Hire me or else!

Color me amused.

First, a story about a young'un I do not know. Shag knows. Shag taught him. Said young'un was in high school with PCV couplings in his earlobes.

Shag asked this person what he intended to do about getting a job with holes in his ears big enough to hold military recoilless rounds.

"They will just have to hire me," the about to be new grad stated in the cocksure confidence of people his age.

They didn't.

Some time later, this unemployed and apt to stay that way unless he changed intrepid defier of convention (insert hyphens as you see fit, I ran out last week) tried to join the military. He had to have surgery to close the holes in his ears. He changed. The business community and the military did not.

Nonetheless, I salute his rebellious attitude. I might have done the same were I in high school today. As to what I did in high school, never you mind until my book comes out and even then I ain't telling everything.

Anyway.

Jump f'ard to Thursday this week and the job fair coordinated by the Chamber of Commerce. More'n 200 people showed up.

By my count, which may be low, two people showed up with resumes. One person stole my pen, just the same as you and I have stolen pens without thinking about it. Some showed up in work clothes, which is not a problem.

I did not bother to count the number of people who showed up to have a job interview with:

• Children in tow. I understand finding someone to ride herd on young'uns can be hard. But if you show up to the interview, then employers are gonna wonder if you can find someone to tend said child while you are supposed to be on the job. Still, this one is more understandable than what follows.

• Wearing house slippers. Eh, what? I'da took pictures, but I also knew I was going to write this blog and access to those pictures could get me in more trouble than I presently want to deal with.

• Wearing shorts and too-short shirts. Hah? I do not believe anyone in the interview room was looking to hire strippers of either gender. I could be wrong.

• A cell phone in hand, using said phone while other people tried to tell the person what forms to fill out and where to step next for more information. Yup.

• Wearing clothes that shouted "I do not want to be here, but this is a good place to have my 'looking for employment' box ticked on my unemployment form and my government aid forms." Not everyone has a suit, but you can have a tucked-in shirt and pull your pants up properly.

• Showing without a bra, a barely long enough shirt and sizeable mammary glands. One of the three can't be helped. You pick.

Me bud Greg regularly chastizes me for what he says is a cruel attitude toward people. Greg works in the nonprofit arena, helping people by giving them a hand up. I support that. What I do not support is a hand out just because the person feels entitled. I find it very hard to take people seriously when they refuse to take themselves seriously.

I'd say a good 30-40 percent of the people who turned up for the job fair fit into the above bullet point descriptions in some manner. I'd offer more exposition, but without video or plenty of still pictures to back it up, I'm gonna pass. Just not interested in the side fight which would erupt.

As always, yer mileage may vary.

Living the write life

Typos are the bane of my existence.  Even worse, getting the wrong ID under pictures. As happened in the grad magazine this week. (sigh).

Legendary outdoor writer Charlie Elliott said his last act on this world would be to crawl over to a typewriter to write something and hit the wrong key.

Seems like no matter how much, how hard and how often I edit something, STILL GONNA BE AN ERROR IN IT.

My latest book

Available May 25, 2018

has gone through multiple edits, multiple spelling and grammar checks and STILL I find typos.

Not that I am unique. Far from it. One of the most famous errors ever -

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/11/17/the-new-bible-museums-wicked-bible-thou-shalt-commit-adultery/

Of the 12 or so books I have fully authored ... yeah, typos. Of the... probably more than 100 at this point... I have contributed to, OH YEAH typos galore.

Of the books I have produced for other people, one or two typos here & there. I suspect those books were edited even more than mine. Have to be, in fact. A book I'm currently assembling for another author has gone through multiple edits on the galleys (a galley is a pre-press copy). I still have to run a spell check on it.

Gah.

Bullet RPMs and barrel life

Stealeded this from a discussion on FB. Fascinated for those of us who shoot. If you do not shoot, this is incredibly boring.

The final statement by John is a mind-blower.

Expected barrel life, 3 shots.

BILL: Worthless Info # 3,225! 

Has anyone ever wondered what the RPM of your bullets are coming out of you 45/70’s for example???

405 gr slug for example:

Well, let’s figure a 1 in 20 twist rate. 

That means for every 12” of barrel your Bullet twists .6 revolutions. 

. 6 x 1,600 feet per second = 960revolutions per SECOND. 

960 x 60 seconds = 55,296 RPM!!!!

That, my friends, is SMOKIN for that size slug. 

Now imagine a 3k FPS round with a 1/10 twist rate????!! Wow

GARY: Of course the bullet is only in the bbl a very short time, not minutes and as soon as it leaves the bbl it slows down, all are aware of that.

SAM: The spinning won’t slow down as fast as the forward speed. When Hatcher did his experiments of shooting bullets straight up in the air they returned base first.

MICHAEL: Also, watch this video on shooting at ice to stop the forward movement of the bullet, but it does very little to slow the rotational velocity. It sits and spins like a top for over a minute. If it takes this long with direct contact with a solid to lose its rotational velocity, the short flight time of a bullet only contacting a gas has essentially no effect. https://youtu.be/UwIpv94GPt4

JOHN: Interesting, Next time someone asks you "What's the life of this barrel?" Instead of telling them something like 10,000 rounds tell them the life of the barrel is "about 7.5 seconds." After all, a round going 2,000 ft/sec only spends .00075 seconds traveling through the barrel so 10,000 rounds would only add up to 7.5 secs. Puts things into perspective doesn't it?

Purple fingers

For the past 2-3 years around this time of year, I've enjoyed a special treat every time I pull into the driveway.

A volunteer mulberry tree sprouted years ago just at the corner of the gate. It took a few years, but now it is full of fruit. Depending on the weather the fruit ranges from dry and tasteless to almost bursting with juice and tasteless.

Mulberry trees need just the right amount of water and some heat to produce sweet fruit.

This year is a good one after a watery start.

Each time I come into the drive, I stop under the tree and pluck fruit with my left hand. My thumb and first two fingers are well-stained purple. Mulberry juice doesn't wash off easily It's with me all day long. When I get home, pick more fruit and renew the stains.

The berries have a short stem, which I either bite off and spit out or happily chew with the rest of the fruit.

Every day I pull in and ripe berries wait. I pull and eat all I can reach from the seat of my truck. Next day, more berries!

This year Kittie comes out to where I stop and sits waiting for me to pull around and park so we can have a short conversation and she can have her head rubbed.

The irony is the yard also has an apple tree, a fig tree and a peach tree. Intentionally planted, all three.

We've got a few apples, small but good and a few small and fair peaches. No figs. These three trees are several years older than the mulberry, but the mulberry has eclipsed them all in growth and fruit production. It's also growing up through asphalt instead of the soil in the yard.

I'm reminded of several things as I munch mulberries.

An election in a Middle Eastern country some years ago saw people all around the world vote. After voting, the voters dipped a finger in a purple dye that lasted several days. I'm voting every day for my mulberry tree!

Jesus cursed the tree that would not produce fruit. I soon plan to have a couple of goats run in the yard to trim the various grasses, weeds and vines since I cannot find anyone to mow my yard. I expect the goats to do a number on the apple, fig and peach tree.

This in turn reminds me of a big pear tree where I grew up. It never did anything much except produce leaves. One day, Dad tore half of it down with a bulldozer. The next season, the tree limbs broke under the weight of fruit.

Yeah. I never know where my mind is headed next either.

Anyway, maybe these three trees need some encouragement. Maybe they need some strife. Maybe they need a little hardship so their true natures will really come out. The goats should accomplish that.

Meantime, the mulberry tree is too tall to be really harmed by the goats. They may snag a few low lying limbs and leaves with the berries, but most of the tree is now out of reach for anyone without a ladder.

And I will continue to enjoy my mulberries and purple fingers for a bit longer.

Unlike the grapes that used to be at the front of the house, no one wants the mulberries. Well, no one but me and a pair of doves.

No deeper meaning in this one, folks. Just a man enjoying the fruits of a tree he never planted and never expected.

Which may be a deeper meaning after all.