Friday, December 14, 2012

Another Damned School Shooting...What to do?

Little kids this time, 20 at the last media count.  What to do about this plague?  Who do we blame this time?  The Monster perp, the monster's girlfriend?  His parents or parent?  The fact that he is a he?  His gun? The bullets? The manufacturers of the weapons we can all buy from anyone it seems?  The lack of mental health testing at puberty?  The lack of free anger management classes?  The ease of availability of weapons such as those he used to perpetrate this heinous crime and then relieve society of it's obligation to try and punish him by killing himself.  I propose he got the sequence wrong.  Should have taken himself out FIRST!  Not the innocents that suffered their fate at his hands.
If we quit selling guns, manufacturing guns, allowing possession of guns there are STILL millions available to anyone with enough cash to claim one either from friends, acquaintances or gun runners like in 3rd world countries.  We as a society were insane to allow this scourge in the first place.  Just because you CAN have a gun doesn't mean you should.  Testing should come FIRST...mental testing and a thorough background check, both, not just one or the other.  A LONG Mandatory waiting period to allow the slow grinding wheels of bureaucracy to answer many questions about the buyer.  Ban all sales of guns except through licenced FFL holders.  No issuance of any more FFL's.  No more kits to convert semi-auto guns into fully automatic ones.  No bullet components for sale, no powder, no lead, no bullets or casings.  No loading equipment.  No extended clips and magazines, no stock replacements.  No hollow point bullets, only jacketed round nosed.  What else do you want on your gun control list?  It would take a century to get these factored into our gun crazed and violence infected society.  I know it and you know it.  How do we build safe schools from events such as this?
A simple metal detector might have stopped this one, but I don't know. I'm out of ideas. 

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Wednesday in the Sun...

Well...here I am all by my little self on a Wednesday morning in sunny (right now) Suisun City. Just bought a smidgen of Saffron from a US supplier, 37 bux worth of the precious stuff...indispensable for some recipes...Spanish, Mexican, Persian and Indian foods.  So expensive in the stores in the minuscule amounts I simply won't buy it there anymore. So online at this address:
http://www.theposter.com/saffron2.html   a good source, a bit of a fuss setting up your account but fair prices and reasonable shipping ( a real expense these days!) and great products make it worth the trouble.

Mopping...you know, rag mop, water, a bit of soapy stuff...better than any dust spewing vacuum.  Swept the kitchen (my giant mess site!) then mopped it, the back bathroom and the dining room floors while Kelly was away tending to business for Kell our eBay site.  I genuinely LIKE mopping, so it's not a chore at all.  I know it's unusual, but hey I like ironing too!  Some strange gene combinations all tangled up with airplanes, weather, music and they myriad of other interests and avocations I dabble in.  Makes for an interesting day every day.

Currently I'm working on a violin rebuild for a Chris's Club lady friend.  It was a wall hanger once upon a time but she rescued it and brought it to CC a couple of weeks ago.  She showed it to me and my curiosity took over.  Next thing I knew it was in my possession and on the way home with me to be repaired.  Missing 2 tuners, the all important bridge and strings it has been quite a project making me read, read and study violins like never before.  So much to do and investigate...order requisite parts from far flung sources and the inevitable wait while they ship.  I'm invested under 100 bux so far and that's about all I think it needs, I won't charge her anything for my labors but the parts...yes.
It'll be a playable beauty when I get through with the repairs someday real-soon-now!

The snapshot at the top of the page is from my old webcam, thoroughly obsolete or nearly so...says Logitech stuck in a planter on the front porch looking east towards Main Street.   I ordered a new one from Newegg yesterday as the cam is showing it's poor quality as you can see.  The new one will be installed once it gets here... http://www.newegg.com

Oh...and Furry the Kat...still with us, weight near 6lbs and far more energetic and seemingly back to being a Very Olde Kat once again 175 USD later.  Hydration was the issue and now with wet foods and plenty of water she is her Olde self again.  Hooray for now!  Like the Vet said to us on Friday last, "You take it as it comes when they get this age."