a significant percentage of Magnus' size, but with his stumpy legs still can't jump onto my bed. He's worked out his own technique: getting his front paws on the bed, shoving his head under my arm and then lifting his head and picking himself up by the muscles in his neck until he tumbles onto the mattress. At maybe three months old. Gad, he's going to be a powerful creature. If I tried that I'd spend the rest of my life in traction. My technique for dealing with him at Snacky Time isn't going to work much longer; I've been putting him and his plate on a shelf so the other dogs won't bother him and he won't bother them but he's growing so fast he pretty much doesn't fit any more. He's going to have to take his chances. A couple of evenings ago he tried to dispute Ghost's leftover snacky with Magnus and got the fonging of his life, and I suspect he'll get a few more before he's done. It's startling to watch, but no harm ever comes of it: Magnus roars in outrage, Little Bear squeals in terror, fangs flash and spittle flies and you'd swear somebody (not Magnus) is being torn limb from limb. But the jaws never quite close on flesh so long as there's instant submission which there always is. One day within the next year Little Bear may not submit when Magnus tries that, after which somebody might need a trip to the vet and I'm not totally sure that when the time comes it'll be Little Bear. But that's karma. Nothing I can do about it.

This is a momentous week, and I admit I'm getting a bit nerved up. This time when the stakeholders come, at least two of them, they're not going away again. I've lived by myself here in the boonies for so long now that I'm going to have to learn how to deal with people every day all over again. No more, Joel the Hermit. I joked with S&L Sunday morning that after a few weeks of that I may be living in a tent out yonder. Most of the boys will enjoy having more people to interact with, but to be honest I'm not totally sure I will. But that's karma too: I knew the Master of Solitude phase would come to an end sometime. There'll be more dogs as well, and I'm very interested to see how the boys will react to that. Last time, it didn't go so well.

I should go to town and prepare food for a special welcome feast, but with unexpected expenses last month and this I don't have any money so I'm afraid they'll have to pretend to enjoy bread and fried rice. But everything's in good repair; all I need to do is dust some surfaces and shovel some dog poop, and the place will be as shipshape as I can make it.

I got nothing today...

...but this is funny. And actually explains a lot.



H/T to New Jovian Thunderbolt, via Tam

Fear is the Mind Killer

Okay, Joel. No more putting it off. You drilled the holes in the ceiling and the roof yesterday. You've assembled the vent pipe. You've got all your tools together. You set up the ladder yesterday. Today - no, no, this morning, first thing - you will go up on the roof and install that fucking pipe. Any handyman can do it; you've seen guys skipping on roofs with a much steeper pitch than this in their stocking feet. Just do it: Ten minutes and it's done forever. Just do it: You know you're going to.

I've been in a traffic accident that tore a leg right off, broke two other limbs so that bones were sticking through the skin and broke my head, and I didn't disgrace myself. I've looked down the barrel of a pistol so close I could count the lands and grooves and though I thought shit was going to run down my leg I stayed calm enough to do what I had to. I've looked into the sharp, capable teeth of an animal that wanted to tear my throat out and waited calmly until my bullet could kill him cleanly, and felt nothing but sadness for him. I'm not a hero, but I'm not a coward.

So why does a simple thing like a solid roof paralyze me so?

This is my enemy. Going up the ladder isn't so bad. Transitioning from the ladder to the roof isn't so bad. Walking across the roof is pretty bad, but I know I can do that. Doing the actual work on the roof is nothing at all. It's the trip back down, moving from the roof to the ladder, that has made me sit trembling for hours. It's embarrassing as hell, but that's the way it is. I don't know why.

C'mon, you fucking oaf. You've readjusted the ladder's angle a dozen times. You've even braced it with concrete blocks, because you know that fear of it shifting will stop you on the way down. You've got a hundred times more safeguards than a sensible man would need. Just get it the hell over with.

Okay, you're near the top. Walking down the slope is harder; I don't know why. You walk confidently down much steeper slopes every single day when you walk the dogs. Why is a roof so much different?

*sigh* Because a roof isn't on the ground.

Okay, it's done. Yes, I know the vent isn't straight; it will be when the bottom is attached to the water heater. Now: Turn around and go to the ladder. You know you're going to eventually; you've never actually spent the rest of your life sitting on the roof staring at the ladder. Sooner or later you're going to do it, so this time let's make it sooner.

Walk slowly, carefully down the slope to the ladder. Take off your tool belt and lay it next to the ladder. Wiggle the ladder; yes, it's solid no matter what your fear tells you. Go to the left side of the ladder, hanging on tight, so that you can swing your meat foot (Oh, gods!) out over open (I'm gonna fall!) space and then bend (I can't do this!) your left knee, the one with no muscle at all and not nearly enough cartilage hang on to the ladder let your arms do the work (the ladder's shaking!) feel for the rung just under the eave you can do this (I can't!) yes you can feel the rung under your boot now lean forward move your plastic foot off the roof hang on the ladder now you're safe you're safe you're safe grab the tool belt down the ladder right foot on the ground left foot on the ground. Turn from the barn, pick up any random rock from the ground and kiss it like a lover.

God, I hate roofs. Half an hour and two cigarettes later, my hands have almost stopped shaking. But that's done.