I thought I would go off on a little different trail tonight. I am not a weapons expert. I was in the Marines and I did fire a number of different weapons. However, I know very little about other weapons but I am learning. The first weapon I bought was a nine mm by Smith & Wesson called an Easy. That was good because at my age, I can definitely benefit from easy.

A lot can be said about the gun. It is easy in many ways, including racking, that is pulling he slide back. Wanting the gun for self-defense that is important. I don’t like walking around with a fully locked and loaded gun unless I expect danger. By waiting to have my weapon fully ready, it does give me just one more chance to reconsider. Also, it is very easy to put 8 rounds each in the magazines. It takes me roughly 20 seconds. I suppose if I were pushing it, I could do better. The followers has levers, so to speak that allow me to push them down and I virtually drop the bullets in.

However, there is no way to access the hammer. It is internal. When I bought the weapon, I thought little of it but found my self wanting to access the hammer a number of times. It was a little frustrating and I had to come up with work-arounds.

Also, I was surprised how heavy it is. Being as I carried a .45 around on my hip for a few years, I didn’t think much of it until I bought this one. The gun itself is not that bad, but when you add 8 rounds of 9 mm ammo, it really pulls at my belt and I start having a fear of walking out of my trousers.

So… I bought a .380 SDS Faith. A .380 is about half the defense of a 9 mm, but I suspect it will get the job done. Besides, I quite likely will never need it for anything other than poking holes in targets. The nice thing about the new gun is that the hammer is external. I’m not going to go through all the advantages of that but it sure is nice.

On the negative side, it is much more difficult to break down and reassemble, with the emphasis on reassemble. It is a good idea to break down a new gun, clean and oil it before firing it. Not exactly sure why, but it’s what the manufacturers say. Needless to say, the fist thing I did with it when I got home was to break it down and clean it. I must say, that part went well.

When assembling it, I couldn’t get the slide back on right. Worse yet, I couldn’t get it back off.

When things like that happened in the marines, I took it to the armorer. He was good at that stuff, really good. Me. Not so much.

I guess for close to two hours I wrestled with that little thing. I started wishing I bought a .45. They have external hammers and other that they are big and heavy, they are really good weapons. Not only that, I can break them down and put them back together in my sleep.

Well, I was just about to give up. I pulled back on the slide and accidentally let it slip from my finger and thumb. Next thing I knew, I had the gun body in my left hand and the slide was about two feet off to my right.

Might I mention, this gun has a very strong spring. Fortunately, I had figured out how I messed up and I had the gun back together in less than a minute.

Now let me tell you something about my M-14. I used to fill the magazines by pushing the bullets through what was called a charger. It took a few seconds to load a magazine with 20 rounds. I wonder if anyone has ever experimented with something like that for a handgun. It is about all I can do to load these little .380s. The mags hold 13. I can only put five in them. I guess they have strong springs too.

It seems every time, abortion is put on the ballot, agents of death win.

As the official observer of the Memphis leaders and news media, I can’t help but take note of how resistant they are to the installation of the supercomputer. Now they don’t want to provide a million gallons of water a day for cooling.

I can see why they object, I really do. Elon, the one who wants to put the facility in, is no longer in the most favored list after breaking the social media club.

It’s okay. I won’t complain. They don’t want to supply the water. They can build here in Desoto County. I’m sure that we can find a way of providing it.

We can bring in a few engineers, perhaps from Ol Miss or Mississippi State. They can figure out some way. Maybe they can simply recirculate water cooler in a heat exchanger. It’s sort-of an old tried and true method used now for decades, I might add very successfully.

I would suggest they just don’t know about such things north of the stateline. However, I can’t believe the haven’t thought of such a simple solution. They simply don’t want Elon around.

It’s okay. As I have said a number of times, I like it when my property value go up. They keep it up and I just might be able to sell my house for 8 times what I paid for it, or at least 6 times.

Incidentally, I am sure the folks in Arkansas would like my friend, to build there too. But being as Elon and I are good friends, l’m betting he builds here.

Many times, as I have gone through life, I have heard, “The New Improved.” The problem with that is that many times improved isn’t better. Invariably, when you try to tell those saying it’s improved won’t listen. They don’t like that we don’t like the “improvements.”

My best guess is that it hurts their egos. They put a lot of effort into it, you know. They put a lot of money and research into it, you know. They spent a lot of time and money that really look nice that I will never use. And then they ask me why I don’t like it and they pay absolutely no attention to me. I am not a big corporation, you know. The reason I don’t like their new Outlook.com is that there is something wrong with me. The reason I don’t like their cloud is that there is something wrong with me.

Everyone knows that that it is better, you know.

My personal opinion is that the biggest problem with computers nowadays is that the wrong people determine what to buy and what is needed. Those who are members of the board and know little or nothing about computers determine what to buy. Those who use the computers have little-to-no input on what is purchased. Those who use the computers and deal with the problems daily are told that they have the best equipment and software. It is what the computer salesmen have said, you know.

And those using the computers end up with a ton of bells-and-whistles that are never used and making-do without those things they need.

One thing that experience has taught me was that all corporations large and small who refuse to listen to their customers fail. As an example, who would have ever thought Sears, one of the largest retailers in the world at one time, is now a small shell of what it was. It totally surprised me. It was one of those outfits you just knew would last forever.

Someday, someone will come up with another truly better operating system and Microsoft will find their product in a heap as with others who can’t accept the fact that some people don’t want or need something that does everything at the cost of requiring enormous amounts of hardware. Some folks like me like to manage my own system.

At one time, I reformatted my system disk once every three months and reloaded it. It did not take that long. Moreover, it provided a confidence that if something happened, I could start with a new system and be operational in a few hours. Now it took a week for me to migrate from my older system to the new system. Incidentally, I had the distraction of MS trying to get me to accept the new outlook. I’m still having to go through and deal with The Cloud stuff. What happens if I lose access to the web.

And, by the way, I still have a good operating older system from which I migrated. Who knows how long it would have taken if I was recovering from a major failure.

Perhaps, there are a few of you out there who cringe as I do, when they hear Microsoft advertising that they have come out with, “improvements.”

I’m not a fan of folks who come to me with problems. I prefer those who come to me with solutions. In the spirit of that, I offer this idea. If I had a store today, I would require all who enter to leave a name and thumbprint before entering.

I’m not so foolish as to think it would be a fix all. However, it would encourage the criminal types to go somewhere else. If they don’t want to leave a thumbprint, they just might have a reason.

Many may not remember it, but most homes, especially in the cities were lit by natural gas. Indeed, I have been told that it was at least partially because of anger at the gas company that Edison was so determined to build a practical electric light. It seems that the gas company kept turning off the gas at his factory for lack of payment.

I have no idea how much truth there is in that, but it sounds good. Regardless, gas was pretty reliable. In the time I lived here, or anywhere for that matter, I have never experienced an interruption of natural gas. Odd, though it cannot be seen or smelled, it seems as reliable as the Rock of Gibraltar.

I was reminded of this again, today. Indeed, I am using my pad because my desktop has no power and hasn’t for many hours. I am probably going to have to throw out all my food because some truck driver was not aware that his big rig would fit under the wires that supply my house, and perhaps a thousand or so others. (but who cares about the others? )

I still have gas, but not light. This makes me think maybe we all need at least two old gas lights. One would be in the living room, one in the bathroom. When some mindless truck driver interrupts the flow of electricity to my home, I break out the matches and light the old gas lights as they did many years ago.

You say electricity doesn’t go out that much. Near as I figure, it’s about two or three times a year.

Well I solved the light problem. Now what do we do about the spoiled food and HVAC? As I have said before in my posts, I don’t like hot and I don’t like cold.