The Ultimate Answer to Kings has moved!

Please change your links to joelsgulch.com, as we fulfill what I take to be Blogger's fondest wish and move away.

There's still some spackling and painting to be done, but from now on the new place is the place. Come visit!

It's sort of like...

...a five-year-old asks you to turn on a lamp, and you deliver the crated parts of a nuclear power plant on his lawn. Step One...

Joelsgulch.com is on-line, but not ready for showtime. I've finally figured out:
*how to load the title pic
*how to import the old blog's contents

This blog is going on four years old and there are almost 3000 posts, so the importation is taking a long time. I won't know what will actually happen until that process completes. I've still no clue how to set up the sidebar or even how to access the new email address.

Bear with me. Today was slated for laundry and bread-making, but now it looks like I'll be glued to the keyboard at least while the power lasts. Hopefully it won't cloud up till late. Fortunately I left the 'pooter alone yesterday afternoon, so the batteries are in good shape until the solar panels start giving me some push. I hope to announce the new site today, but it's not the sort of thing where you should take a deep breath and hold it till then.

I used to be better at this sort of thing, but at my best I was never the guy you wanted maintaining your website.

Hey, Gun Nuts! (You know who you are...)

My friend Ian of Forgotten Weapons is in the process of fulfilling a lifelong dream, the bastard. And he's started a new blog to document his progress. Introducing Gun Lab! Not a lot there at present, but his work at FW has proven he can crank out content.

This guy's gonna end up being remembered as the Elmer Keith of the 21^st century, you know. And I can say I knew him when.

QoD: "Clearly, you are a terrorist" Edition...

All we have in politics today is a slave auction. The Democrats want me to slave for government for 150 days a year. The Republicans say that is mean and excessive and offer me a compromise of 140 days this year and only 150 next. They believe in smaller government.

That's a week I won't demand a redo on.

We didn't quite finish yesterday, so it actually ended up going six days. We got some cracking, alas, but other than that the house looks really good. Much better than concrete grey, anyway.

Yesterday, as we were both hitting exhaustion/sick of life, my phone started ringing. Some neighbors were having generator trouble and could I drop what I was doing and come help them right F'ing now. (No, but I did come by in the afternoon) and then J&H wanted to know why I hadn't shown up for shit-shoveling (Oops, meant to call and reschedule.) Then we had the first real storm of the monsoon, a terrific thunderboomer followed by three and a half hours of solid soaky rain. Crazy day.

Now it's done. Landlady's on her way home, the shit-shoveling's caught up with, the boys have been released from Gitmo upon military tribunal, and I'm going to crash. Crash!

Whimper

Today's the last day of stuccoing. The Final Effort. The Big Push.

The last gasp.

I have no skin on the fingertips of my left hand, as the lime is finally having its way with me. We're almost out of those contemptible "rubber" gloves that split their whole lengths at the slightest effort and seem to hold moisture in rather than out. But today I must find gloves to wear. I'm the mud-mixer, and it simply isn't possible not to wear that shit to the elbows no matter how fastidious I endeavor to remain.

Looks like we're gonna finish, though, if we can only get through this last day. Landlady kicks ass, and though I'm quite sure that after today she'll never consent to look upon another sack of stucco she missed her true calling. Meadow House is looking good.

"why do you need a shotgun like that???"

Because...



That's why.

I like shorties. Last week Ian and I were out running some errands, and of course we were talking about guns because this was Ian. I told him that, after having opportunities to play with his Krinkov, if I could have just one more gun and it could be anything I wanted I'd want some sort of shorty. Wouldn't be a shotgun, but shorties are just damned nice jeep guns. I love my M1A, but there's no question it's a big, heavy, clumsy club of a rifle and it spends almost all its time in its case. The AK, qualitatively inferior in most ways, hangs loaded on the wall. If I had Ian's shorty, THAT would be on the wall. Most of the advantages of a pistol without the inadequate ammo. Most of the advantages of a rifle without all that length and weight. Illegal unless you pay Uncle Sugar $200 and wait eight months for permission from the principal, neither of which I'm gonna do.

For the record, I love pizza.

Only six hours of stuccoing in the hot sun today, and we made serious progress. We have one day left, and it really looks like we'll be able to get all the way around.

As soon as the tools were clean we loaded into Landlady's little car and went to town. I called the pizza place on the way in. We stopped for propane at the Mexican restaurant, yes, you read that right, and they were busy and it took for freakin' ever and both of us were hot and tired and filthy and slavering for pizza. Finally got that out of the way, picked up the pie, and headed back out to the boonies.

Forget sex. Forget money. You want to know temptation? Temptation is a half-hour car ride with a hot pizza on your lap.

Landlady's little house is gonna look really good. Forgot the camera again.

Bath now. Bath and collapse. Bath and collapse and Patrick O'Brian. More or less in that order.

That whizzing noise over your head, Mr. Keller?

That was the point of our objection.

The "Show me your papers" Arizona decision is odious. Yes it is, but only because it discriminates. We should do it to everybody instead, and then everything will be all right.

I'll trust Chucky Schumer to protect my privacy when ... um ... Actually I can't imagine ever trusting him to get a pizza order right.

H/T to Claire.

Day three is in the can.

We worked from seven to two, and we still didn't finish the rear wall of the Meadow house. Two days, 1.5 walls and most of the porch to go.

The way this is working: Landlady hates lifting 90# sacks of stucco, and I hate applying stucco. So we're sticking to our appointed tasks. I mix it all, and she puts it all on the walls. The first two days we had M, but he had to go back to the city this morning.

I am sunburned. After almost six years here, I'm not easy to sunburn. Landlady's doing most of the work and she's in better shape than I am.

I wanna be this kid.

Next to the part where you go home and collapse in a heap...

The part of a stucco (or any cement or concrete) job I enjoy most is cleaning up the tools afterward. Just saying.

We started at seven sharp this morning, and M was the only one of the three of us who wasn't utterly comatose when we knocked off around one. Landlady and I have to do it again tomorrow, and I was kinda sweating how I was going to get my shit-shoveling in there somewhere. Then M offered to come help me with it later this afternoon, getting me off the shit-shoveling hook for tomorrow. With somebody to help haul the damned wagon to the pile, it'll be doable.

We've got one side of the meadow house done, and most of the front including the nasty bit over the front porch. Pictures later: I forgot my camera at Landlady's house, and I'm not going back to get it.

Look at my new shinies!

Some weeks ago I lamented that I'd lost all but one of my good Wilson Combat 1911 magazines, along with my mag pouch.

This morning I met Landlady, who had a care package from Tam of View from the Porch. And look what Tam sent me!

That's one damned expensive care package. Two WC mags just like the ones I lost, a 10-round Chip McCormick, two individual pouches, and one of those scary but infinitely adjustable Blackhawk holsters with the push-button retention.

Thanks, Tam!

We've been all morning stuccoing Landlady's house, and as soon as I get cleaned up we're going to town for a hardware/lunch run. I think I'm gonna wear the Blackhawk just because it's so shiny.