Thank you North Carolina!

I think this makes up for all those times you yielded to South Carolina. :-)

Whatever the results of this election are, I think it will be memorable.

Range report

I went with four other people to Norpoint Range yesterday evening; between us we had two shotguns, two pistols, and one carbine. Many innocent pieces of paper were horribly slaughtered.

I picked up a tactical light for my shotgun, and greatly reduced my stress level.

Between us, we fired about 100 rounds each of .30 Carbine, 12ga birdshot, and .38 special, along with a few hundred rounds of .22LR.

The place was once again all but empty except for the people I came with, and a good time was had by all.

Things not to do

Do not drink a cup of turkish coffee right before going to bed.

Do not multiply 3 x 20 and get 30.

Do not point the super-powerful LED tactical light at a shiny white card to see how powerful it is.

Do not forget to eat breakfast before going to the gun show.

Be the change

Be the change you want to see in the world.

It is a great sentiment, and even one that is good to apply in practice.

Sadly, it is a very large world.

Grey's Anatomy last night made me think (again!) about what I want in life. I've taken one action already, but it is a very large world, and it is quite possible nothing will come of it.

Part of the problem, I think, is that I'm too lawful. Too obediant to authority. My natural inclination is to respect authority and obey my chain of command, even when I think they're wrong.

This makes it rather difficult to be the change you want in the world.

Even with other people, I tend to be willing to bend myself more than I'm willing to ask others to bend for me. This isn't necessarily a bad thing in my opinion, but again...

This makes it rather difficult to be the change you want in the world.

Back to Grey's for a moment, I really loved how Izzy was able to take George's un-invitation and turn it into something positive. "I'm their boss."

We have to accept change. Change is unending, massive, chaotic, and interwoven into our lives. Most of us, it seems to me, resist change at some instinctive level. Global Warming is bad because... it is a change, and change is bad. Change isn't natural, says the media. So it takes a lot of intertia to get your change rolling; once you do, you may be the leader of a mighty trend. But that first step is a doozy.

This makes it rather difficult to be the change you want in the world.

A son of Martha or of Mary?

I've been thinking a lot lately of Kipling's poem "The Sons of Martha."

Kipling's poems always grab me, and his writing evokes images in my mind almost as clear as photographs. Other poets write things that are beautiful, or stirring, or more often for me annoying and pointless (hey, I'm an engineer). Kipling makes me think.

Why do I do the things I do? Because I'm a son of Martha. Not the best of her sons, to be sure, but one of them without question.

And the sons of Mary are really, amazingly, annoying. I see the people who think that good things will happen because they want them to, and I mark them as sons of Mary. It is possible that good things will happen on their own, true. But good things are much more likely if one works carefully to bring them about.

I'm not sure whether I'm really a good person or not; if not, I'll get a swig in Hell from Gunga Din.

No one can prepare for everything. No one can make everything in their life run smoothly. The sons of Martha don't expect that; we live in a world of imperfections, and we fix the ones we can.

I am a son of Martha.