Girandoni air rifle as used by Lewis and Clark. (288)

My friend Mike Emmert sent this my way today...and for lack of a better subject it ends up on my blog this week....But if you take the time to click on the link to the right or the title above, and take the time to listen, you too will be amazed by this "air rifle"....

The thing that amazes me is why they are still not making and selling this rifle...wow a air rifle that shoots a 46 calibur ball...what a deer gun it would be and not much noise when it goes off. And credited for making the whole expedition a success...wow

Sure would look good hanging over my fireplace as my homeland security weapon don't you think...But it does just amaze me as to why a similar rifle is not being made and sold even to this day...

That all being said, I went to my brother Joe's 80th birthday party today...A nice "stag" only fish fry held in the pole barn...He got several bottles of whiskey, Baylees, Wine and Rum...He is loaded with booze and a few cards to boot...I made note of the ones that brought the most expensive gifts hoping to invite them to my 70th birthday party, someday if I ever decide to have one. I may not, but if I do these two or three guys will be invited for sure...

Went to watch my grandson Caulin wrestle last night for the first time...not his first but my first. Wow he pinned his equal weight 210 pound opponet in a very short time...He is good at that and playing center on the football team...and only in the 8th grade a Wainwright middle school...but I found out that soon there will be a match where the wrestlers go head to head with their dad's...wow I do not want to miss that one, may take the camera...

Well OK it is a slow newsweek here on the prairie mainly just watching the people of the middle east over throw their leadership of the past decades...find it all amazing and will be interesting to see how it all turns out...I would guess some will turn out OK and some not so good and would not even attempt to guess which ones..but those happenings and the Fox News and CNN News coverage just make it all kind of interesting...One being the Republican conservative slant and the other being the Democrat liberal slant...sometimes I just have to laugh how CNN can try and paint a picture that is just totally different than Fox....My view is I find the Fox view points pretty much right on in reality....CNN is where I get my biggest laughs when they like today showed how 58% favored restricting of the union powers in our country and 42% sided with the unions...but then announced that it was pretty much a trade off...even steven.....I had to laugh but I understand truth does not sometimes come easily for them...

Why you gotta love Indiana Weather (287)

Well you just gotta love how Indiana weather and probably all the midwest can change in a blink of an eye. Good heavens only last Monday, 4 days ago we were skiing in inches of snow, and here it is Friday and now flowers...I was totally blown away walking outside this morning, maybe they were even here yesterday and I did not notice but is this a sign of spring or just some flowers that are a little impatient? I hope it is a sign of spring but mid February, I know it's probably flowers that got their signals mixed up. But we will take it..The last couple days in the 50's even 60 yesterday. Hey at least the warmer air has melted most of the snow. The tile are running and filling the pond a little deeper. No surface water coming into the pond but the tile are running full force from the back of the 50 acres. It has a way to go to fill up, maybe another 30 inches so keep it coming...at 30,000 gallons of water per inch in my pond I only need another million gallons of water..It will come sooner or later hopefully not all in one day...
Sandwiched in between winter skiing and spring flowers we had Valentines Day. And Sweet Pea made me this special treat.. They were very good, but doggoneit, it will mean extra time on the ABCOASTER, my new exercise machine in the bedroom...at least 100 reps for each one of these babies for sure...Its the only bad thing about going to Sam's Club is the portions that they sell you...I guess I did not have to eat them, but I did.....

What is an Ab Coaster machine you are probably asking? Well click on the title above and it will come up...Sure hope it works...my jeans are becoming a challenge to button up...Oh before strawberries there were smores....better not ever try to eat just one of those babies....fireplaces = smores......
Tip for today...you can purchase the AB COASTER from walmart on line...ship it to your store and save shipping...then if you don't like it take it back to Walmart and not have to ship it back...and Walmart sells it for one dollar less on top of the free shipping...Probably should just lock the refrigerator and the pantry and we would not need these things.....

Cross Country Skiing for dummies (286)

For the last couple years I have been admiring some cross country ski's hanging on sweet peas garage wall, with shoes and ski poles, all there together...I asked her about them and she said yes that she and her husband used to do that quite a bit and that it was fun and good exercise...So a couple weeks ago while I was working on her home laying the new tile floor, I suggested maybe we should take those out to the farm and try them out, if the shoes would happen to fit me..I brought them home and a few days ago got around to trying on the shoes...they fit like a glove, and no mice hiding in the toes.
Only had one problem though, and that was there was only 3 ski poles. Those of course are used to push you along and help you maintain balance while gliding though the snow. Well Susan decided that since I was the beginner that I should use the two good poles even though they were actually for her height and not mine. In the meantime early last week I went on line and ordered two new poles for a person of my height...Back to the story, she used the one pole with out a basket and I came up with the idea of using a mop that no longer was needed for that chore anymore. She did well with the mop and the not so good pole...We shoved off, she gave me lessons on turning and stopping if I get going to fast down a grade...She said I had the fear of terror on my face, I guess it could be mistaken for that, but actually it was just the same fear that has bugged me all this winter, and that is the fear of falling and doing some type damage to my new knee that I had replaced last June.
Anyway I finally got my shoes snapped into the ski's properly and trying to put on my best "I'm Cool" face, I ventured out into the lawn ready for action. No doubt that this type skiing on mostly flat ground is a whole lot safer than the real down hill type skiing that I completely missed out on in this life time and actually have no desire at this juncture in life to "catch up too"......
I will be very content if I can just master this flat land, farm boy skiing right here on the "slopes" of my 50 acres...I don't need to fly anywhere and risk wrapping myself around a birch tree that should not have been there...And maybe seeing my awesome new stainless steel knee unhooked in some way from my leg bone after all that good work by Dr. Daluga and Dr. Doug his understudy...those guys are craftmen of the highest degree and I don't want a closer look at what they did.

I did fall one time, taking the advice of Gary Strup who I had quizzed at breakfast this A.M. about that very topic "Falling"...He said just go with it and lay over on your side don't fight it....I did just that, but as I layed there I realized that, "I had fallen and getting up was going to be somewhat a chore...I got one ski off and then getting up on my favored replacement knee and with Susan's help, we got me up...I put the ski back on and then we decided that maybe we had enough for the first time out and worked our way back to the house.

Well today the new poles came from LL Bean company...actually made in Austria and not China...can you believe those Chinese allowed that one to get away from them??
Well I am glad they did...anymore I do love to buy things that are made here in the US where we all live and so many jobs are needed...But things made in China do bother me a bit anymore as I realize that anything that I buy not made here in the USA is just confirming that I agree with our businesses being closed and the machinery being crated up and shipped to some foreign land for others to have jobs...It just should not have happened but the fact that it did, does not have to be forever...we can reverse this, and put our people back to work...May have to say no to selfish self centered labor unions, but eventually we need to work through this...Usually at this point I would apologize for the editorial but truthfully I am not sorry...it needs to be said over and over again until we the people, "get it".

Clicking on title above may be worthwhile....

Our Space Sation and its construction (285)

Well I must admit, I don't really know "jack shit" about any of this..but I sure am in awe of all of it. Our space station will pass over Lafayette tomorrow morning about at 6.57 and will be seen for 3 minutes...Will be coming from the northwest and will exit to the South east...I am going to try and be up and out side looking as it goes over...it is the brightest star in the sky these days...

I must relay a story of I guess my link to the interest in the space station and the shuttle that got it all up there....

All happened in Naples Florida several years ago. My wife Linda and I were living on our lot there in Silver Lakes RV park...We had been there maybe 10 years already...not sure does not matter...one day I met a new guy who arrived an purchased a lot next a couple lots down from us...His name was Clive Beasley, his wife was Norma Beasley.
I stopped by and noticed that he owned an America Eagle motor home...they are very expensive....I said what did you do Clive...he said he had worked for many years building the silo's in the western states that housed the intercontinental nuclear missles....he said it was tough work as no one really wanted an missle in their town as it made them an instant target for a Russian missle strike....he said they were not popular in the western towns as they built these silo's...

But for his last year his company Martin Marietta had made him the launch director for that company at the Kennedy Space Center...he was one of 9 people who said go or no go for the launch of each shuttle lift off...His company built the large orange fuel cell that the shuttle sets on and is the fuel source for each launch.
I said gee it's great to meet you Clive and went on home for dinner...

That very night there was a huge double sonic boom over Naples...it shook our fifth wheel RV a lot...we turned on the TV and they acknowledged the large booms and then in about 10 minutes it showed the shuttle landing at the Cape....it told about how the shuttle had come right over Naples at 20,000 feet elevation at over 2000 MPH and in the slowing process had caused these huge sonic booms...

Well my wife Linda and I both were pretty impressed by such an event...I mean it shook our RV real good....The next day I was in the front of the RV doing some work. I heard Linda talking to some man out in the front of the coach...It was Clive Beasley, and she was asking him if he heard the big booms last night? He said yeal, wonder what that was?...Well Linda for the next 5 minutes told old Clive all about it, almost a word or word report we had heard on the news the night before....Clive finally said well that is really interesting and went on home....Linda came around to me later and said hey that new guy is kind of a nice guy, he was really interested in those sonic booms of the shuttle landing...

I laughed and said yeal I bet he was, I met him last night, I think he was putting you on as he was the launch director for Martin Marietta at the Space Center before retiring last month and moving here...

She said no kidding and went immediately over to his coach and knocked on the door...Clive answered and she said Clive why did you let me go on and on about that shuttle landing? He said Linda, I could not help it, I have not seen anyone as excited about the space program as you were, for quite some time, and I just could not shut you down....

It started a friendship that lasted to this day...Clive arranged for us to attend a shuttle launch and set in the VIP seating with the relatives of the astronauts and other VIP's...it was great it was a late evening launch, I have forgotten the date or what mission it was I know I do remember it was the shuttle Discovery, I think but not for sure, will check with Mr. Beasley on that...it was a beautiful launch...Linda took some good pictures....maybe I can find one probably not. I don't think I have them in my pictures...take my word for it it was great...
We went to a second launch a year later on our own via our congressman Steve Buyer...we got the good seats again...as can any one if you plan ahead...however they are about over maybe one or two more then its done....

When Linda died she ask me to hold a memorial service for her at the RV park for the many people she had come to love in Naples...I agreed but was very nervous about it all...about 75 plus people showed up that night including the Beasley's...Clive got up in front when I asked if anyone had anything they would like to say about her...he told the story and they all appreciated it...

Had to share the story with you....
PS...off to the right here is two things that may interest you...One is the times the space station passes over Lafayette Indiana...below that is a link showing how the space station was constructed with each shuttle launch...all good stuff....

Also clicking on the title above will take you to a video of launch day....