Corn, beans, spent brass, an empty page and a deadline (c) 2008 to 2012

R.I.P. KENT LOMONT...

2012-01-29T08:12:00.001-06:00

I just got a call from a good friend that it had been reported Kent Lomont died yesterday. John Ross (author of "UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES" and a very close friend of Kent's) posted on TheHighRoad.org that Kent died yesterday evening around 6:30PM. He was 66 years old.

I had heard that he was in hospice because of cancer. He was diagnosed six months ago and to my understanding he had multiple tumors.

I have known Kent Lomont for many years and he was truly a legend. I don't think I will e'var meet anyone who has fired as many personally owned rounds through firearms as Kent did. He 'lived' for guns and was one of the most knowledgeable authorities on heavy Smith & Wesson revolvers, the Auto-Mag handgun design and fulll-auto/select-fire machine guns of any description that ever lived. The big difference between Kent and every other expert out there is he shot everyone of those guns to destruction and therefore he knew what they would do and what they wouldn't.

He spent his teenage summers with Elmer Keith and for years was the main attraction at the Knob Creek Machine Gun shoot where he became known as "Constant" Lomont; as in he was 'constantly' on the trigger!

It was my rare privilege in life to know and call him my friend. I respected his opinions and knowledge without question, he truly was a GIANT in the firearms industry of the late 20th Century and early 21st Century.

He is survived by his four children; Lane, Jill, Chris and Molly, stepdaughters Candy and Sherry, and ex-wives; Kathy, Shirley and Mary Lou.

America's firearms industry and community lost a wealth of knowledge, a great story teller and a loyal friend with his passing...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

"TRIGGERS" THE TEEVEE SHOW...

2012-01-27T12:56:00.002-06:00

This is going to be a short post because I'm behind on my regular work (i.e. actual 'professional' writing), but the other night I watched this tv show called "TRIGGERS". Okay, they got this thin, very physically fit former Army Ranger/Para-Rescue guy as the host and he seems to know the business.

That's all well and good, but the show was about artillery pieces. They did the historic stuff that re-enactors just love and I was good with that. They even did a 75mm Pack Howitzer with guys dressed in WWII Army uniforms at Fort Hood (I think, I could be wrong) and they showed how the gun broke down to be transported on the back of mules or thrown out of a perfectly good airplane. They even fired the gun and I think in this instance they may have really used actual 'live' rounds because they were on a REAL military base and those guys HAVE that stuff laying around. Even if it's several decades old.

But then they did a piece on the WWII 105mm howitzer and that's when I lost it. They admitted they were shooting it in southern California and there was absolutely NO indication they were on a military base or even a military reservation. They had this old guy (he looked younger than me, but that's beside the point) who was a retired military 'armorer' or NCO with an artillery background and he showed how you were supposed to shove the loaded round into the chamber and not get your fingers smashed. Nice to know, not that I'll ever use the info but that was neat.

Then they fired the damn thing. The recoil mechanism didn't activate??? Okay. Then Mr. Physically Fit is supposed to be a forward observer type and he calling in the hits as they are trying to hit an old junk car. But the car wasn't more than 200 yards from some buildings!...??? Of course, the first 'shell' was what appeared to be 50 yards or more off to the side from the vehicle. The second was closer, but still not on target and each 'shell' resulted in an almost perfectly vertical column of dust and smoke. Right. The third 'shell' of course blows the car to smithereens! I mean the difference between the 3rd round and the previous 2 was dramatic, almost beyond belief.

Which in fact it WAS! This shit drives me nuts. First of all, in civilian hands each one of those 'shells' if real in terms of being an high explosive charge would have required registration and payment of $200 NFA tax.

Secondly, they said they were in California! Now I realize that state gives the movie business a lot of leeway when it comes to Title II and Class III weapons, but I don't buy it for a second they would let you fire high explosive rounds out of a WWII howitzer......even for a satellite TV show. And if it were for a Title II manufacturer he still has to justify taking that registration off the books because it no longer exists!

I was so pissed off, I shut the damn thing off and never saw the end of the thing. That stuff drives me nuts.

Now I have to get back to work...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

A COMMENT AND MY RESPONSE TO THIS BLOGGER VS. WRITER ISSUE...

2012-01-26T15:58:00.006-06:00

SGB (a blogger who uses the call sign SERIOUS GUN BLOG) wrote the following in a comment to my observations about bloggers vs. gunwriters in my post about the SHOT SHOW, Part One:

"If new media is squeezed out by the NSSF they will suffer because of it. My guess is that some people who make money writing articles have their shirts in a wad because others are stealing their thunder.

One thing is certain - traditional media is dying. I follow the money in publishing because I'm a writer. At every turn I'm hearing the same thing over and over - 'We have to get online, we have to embrace new media.'

This response is from major publishing houses, magazines and newspapers. I've been in journalism for 30 years. The way forward is new media. Those who try to fight it are no different than those who tried to stop the switch from manual to automatic transmissions. Sure, you can buy a manual but most don't"

To which I replied in part (but I've expanded upon it here):

I don't see NSSF shutting anyone "out" after all they have been the leaders in granting bloggers 'Press Credentials', but it wouldn't surprise me to see different levels being applied to the press credentials that are issued in future years. (After all, NSSF is subject to pressure or Paul Barrett would not have had his press credentials pulled prior to the 2012 Shot Show?)

I'm old enough that whatever happens it's not going to affect me one way or the other economically and truth be told I've done more during my days of professional gunwriting than I ever dreamed I would. I've had a good run in terms of my professional writing career, but this issue of the New Media vs. Traditional does raise certain issues about the economics and professionalism of media distribution in our industry and elsewhere.

No one to my knowledge is making the kind of money (even without being adjusted for inflation) with the New Media that the first gun magazines and their publishers enjoyed back in the 1950's when they started.

George von Rosen started GUNS Magazine (the very FIRST gun magazine that wasn't published by the NRA) and he was a good friend of mine. The first issues of GUNS came from a collection of gun-oriented articles that were originally published in his men's magazine, MODERN MAN. The response was overwhelming and soon it became its own magazine. George told me one time that in the late 1950's those two magazines produced over $600,000 after tax profits in one year! (It should be noted that Hugh Hefner got his start in magazine publishing working for George at MODERN MAN.) George said the profits were so high he had trouble figuring out what to do with the money, so he bought a farm, a BIG farm, in northern Illinois. See how I came by this information and conversation?

Now unless I've missed something I DON'T see anything close to that with the New Media and gun blogging, but then I'm an old guy and I miss alot from falling asleep involuntarily and dribbling down my chin and so forth.

In fact, only those enjoying numbers in terms of 'hits' and 'views' that are virtually impossible in the gun market are seeing anything close to real MONEY with their usages of the New Media. Those numbers and income amounts still pale in comparison to that seen during the heyday of thick Madison Ave. 'slick' women's magazines. Even NEWSWEEK failed as print media, but it hasn't succeeded in the New Media either.

So the question really is, Will professional writing (in any form) be doomed by the 'volunterism' of the New Media and gun bloggers?

Because like it or not gun blogging has yet to find a way with ALL the technology available to be highly profitable.

The only way seen so far to earn income off a gun blog involves an old print media method -- advertising, and that raises suspicions among those who champion the gun blogs and the New Media as to their creditability. How can you keep those people if they feel advertising taints the product? And if it doesn't, how can those readers in good conscious condemn the traditional print media?

Well, other than the fact, they're getting the product for free, paying nothing in the process, so what does that say about the future of ANY professional writer? (It also raises questions, both culturally and economically about the future of Capitalism versus some form of "...ism" sponsored socialism and welfare expectation among those who prefer the New Media for this specific reason.)

To their credit the Quinn brothers are the only ones that, in my view, are making any decent income gun blogging with GUN BLAST, but they are actually doing it in the old fashion manner with that hated technique called "advertising". They're just doing it without killing any trees. (That were meant to be harvested, by the way, by some tree farmer who wants to make a profit selling them to the pulp mills, but that's beside the point.)

I close this with a personal question to SGB; You say you're a writer and by that statement I assume you mean 'professionally', so my question is HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PAY YOUR BILLS AS A 'WRITER' WITH THE NEW MEDIA???...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

PS: I also use 'automatic transmission' when I can, because although I prefer a manual gearbox, all the new heavy-duty automatic trannies handle high horsepower and high torque better and more efficiently than even the best manuals because of their computer controls.

R.T.W. PASSES THE INDIANA HOUSE...

2012-01-26T07:33:00.004-06:00

Now that the Right To Work bill has passed the Indiana House and has only to be run through the Senate for signing by an ever eager Ditch Manuels, it absolutely will be only a matter of seconds before it jumps starts the Hoosier economy just like our move to Daylight Savings Time absolutely reduced unemployment and brought great prosperity to our state.

Hoosier prosperity just has to be '...just around the corner' because of this move, like the '...light was at the end of the tunnel' was always close during the debacle of my youth in South Vietnam.

National unemployment figure is 8.3%. State of Indiana statewide unemployment figure is 9.2%, and our local White County unemployment figure is well over 11% with the average non-farm household income well under the poverty line.

Anyone giving odds on how soon the last two figures will drop or improve because of this Right To Work legislation?

While Ditch Manuels hands his billionzairs golf buddies a new trophy for them to put in their bank accounts the rural northwest sector of his state stagnates.

Welcome to the world of Ditch Manuels. May HE Rot In Hell...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

THE E.U. TAX ON FLIGHTS FROM THE STATES...

2012-01-25T14:12:00.000-06:00

I'm going to go to IWA, the European equivalent of the Shot Show, this year after an absence of a decade or more. I booked a room today and I knew it wouldn't be cheap and it wasn't. But, it was the airfares that really shocked me. The ticket from Indy to Germany (I can use a couple of different airports over there) is approximately $179!

It's the E. U. add-on TAXES that get you.

Would you believe from $664 to $739 in taxes on top of that 'low price' airfare? Which brings the total to just over $900 and this during the 'Low' season.

I was told at last week's Shot Show this was what I should expect as it seems the European Union has created a special tax just for Americans. I can't imagine what a 'High' season airfare is to Europe now? There is no need to explain how this has killed the European/American tourist business. Obviously, if this wasn't for business purposes I wouldn't be going. You would think with all their economic troubles they would be doing everything they could to encourage people to come and spend money as opposed to taxing something to death.

But then what can you expect in terms of sound economic policy from a bunch of liberal socialists?...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

WELCOME TO THE MIDWEST???...

2012-01-25T01:26:00.001-06:00

Is it just me or does anyone else find it odd, if not absurb, the fans of the two teams who will compete in the SuperBowl will travel to Indianapolis from New York City and Boston?

I find that fact just strange. It's like there is a big dose of karma coming down for all those who decried the Midwest and described our area as "...flyover country..." Now, they HAVE to come here as a statement of their support for their respective professional sports team.

I suppose one could argue it's Justice, while I tend to think it's just another example of the theater of the absurb in real life.

More later after I get some more sleep...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

TRAVEL HANG-OVER DAY...

2012-01-24T14:28:00.000-06:00

Not much free ice cream here today as I think I'm having a 'travel' hang-over day. My office looks like a combination wreck and trash dump and I'm in the middle of about four projects simultaneously. Plus, I need to move the treadmill so I can get some exercise.

As you can tell, I'm not accomplishing alot today so check back in tomorrow...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

MOVIE REVIEW: HAYWIRE...

2012-01-23T12:45:00.002-06:00

HAYWIRE, (2012), produced by Relativity Media and the Irish Film Board, directed by Steven Soderbergh, written by Lem Dobbs and starring Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Bill Paxton and Antonio Banderas. Rated "R" for violence. Run time of 93 minutes.

Truthfully, this film was a disappointment for me. The trailer look so good and with Sonderbergh as a director (TRAFFIC) I figured this was going to be a really decent 'action' film, maybe even a 'kick-ass' film. While I liked the female lead, Gina Carano, the truth is the pacing of the film is altogether t-o-o.....s-l-o-w. I had read reviews where it was compared to some of the Bourne movies in terms of its 'action' and drama.

I must have seen a different set of Bourne movies because they moved at the speed of light compared to the speed of this thing.

Gina Carano is a mixed martial arts champion and the truth is she is pretty good as the 'private' operator hired by some mysterious government agency to rescue a kidnapped journalist. (Yeah, Like that would happen.) The conflict comes into play when she set up and double crossed, specifically why and by whom is somewhat problematic throughout the film.

Obviously, Carano isn't going to challenge Meryl Streep for character engagement or conveying emotion, but its obvious from her moves and movement, she knows how to fight. I mean she really knows how to move and fight. (I'm not so impressed with her gun handling, but I guess you can't have everything.) To every one's credit she does her on screen roles without sinking to sensational nakedness or nudity. She portrays what she is and that is a tough as nails human being. Well done, now if the rest of the film had moved as well as she did, there wouldn't be any problems, but there is.

For one thing the plot is incomprehensible. It starts in the middle, goes back to the beginning, back to the middle and then returns to the end of the 1st act. I know I'm hard of hearing, but the sound is atrocious, or at least it was in the theater I attended as half the time I didn't know what was being said. (For that reason alone, I might rent it when it comes out on DVD and use the English sub-titles, just so I can understand what I missed.)

The gun stuff was okay. There may have been some hiccups that I missed. I wasn't paying that much attention because I was concentrating so hard on what they were saying and my lip reading really wasn't up to speed. I will say at times I found the musical sound track disorienting and the music didn't match the scenes at all.

But it was the thin plot and especially the pacing of the whole thing that threw me off. I'm not a member of the attention deficit crowd and therefore I enjoy a story that moves of its own pace, but this wasn't that kind of story. This was an action adventure and we don't need lasting looks, pauses and glances. Just Git It On, Girl! As for connecting the dots, the producers, the story writer and the director could have done a better job of establishing the dots that needed to be connected. As it is, it's pretty thin and one has to suspend belief when in broad daylight multiple state police officers are gunned down, but our heroine easily escapes. Right.

In many ways, Carano is a female version of Chuck Norris and for that reason I'm sure she will prove to be the fantasy woman of many pre-teen and teenage boys. She could also work for an old fart in his 60's, but she is going to have to do better than turkeys like this if she wants to avoid becoming a fantasy caricature.

I give HAYWIRE 2 bullets out of a cylinder of 6...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

2012 SHOT SHOW SUMMMATION -- PART TWO...

2012-01-22T20:28:00.003-06:00

Kimber had the above .380 ACP caliber pistol on display and actually I thought the gun was pretty 'trick', but I'm not sure how big the market is for a .380 ACP pistol with a MSRP over $1,100?

MGI had this replaceable mag well AR-15 on display. Among the extras is a quick change barrel feature, plus the ability to tear the whole thing down to small enough pieces to fit inside a standard business size briefcase. Definitely, a "Neat-O" piece of equipment because it is also capable of multiple calibers.

Willy Bubits of Austria designed the modern Steyr pistol, then he designed the Walther PPS and now his latest work is the Caracel from the United Arab Emirates.

Although it would require BATF approval, registration and payment of a tax stamp in this country, Bubits also designed this sci-fi looking forward handgrip that attaches to the accessory rail on the Caracel. If nothing else it's original in appearance.

Smith & Wesson didn't have all that much that was New this year, but they have added the Model 48 in .22 Magnum to their line of 'Classic' revolvers. This poor photograph illustrates such an example.

Again, not exactly state-of-the-art, Smith & Wesson has added another N-frame to their 'Classic' line of revolvers and in this case, it's the Model 27, .357 Magnum, with a four inch barrel. I'm a sucker for these things, so that's why it is included here.

I think this is probably my 'favorite' of the new handguns (such as they were) introduced at this year's Shot Show. It's the Sig 938 and it is only slighter larger than the .380 version of the same pistol. Considering this is a 9x19mm pistol, I found it more than intriguing and hope to work with one in the future.

Michael Kassnar is back in business and his company is Trans World Arms, LLC. I don't have any info on these 1903 Springfield rifles, but they were on display in his booth. They looked good, but I can't say if they had 2 groove barrels or 4 groove barrels.

A couple of years ago I mentioned that Lone Wolf Distributing was preparing to make a carbine that used Glock magazines. This year they had a whole wall full of the things. This is just one example. Not sure of the pistol caliber, but it definitely used a Glock magazine.

These monstrosities have been all over the interweb. The principle reason being they are just so outlandish. In my opinion, this is just flat WRONG! But Hey, I'm sure they will sell several to the tactical ninjas, most likely in California (if they're legal) simply because what else are they going to buy for a tactical rifle?

OK, this photo is just to prove I didn't always go to bed early like old fat guys usually do. Joe Mantegna was friendly and seemed glad to meet a fellow member of GUN STORIES. This was after the awards ceremony where the show received 2 awards.

But the guys in charge of this show have made a mistake, they have invited me back for the 2nd year. I think it's because I make Joe look soooo good!...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

2012 SHOT SHOW SUMMATION -- Part ONE...

2012-01-21T05:30:00.003-06:00

I left early yesterday and spent all day negotiating airports and window seats (which I dislike) to return home last night to a snowdrift where our car got stuck. To say I was 'beat' (and I'm still tired) would be beyond obvious. As I've posted before this was not my first Shot Show, nor do I believe it will be my last, but it was different.

For one thing, the Sands Convention Center has made a number of improvements. The aisles are wider and the numbering system of the booths is better, but there is still NO yellow brick road or central avenue off of which one can orient your sense of direction. In fact, due to the trapezoid shape of the damn place I was constantly finding myself 'lost' and disoriented. (Not a new experience for sure, but at least in my own defense THIS was well before 6:00PM!) It was hard to find the specific entrance/exit one used to the enter the place with the result being when you finally did leave the exhibit hall, you had to figure out how to traverse the rabbit warren maze of hallways and rooms belonging to the host hotel in order to even find daylight!

Personally, I like Orlando's exhibit hall far better than this cave.

The section of the industry that I've been a working member of for well over two decades has changed and the following observations and opinions (that are totally mine and belong to no one else) are going to rub more than a few of the denizens of the blogosphere all raw, butt hurt and angry, but they remain my opinions.

Gun print journalism is still alive. It hasn't died. Yes, it's lost a lot weight and it's not as big as it once was. Its place in the structure of things has changed perhaps and been diminished. It is no longer the Big Dog of the business in a couple of ways and some of that is due to the influence of 'bloggers' and 'blogging'. The 'immediacy' of having a new gun on the cover of a gun publication has gone away due to bloggers. I don't believe 'bloggers', however other than a handful of specific operations, have assumed any of the 'power' lost by the magazines.

I base these conclusions on the most reliable guide out there when it comes to business....MONEY!

The MONEY is NOT generally going to 'bloggers', with the possible exception of GUNBLAST and some others and even then it is merely a trickle when compared to what's moving to television advertising. This is going to have an effect over the long term, I believe, because MONEY people like to see immediate results or at the very least a connection between their advertising efforts and a sales increase.

Bloggers are really good at 'negative' advertising and exercising that kind of power, but they have yet to master the 'positive' advertising in a meaningful way with the result being the industry doesn't want to alienate bloggers in any way, shape or form, but a good number of the manufacturers and print journalism (because they are frequently, if not constantly, being approached by 'bloggers' wanting to become print writers) really, really wish they would just go away.

(Why do bloggers want to become print journalists? Because they want to get PAID for what they're doing. A big shortcoming that will always surround blogging.)

Negative advertising creates fear, but it doesn't create advocates. MONEY likes and wants advocates.

Print journalism and, now, television creates advocates. Bloggers and blogging have yet to master that aspect of commercial business and therefore I see a conflict coming.

The fiasco at 'Media Day' had many complaining behind the scenes afterwards. The line for credentials on that first day illustrated the problem. It was over 200 yards long as bus after bus disgorged their steerage passengers eagerly anticipating their new found journalistic power. In casual and not-so-casual conversations, I heard complaints from both manufacturers and others that it was wrong because time is a commodity and they didn't want to waste it on some dude from Dubuque who worked off a laptop in his mother's basement.

I could be wrong, but it wouldn't surprise me the organizers of the Media Day event over the next months will come under great pressure to stratify credentials with some sort of color coded badge or admission system. Otherwise the manufacturers will expand the practice of holding media events off site with admission being by private invitation only, which is what happened out at the Desert Sportsman Club this year while the Media Day event attracted all the bloggers. There were others I learned later as well at other non-disclosed sites, but you have to be invited.

Right now there is a lot of confusion in the sectors I've haunted for so many years because of this new digital technology, but I'll keep betting on the MONEY because it generally gets what it wants and MONEY will sort things out faster than what many expect because this is a commercial industry, not a social order. It's not even as stupid as politics.

It's just business...

(more later today after I get out of bed for the 2nd time)

All The Best,
Frank W. James

SECOND DAY -- SHOT SHOW 2012...

2012-01-19T03:23:00.002-06:00

I realize I'm older and I've been coming to the Shot Show since 1985, the year it was in Atlanta and everyone forgot how to drive a vehicle on sheets of ice. I drove the farm's 4x4 pickup truck all the way from Indiana and engaged the 'hubs' only after I got downtown!

The show, however, was Nirvana. I had found a new home. I knew the instant I had walked onto the show floor that I was at a place where I belonged. (Invited or not, I belonged.) I still belong, but like all things, the atmosphere has changed.

Over and over in private conversations with writers I've known for years, if not decades, while resting in the Press Room this fact is brought up, and not by me, because I thought that perhaps I was just being an old fart in my attitudes and perceptions. If I am, I am not alone.

In terms of gun 'entertainment', the driving force (with real money) is television. If you ain't television, you ain't shit. Obviously, the print media has lost its big impact, but we already knew that. That was sort of the water is wet acknowledgement, but the attitude overall toward the developing media is what surprised me.

Yes, the electronic media is acknowledged, like the bloggers, for the driving force they are and they are being recognized for what they do, but the thing is they have no money, they get no money and they don't represent any force or individual power that serious money is usually attracted to. That may sound harsh and puncture more than a few balloons, but it's an observation of fact on my part because (irony of all ironies) I'm also trying to sell a television show and I'm suddenly being made aware of facts and attitudes about the current market that I was blissfully ignorant of. (poor sentence, but still a fact surrounding the current situation)

Twitter accounts are generally only acknowledged or taken into consideration IF they are related to a television show. They could care less if you're some big name writer (or in my case, a small time writer) and you have a Twitter account. Start talking about an 8:00PM time slot on Thursday night and suddenly someone like me who thought the word more aptly described some hidden aspect of the feminine gender's private parts is being asked about any Twitter accounts?

The same is true with websites. In fact during our presentations they want to know what ancillary programs we have plans for in addition to the format of the show!

Wow! This is pretty thin air, high altitude stuff for a guy who normally plants corn, soybeans and shoots guns and has been doing so for over 30 some years...?!? (As in W.T.F am I doing here?)

I'm also learning the whole television programing thing requires, NO - IT DEMANDS, a heavy load of patience and long range planning.

Hard stuff to learn for someone who is used to ideas being germinated on the screen or a piece of paper in a matter of minutes or hours maybe, or in the case of seed within a week, if not 3 or 4 days.

I can't predict if my son and I will be successful in these ventures, but I absolutely believe we must all recognize the landscape, the terrain, the variable weather patterns and other day-to-day factors in a continuously changing world and we must learn to adapt to these new conditions if we want to survive...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

FIRST DAY ON THE SHOW FLOOR - SHOT SHOW - 2012

2012-01-18T06:42:00.000-06:00

This has been the first year where I was trying to 'sell' (a relative term in my case) something as opposed to doing my usual gunwriter job at the show and the result is no pictures to post this morning before I start the 2nd day on the floor.

Oh, I was BUSY! Believe me I was busy and just flat drug out when they chased us off the show floor at 6:00PM yesterday afternoon. I also lost some time for my regularly scheduled activities because I had an hour taping session with the GUN STORIES crew. We ran out of time so they looked at their cancellations and they want me back for a second session this coming afternoon. They seem to enjoy my stories and how I 'look' at things.

Go Figure?

TRUE STORY from yesterday. I met a middle age guy walking fast and coming at me on one of the back aisles. Right away he recognizes me and starts yelling my name. I think right away, "Okay, where do I KNOW this guy from?" Turns out.........I don't. He's just a 'fan' and was glad to meet me in the flesh. So, he's pumping my hand and telling me how much he likes the show and me. He really likes me.

I dig out my business card, hand it to him and say, "When you change your mind, HERE'S where you send the HATE Mail!"

He started laughing and we parted as we each were in a hurry. More of the same today...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

2012 SHOT SHOW -- Media Day...

2012-01-17T00:18:00.004-06:00

I arrived in Lost Wages Sunday, late, and had a crackerbox car reserved for this week. Well, guess what? They didn't have any left in the rental car lot when I arrived..............so I'm driving a new Mustang convertible. Sweet!!!

Okay, now back to the regularly scheduled nonsense. The following are some of the things I saw and shot today at "Media" day, which was really a 'Zoo' in disguise. (They used humans instead of animals, but otherwise the description fits.)

So far as much as I can see THIS is going to be the 'Hit' of the show in terms of handguns. It's the new XDS from Springfield Armory. I got to overhear an explanation of this pistol from Rob Leatham and the big point is this gun is REALLY NEW. So New only 3 people knew about it a few weeks ago and one of them was Leatham himself. Essentially, it is a .45 and it as small as they can make it. They would have made it in 9x19mm but it wouldn't have reduced the gun in overall size all that much because of the chamber pressure of the 9x19mm versus the lower pressure .45 requiring a thicker chamber wall and as well as other thicknesses. There is NO parts commonality between this pistol and any other XD pistol. It's totally new. Additionally, Leatham said they no longer use factory sponsored focus groups but instead rely on bloggers and internet commentators to do their 'beta' testing. Essentially, there are NO more prototypes. The first guns are production models!

Yeah, this is kind of a 'yawn', but Colt is making a big deal out of it. So, the New Frontier has returned, in this case with a 7-1/2 inch barrel in .45 Colt. Other calibers include .44 Special. I shot this particular gun and it was okay, but I felt it needed a trigger job. That's me and I'm not all that wild about Single Action Colts, even target models that hail from 1873.

This is the Sig 556 in 7.62x39 caliber. It will use ANY Kalashnikov magazine designed for the AK-47. (Although these were made in Bulgaria.) When the factory rep. was questioned about the gun's potential accuracy? He replied 1.5 to 2.0 minutes of angle......"because of the ammunition". I don't question his logic or experience, but still it set me back. However, I didn't see anything when I fired the gun to indicate he was wrong.

I guess I'm late to the party as I didn't realize the Arabs were making their own polymer framed, striker fired pistol. This is the Caracel that is made in Abu Dubai U.A.E. I never fired it so I can't comment any further.

This is a new one from Kahr. It's the CM-9, but with a FRAME MOUNTED SAFETY!! That means in practical terms they can lighten up the double action trigger pull and remove a whole bunch of 'monkey motion' from the trigger. Which they have! I liked this gun and want to spend more time with a test sample.

(photo courtesy of Jay from MArooned.)
Finally, I've heard about these things for some time and the fact of the matter is I was just plain curious about this "Slide Fire" mechanism that bump fires the trigger on a semi-auto to work like a full-auto. In all modesty I've spent a few hours and days on the square range with full-auto firearms and I wondered how 'accurate' (a relative term I realize for the situation) the weapon was in 'full-auto'?

The truth is I don't believe this system will prepare anyone for work in the special ops tactical field. You have to hold the gun so differently than what you would a regular select-fire gun, there really is NO comparison. Yeah, I was able to keep most of the rounds on the steel humanoid target, but that was AFTER the first few were well off the target. Once the gun got 'running' I was able (because of experience) to bring it back onto the 25 yard steel target.

It's an okay system if you want to own the means to make a lot of empty brass, but I don't think for a second it's going to prepare anyone for a 'Selection' course for any military or L.E. tactical team I can think of.

The drive back from the range was neat though. I will say this about the late model Mustang, the little bitch will corner at 'speed' like no American car I've driven recently.

It makes me wish I was an automotive writer instead of a gun hack...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

HOW DO YOU MEASURE "SUCCESS"?...

2012-01-14T08:17:00.003-06:00

How do ya? Most Americans measure success with dollar signs $$$. In other words if what you do doesn't produce much money, then you really aren't successful. That's the dilemma of the starving artist and if you disagree then I think it can be argued you're in the minority, especially with the wives of America. Someone can be a great genius at what he does, but if no one pays him to do it, no one really gives him much credit for doing it.

This situation can also be used to describe many gunbloggers. Currently, there's a big controversy over at this place about 'gun-bloggers' versus traditional 'print-media' types for next week's Shot Show and media type credentials. Considering I've done both, perhaps I have a bit of insight into the subject and in my view the key factor is money.

If you're not making any money from the blogging enterprise it's pretty easy to be hyper-critical, because your snark, snide remarks and flat out criticisms won't cost you a dime. You don't suffer a thing for pissing off that manufacturer or his public relations manager and you go merrily on your way thinking you are the next great Col. Askins, Elmer Keith or whomever of gun reviews.

But if, however, you earn money, maybe even enough to provide a living, then the insightful reader will notice that the snark, snide remarks and outright criticisms falls to a minimum.....if they even exist at all.

'Traditional' print journalism that focuses on guns, firearms and tactics catches a lot of flack from the poor (literally) blogger types with the end result being they are "Holier than thou" as to their objective-ness and fairness in terms of their product reviews on their respective blogs.

They routinely accuse people like myself of being gun industry 'whores' who prostitute our integrity in continuous series of favorable reviews. If you believe that about me, search the libraries and the internet for my articles on the Colt All American 2000 pistol from years ago, or a series of AR-15's that were made on the left coast a couple of decades before that. You won't find them because the publishers wouldn't print what I wrote and I wound up doing a lot of work for nothing.

Those experiences taught me a lesson.....I'm selective about who I approach in the first place for a 'loaner/review' type product.

I will grant these critical gunbloggers they may start out to be earnest and sincere in their comments, but my view is as soon as someone starts pushing dollar bills and/or products in their direction, human nature being what it is, the situation is the same as that seen over the years with most any print publication.

Jeff Quinn, his brother and a friend run GUN BLAST, which I feel is the premier gunblog currently on the interweb. Jeff is a good guy and I enjoy being in his company. He knows and loves firearms. He truly does a good job in his reviews, but all one has to do is look at the amount of advertising on his blog and you know right away you're not going to see a damning review on his site. Why? Because he can't afford to alienate his advertisers and by that I mean some advertisers get extremely upset even if you condemn their competitors. I know I've seen it first hand in the print media.

See, if you bite one hand that feeds you, you will bite ANY hand that feeds you and that makes a lot of people nervous and uncomfortable.

It's not a new phenomenon, prior to World War Two the German Luger was roundly condemned in the American gun press, which consisted primarily of the NRA publications. The reason was pretty self-explanatory. No one imported it back. It was a foreign pistol and our society was more isolationist then. It was more "us" versus "them foreigners". That attitude died with the horse cavalry.

Gun-bloggers this next week will get the news on the interweb almost instantly, with updates every minute on the web, and that's neat if you're a consumer or someone interested in the subject. I do it at the end of each day because it allows me to summarize my daily experiences over what I've seen and what I've missed. I don't make a dime off the process while I'm at the show, but I will use the material in a way later on where I hope to. Therefore I freely admit I tone down my criticism, but that is a habit left over from covering this industry in a 'professional' manner.

(That means for you new kids, Yeah, I got paid to do this stuff. Some times I even got paid what I thought was a LOT of money to do this nonsense. Will you?)

If having been paid and having made money from writing about firearms over many years taints me in the view of some gun-bloggers then I suggest they go read the guys who are starving. I'm doing it out of my own pocket and not someone else's this year as I have for the past several years, but I wouldn't have lasted as long or stayed as long in this industry if there wasn't some way for me to do this 'professionally'.

I'm just NOT that PURE...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

PLANS 'OVER-RUN' BY LACK OF TIME...

2012-01-14T04:08:00.002-06:00

I was planning on going to the Fun-Show today down in Indy, but yesterday's snow storm and a number of other events (like packing for a week on the road) more or less 'over-whelmed' my plans like an enemy force over-running a remote outpost on a military expedition.

(My wife found it strange anyway, I was planning on going to a gun-show when the next day I am flying out to a week long stay at the Shot Show!?! What can I say, but that I'm 'Gunny'?)

Speaking of guns, I read on the BBC website here that someone found a bunch of AK47's in crates sold for firewood in the former Soviet Union. What I found 'enlightening' is the fact the guy who found them turned them in to the local police. I'll bet if that happened here in the states the chances are 50/50 some of those guns would have found their way to a flea-market or a neighborhood bar before the cops got wind of the situation.

Americans are criticized by many as being 'gun-crazy', but it's my belief that the ability and the means to own any efficient technology for self-defense is a human desire that ranks just below the basic need for food, shelter and health-care.

Granted, my international travels have been limited pretty much to northern Europe (an area consistent with my own racial background) and parts of the Caribbean, but I believe most people share a common interest in personal defense weapons, the big difference is: Here in the United States the possession of personal defense firearms is recognized as a basic right of our citizenship while elsewhere in the world that ain't the case.

I believe that gun control only truly works in completely totalitarian regimes and they have to be ruthlessly totalitarian states; ones that do not practice any form of mercy or or any form of justice in order for their prohibitions to be effective.

Still it doesn't change the fact that most human beings will seek to have some form of self-defense tool in their possession when their personal safety is threatened in any way. It may be a machete, a club, an iron bar, a bucket of lye sitting behind the front door, a home made firearm (manufactured from black iron pipe and black powder) or it could be an illegal AK or semi-auto pistol. It doesn't matter, only a fool relies upon their own physical strength and bare hands as their sole means of self-defense.

I've met enough people from other lands to recognize 'Gunnies' (those who just enjoy guns for what they are), regardless of the native language, as opposed to those who simply want to remain alive and well when others threaten them. (A condition that a majority of Americans don't believe could affect them.) The group concerned with their own welfare could care less about the specific technology, they just want something that's efficient and practical for their situation.

Fortunately, for most Americans, because of our rights and the firearms industry, it's not a big problem...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

POSTSCRIPT: I can't verify the veracity of the following, but yesterday I received a mass emailing from a good friend explaining how street gangs are 'tagging' cars in parking lots at gun stores, shooting ranges and gun shows. Then when the automobile, after tagging, is driven to another part of the area and left empty it is broken into and the weapons and gear stolen.

Supposedly, a number of expensive shotguns were stolen from vehicles this past summer at an event held near San Antonio, Texas and law enforcement feels this was the technique that identified the vehicles in each case. It also appears the same technique was used recently in Denver, Colorado.

A small adhesive dot is place on the bumper or the license plate to 'mark' the vehicle, when empty, as a target for thieves specializing in weapons theft.

So be aware and watch for anything 'strange' being put on your vehicle whenever you leave a 'Fun-Show' or shooting range...

GUN WISH LIST FOR 'SHOT'...

2012-01-12T15:03:00.000-06:00

I've just returned from having a colonoscopy (Yeah, I know that's TMI!), so I'm not in the best of moods, not after having been starved for more than a day, having suffered from induced diarrhea for over 24 hours and then having something very uncomfortable used in a very un-natural manner on my backside.

Therefore, in order to post and get this over with I've come up with a list of 'NEW' guns (I know in my case it's a relative term) I would like to see next week at the Shot Show.

They are the following:

1. Some sort of Merwin & Hulbert reproduction revolver that would retail for under $1,000.

2. You would think that with modern CNC machining centers it wouldn't be THAT difficult to come up with a new version of the 1903 or 1908 Colt 'Hammerless' Pocket pistols in either .32 Auto or .380 ACP?

3. I know I'm out of step but I would love to see an actual rebirth of the Colt double action "Agent" 6 shot, lightweight, swing-out cylinder, snub nose revolver. Today good ones are almost impossible to find, but they're still as good or better than anything new on the market.

4. I would like to see a semi-auto AR-15 format carbine in either 9x19mm or .40 S&W caliber that would use surplus UZI magazines (low cost & widely available). Too many urban indoor gun-ranges won't allow the use of bottle-necked ammo on their backstops and this type of product would allow the urban dweller the chance to own a functioning centerfire AR-15 carbine and work with it and its controls on a regular basis.

5. I know this is JUST ME, but I would like to see the return of the Ruger Redhawk in .41 Magnum, if only for a special limited run.

Instead, I'm sure we'll see more variations of the basic 1911 pistol and the AR-15 carbine or some new form of pistol with yet another polymer frame, which isn't bad, but it's not near as imaginative as seeing a new production Merwin & Hulbert large caliber, double action revolver.

What's on YOUR wish list?....

All The Best,
Frank W. James

NEXT WEEK AT "SHOT"...

2012-01-11T11:00:00.001-06:00

Next week in 'Vegas is going to be a busy one for everyone in the firearms industry. In terms of yesterday's post we hope to have a meeting with the head of programming for another network, but nothing is for sure.

While nothing is guaranteed, our proposed show is called "PIG NATION" and the editorial slant is on the new technology (and affiliated firearms) that can be used to address the problem of feral hogs in agriculture.

I have to say that I have spent so much time on this project since the early part of last summer that it has changed many of my perceptions and personal long range plans. What I thought I was going to be doing just one year ago in terms of the farm and writing are now being called seriously into question....IF we can get the show sold, even then if we don't I'm rethinking many things I used to take for granted.

I can honestly say I've put as much energy into developing and 'selling' this product as I have any of the 3 gunbooks I've written. (And you have to know I couldn't sell air to a drowning man! Which I think is one of our main problems. Seriously! My son, on the other hand, could sell ice to an Eskimo. The problem has been getting him in front of the right people. One of our main difficulties is I could never get him in front of the guy at the network that turned us down!)

Much of the research conducted for PIG NATION was taken from source material I have gathered over the years for my next gunbook, which is focusing on semi-auto rifles in a narrow range of calibers. (There's a reason for that and much of it has to do with the trouble I've experienced in the last few years with my retinas.) That I used this research to develop a 13 episode television series came out of discussions with the crew last year at GALLERY OF GUNS television and in separate conversations with my son, who does this stuff for a living.

We have received many compliments on the quality of our 'sizzle reel' (which we filmed in Oklahoma back in August) and its photography. He has shown it to people in Los Angeles who are NOT firearms/hunting friendly in any way and still he received many compliments as to its production values and core theme. My son knows his business as well or better than I know agriculture or firearms and it shows in our 'sizzle reel', but like his father he doesn't want to do something that's just like what everyone else is doing. We are projecting something we feel is 'original' in terms of content, production value and characterizations. Whether it is or not remains to be seen.

We both agree, however our show has to be different and if we ever get to produce it, we are both convinced you will either HATE it or LOVE it. No one will be in a gray area of being somewhat ambivalent when it comes to PIG NATION. IF we get to produce it the way we have proposed it on the concept statement, it will be interesting in terms of its action and adventure. Not because we have some scantily clad babe in the picture, but because I go at 'em and 'close the distance' whenever I can.

I never wanted to do television and always tried to avoid it, but Bob Hunnicutt, my boss at SGN, insisted I do GALLERY OF GUNS television two years ago. From that experience I was asked to do GUN STORIES last year. I'm pushing this concept because my father and I farmed together, side by side, for 29 years and this is a chance (even if for only a brief period) for my son and I to work together on a project we both love almost as much as we love each other.

He thinks it will make GREAT television...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

WELL, MY BOSS PUT IT OUT...

2012-01-10T12:36:00.006-06:00

My boss, Bob Hunnicutt, at THE SHOTGUN NEWS finally put it out and brought it to my attention today, so I might as well bring it to your attention as well.

Since August I've been trying to market a television show based on my hog control efforts and experiences. You can go here and see what he wrote.

This venture is a cooperative effort between my son and myself. I would be the 'Host' and he would be the director/editor/producer/whatever of the whole thing.

Essentially, we are encountering a bunch of 'friction' and 'resistance' because it's NOT a conventional hunting show, nor is it anything even close to a conventional 'hunting' show. It's a show based on currently available technology (YES, this technology is expensive, but we want to show what CAN BE DONE WITH THIS PROBLEM if we treat it like a farmer would!!!!...[BIG SMILE]...if you get my meaning.).

However, because it's not traditional 'Fair Chase Hunting' and I say so outright in the beginning it falls outside the norm for 'hunting' show. Our (my son and I) argument is this show is NOT a conventional hunting show, but 'a control and technology' show that deals in a 'realistic' manner with a real world problem. In short, we don't take 'em into custody and put 'em in leg-irons.

I KILL 'EM....often in Cold Blood, but sometimes NOT!

And believe me, no one knows how bad the problem really is until they start working with thermal imagining and seeing just how many hogs there are in a given area.

One network has already turned us down after a lengthy discussion and presentation on what we had to offer. (We were too far off the 'norm' for them.) We are supposed to have a meeting next week with another network to discuss this project. I'm convinced that at some point in the future someone, somewhere is going to offer the same type of show we are trying to present right now. It's just a question of time before it happens.

Stayed tuned...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

BUSY WEEK AHEAD...

2012-01-09T13:43:00.000-06:00

This being the week before the Shot Show there is a whole bunch of stuff that HAS TO GET DONE....no excuses! Things like my SGN column and a free-lance article I promised to an old editor of mine. Plus I have a whole bunch of farm related things that need to be attended to this week.

Therefore, anticipate short, hurried blog-posts all this week at this location.

The big thing that caught my eye this morning was Sarah Palin's announcement the MSM wants Romney to be the Republican nominee and they are treating him with kid glove care......presently, but wait till after he gets the nod, then they will work to distance him and savage him (in the process) from all, but the super-rich. No Kidding, Sarah?

I don't think she is a genius for seeing it, but I do admire her forth-rightness for spelling it out.

Like I've said before, Romney is the Republican's gift to President Unicorn and when Romney officially gets the nod from the majority, it's all over but the shouting......we just have to endure the pain of the process (as well as 'the-fix-is-in' election) before President Unicorn starts his 2nd term....

All The Best,
Frank W. James

INTERESTING EDITORIAL IN A HOOSIER NEWSPAPER...

2012-01-06T12:28:00.000-06:00

The Lafayette Journal & Courier is our 'regional' newspaper, but like all Gannett owned newspaper it normally carries water for whatever Republican is in office.

However this morning they had an extremely interesting editorial (go here) to read it and essentially they are asking the same kind of questions that have concerned me for some time about the tactics of our vaulted and much heralded (conservative[??]-wise) governor.

I find it refreshing others are beginning to question his tactics, if not his integrity...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

PRESIDENT UNICORN'S MILITARY PROPOSALS...

2012-01-06T02:07:00.001-06:00

I'm just a farmer and an old one at that, but the details, such as they are, of the President's announced changes to our military are, at best, ill advised.

I realize we, as a nation, don't have the resources we once had after the two past conflicts and due to the economy (it could be worse, Ditch Manuels could be President and then we really would be suffering economic hardships!) and budget reductions are necessary, but the word I'm getting from the kids in the Air Force that I know who are paid to pilot these fighters is the first place anyone should start is with the new F-35.

It's a dog, an over-weight, underpowered D.A.W.G.!!!

They need to scrap it and start over because this thing as it currently sits ain't going to get it. We will probably never learn the entire truth about what a boondoggle this project has been in terms of engineering failure or financial mismanagement, but the kids tell me it ain't even close to being what was desired, or even ordered. It's an airborne 'Pig' to use a term that was explained to me.

Secondly, a move toward remote piloted drones would appear to be not the wisest course of action, even if we want to reduce the risk of pilots being captured and held prisoner by our enemies.

We recently witnessed what can happen and will with a drone that we, more or less, gave to Iran. A remote control drone's signals can be pirated and the drone sent elsewhere or used against us or an ally. What would have been the reaction if Iran had sent that 'stealth' drone on a raid against the Saudis, instead of just landing the damn thing in their desert?

Force reductions are inevitable, but we still have to manage our resources wisely in order to maintain our national security and so far I see nothing in Unicorn's proposals that inspire confidence in his plan or the judgement of his generals...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

A GUN IS NOT A BADGE...

2012-01-05T11:26:00.003-06:00

The details surrounding the tragedy that played out in New York City recently where an off-duty BATFE agent was killed are coming to light. He was killed, not by the bad guy, but by a late-arriving-on-the-scene former, and now retired, Nassau County police lieutenant who owns and operates a nearby delicatessen.

Two men were struggling outside on the sidewalk after a pharmacy robbery three doors away. Screams of alarm were followed by plenty of verbal commands to let go of the gun, shouted announcements of "Police" being repeated over and over, but still one guy was physically starting to gain control over the disputed firearm. The retired police lieutenant fearing that individual was the bad guy, put his own legally licensed handgun in the guy's ribs and fired once.

He shot and killed an off-duty federal agent trying to do the same thing he was, which was STOP an armed robbery!

I think it's safe to say that anyone, anywhere who has a legally licensed permit to carry a concealed firearm has at some point in time imagined themselves being in this same type of situation and they would rise to the occasion to help justice prevail by intervening to stop such a crime.

I WON'T!

I'm old enough and I've seen enough to know that even in the best of circumstances it never works the way we imagine, with the usual result being endless grief (in this case literally), if not a never ending series of court appearances and/or legal proceedings.

I know this is going to sound extremely COLD, but if you aren't my wife, my son or one of my 3 friends and something violent happens to you in my presence, but it doesn't involve or threaten me,..........you are on your own! Don't look to me to get involved or to even save your life.

My view is each of us is responsible for solely for ourselves and maybe our family members. (I added my 3 friends because people I consider 'friends' do not comprise a large group, nor do they take up a lot of space.) I don't carry a badge any more so my obligations to the surrounding community, its society or even the local county government is below, or right at, the bare minimum required for responsible adult behavior.

In short, my concealed carry permit and my carrying of a self-defense firearm is NOT a badge. Therefore I have no legal responsibility, or even 'standing', to get involved. (I'm sure the previously mentioned retired officer from Nassau County in his most private moments is probably thinking the same thing, but in his defense, he reacted the way he was trained. Yet, those days are in the past and he is now a civilian.)

Yeah, if something bad happens I might get my cell phone out and take some pictures. I will try to make note the individual in question had a purple skin color with pink polka-dots. He stood 4 feet 18 inches high, probably weighed around 300 pounds and drove away in a black on orange 1999 Packard with wide white sidewall tires. The license plate tag spelled "B-A-D G-U-Y" and issued by the nearby state of 'Anxiety'.

If someone is injured I will do what I can to render assistance, but considering my level of emergency medical training and recent recertification training that ain't going to be much. The main rule in all of this behavior is DO NO HARM! I might even call "911", but considering my recent experiences with that, I may well leave that job to others.

My view is that as long as no one points a gun at me or mine, nor threatens to harm me or mine, the surrounding citizenry will never know I even have a gun. It's there solely to protect ME and no one else.

If you have a problem with that and feel that I'm being a coward then I suggest you go get your own and learn how to use it.

Cowardice comes into play when you, yourself or your loved ones, are threatened, not when the general public (who mostly relies on others to protect them any way) is threatened, but you should also remember A GUN IS NOT A BADGE! and act accordingly....

All The Best,
Frank W. James

FINALLY, IOWA IS 'OVER'...

2012-01-04T11:08:00.000-06:00

I'm not so sure the whole debacle will prove meaningful in any way whatsoever, but finally we don't have to listen any more to 'Who's Ahead in the Iowa polls'. It's over and the Repub version of President Unicorn won. But Hey, it was close and when you consider what he spent to get there, you have to wonder about his fuel mileage. Obviously, his money gas tank is larger than everyone else's, but the return on his expended dollar isn't near what was seen by his opponents.

Which tells me he really isn't all that popular with that particular tribe of voters.

This last social exercise in Iowa means nothing, but TAM said it best this morning on screen and privately at the blog meet last weekend; IF you vote for President Unicorn, you're voting for a guy who hates guns and loves socialized medicine, but if you vote for the Mormon from Massachusetts, you're voting for a guy who loves socialized medicine and hates guns.

Romney is a gift to President Unicorn and the Democrats know it.

As for everyone else in the Republican hoe-down, would you quit rearranging those Titanic deck chairs over who sleeps with whom and what they're doing while they're doing it? (If they're adults and it's by mutual consent, leave 'em alone.) Could someone pleeeeeze focus on some national money matters? Over intrusive government functions, certain aspects of our daily life concerning the Constitution and various multi-national enterprises that are well on their way to becoming unregulated monopolies????

Pleeezzzeee???

I know it's a waste of time to ask Republicans to focus on badly behaving private enterprises, but still I will keep to my own private illusions. Just like some believe the recent events in Iowa actually meant something....

All The Best,
Frank W. James

SAD NEWS AND A ROUGH LIFE...

2012-01-03T15:00:00.002-06:00

A long time friend that I really don't get to see all that much just called to report the death of an old friend of mine, Dean Ingmire. Dean died sometime this morning from apparent smoke inhalation in a house fire. Dean and I go back to the early 1980's, back when things were really tough here on the farms. Every farmer was in some sort of financial trouble and I was no exception. The only thing everyone was scrambling for off-farm income and extra jobs. The good ones, however, were pretty well picked over.

Dean helped get me the worst job I've ever had in my entire life and at the time I was glad to get it. For one winter I worked as a private investigator and I was far from home for days on end when I did it.

In short, IT S-U-C-K-E-D.

Believe me when I say it wasn't anything close to Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade or any of those other celluloid detectives, but Ingmire was a 'hard' case......on the outside. He felt compassion for my situation and got me employment when such things were hard to find for a farmer who only really knew how to do two things; how to plant corn or how to 'pack iron' and stand my ground. It was the latter skill that got me the job.

I never liked the job, but I needed the money. At the first opportunity, I parted ways with my employer, but I stayed in touch with Ingmire. Like many who have worked law enforcement/investigations/private security he went through a divorce and had his ups and downs financially. Although he was still single he recently purchased and moved into a really nice home in a respectable sub-division which had a full basement; one-half of which was for the obligatory pool table and the other half for a reloading room, ne: gun work shop.

He was a certified police firearms instructor with a big municipal department, but the latest info I have is he only worked as a patrolman on weekends when the department shifts were short-handed. Mostly, he worked dispatch for the last several years and then poured concrete as a side profession. I guess it was the side job that paid for his new home.

While the details are sketchy, it seems the fire started in the basement (perhaps in the fireplace?) and his body was found near the front door.

Dean Ingmire was a true 'Gun-Man' and I say that with all the respect and honor that only those who have carried a firearm professionally for long hours over many years through many difficult circumstances will understand.

He lived a hard life and worked a hard profession. I will miss him, even if he did get me the worst job I've ever had...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

RESOLUTIONS FOR OUR COUNTRY AND ECONOMY???...

2012-01-02T11:38:00.000-06:00

This being the first of a new year, most people fall into the rut of making resolutions that last about as long as the attention span of your average under-educated teenager.

Over the past few days when I was capable of a conscious thought I've been given to pondering the future of our country and our world. I've done this because our own state is facing some major issues, not the least among is the realization that our average household income continues to decline with each passing year and the fact our state legislature is soon to enter into major combat over the issue of 'Right To Work' which will pit big corporations(i.e.and their major representative, our governor Ditch Manuels) against organized labor (and their major representatives in the legislature; the Democratic Party).

I've already expressed my view of this latter approaching train-wreck, but I also feel many of the facets and features surrounding this fight are national issues as well and while they haven't been identified specifically like a bad disease or national ailment they have produced a number of symptoms; not the least of which are the 'Tea Party' movement and the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement.

I'm beginning to wonder if the root cause for both of these political movements is the same damn problem, it's just that like the blind man examining the elephant; only they are just looking at it from two different directions?

Essentially, this country and the world in general is out of money. There is no surplus of cash.......anywhere in government coffers.

Governments have made so many commitments through social legislation, military expenditures, graft, sweetheart deals, corruption and outright fraud that no one has the freely available cash needed to prime the pump; whether that pump be a new automobile for Johnny or Susie or a new aircraft carrier task-force for the mega generals and admirals in their various defense establishments. Even space exploration is a fantasy for most countries with only China discussing it as a possibility and even there one wonders if they have counted up all their revenue sources accurately?

I personally believe much of this can be traced back to a lack of responsibility for individual actions and initiatives. It's a common cry heard throughout criticisms of any government where critics gather. Politicians vote their interests with the first one being a continuous series of outrageous pay-raises while their constituents continue to sink toward the poverty line or drown below it.

I can't speak for other countries but here some of this has started with education and before that the rules of their respective families in which the individuals were raised.

To learn math I can remember when we used to have contests on the blackboard during my elementary school days and it was a double elimination to see who was the 'champion' at multiplication or division. Of course, I'm also told this is no longer allowed as it created too many with an 'inferiority' complex because they never 'won', so that now our classrooms avoid these things in an effort to enhance the collective self-esteem of everyone. (Nothing is mentioned about teaching multiplication or division of math; good or bad.)

This also does an excellent job of teaching these students how to avoid assigning responsibility and objective evaluation of one's performance for the remainder of their lives.

Could this be the root cause for the 'Tea Party' Movement and the 'Occupy' movements? I ask this because recently American Airlines filed bankruptcy, but their CEO, Gerard J. Arpey, walked away with no severance package and only a stack of his now worthless stock in the company. It was a deliberate decision on his part.

More than a few airlines have filed bankruptcy in recent years, among them Continental in 1983 and 1990, United in 2002, US Airways in 2002 and 2004 and Delta and Northwest in 2005. Bankruptcy, obviously, allows them to cancel their debts, but it also allows them to eliminate any responsibility for their employee pensions which they have been collecting and managing for a number of years.

How would you like to have been a 20 year employee of one of these firms when they avoided THAT responsibility?

It also gave each firm leverage in renegotiating their labor contracts with the affiliated labor unions. Arpey argued against American's bankruptcy because "Out bankrupt colleagues all made net profits, good net profits last year and we didn't." Arpey went on to point out how this competitive advantage came to be, "And you can mathematically pinpoint that to termination of pensions, termination of retiree medical benefits, changes of work rules, changes in the labor contracts. That puts a lot of pressure on our company, not to be ignored."

In plain language, those other firms used the bankruptcy rules to avoid their responsibilities and because they didn't want to lose.....just like so many kids who can't multiply 24 x 43 at the blackboard in a hurry in front of the whole class!

Of course Arpey's actions were in complete variance with those of other CEO's who walked away recently from bankrupted or financially damaged Fortune 500 firms.

Charles Prince left the post of chief executive of CITIGROUP after explaining that the company would need at least $8 billion to $11 billion in subprime-mortgage-related write-downs to survive. Of course he walked away with a year-end bonus of $12 million and stock award and options equal to $29.5 million.

Stanley O'Neal retired from Merrill Lynch, after it suffered a similar catastrophe, with a retirement package of $30 million and $129 million in stock options.

Hoosier Stephen Hilbert of Conseco received $72 million while the value of his company's stock fell from $57 a share to $5! Eventually Conseco went completely bankrupt.

There are a vast number of other executives who were/are rewarded for driving their companies into the ground and leaving a path of devastation afterwards for those who worked their hearts out for those same firms over many years.

Is it any wonder the world is broke when the biggest firms in the world follow these business models? Is it any wonder that many small investors are resentful? Is it so surprising that long time employees resent losing a pension they contributed to and looked forward to, only to have it evaporate in a bankruptcy court proceeding?

And then to add insult to injury our lawmakers and our President make these same people their close friends and dinner companions? (One has only to examine the relationship between the President Unicorn and Jon Corzine of the recent MF Global disaster to understand my meaning in that last statement.)

If our country and our political establishment truly want to make a difference in the coming year, they will take a page from the book of behavior written by one recently unemployed airline executive, Gerard J. Arpey, and accept responsibility for their actions as well as let the chips (i.e., financial responsibility) fall where they may.

.....as well as the fact they make sure they and their legislative 'friends' don't profit personally from these events!...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

MOVIE REVIEW: WAR HORSE...

2011-12-30T11:07:00.002-06:00

WAR HORSE, (2011), produced by DreamWorks SKG, Reliance Entertainment, Amblin Entertainment, directed by Steven Speilberg, written by Lee Hall (screenplay), Richard Curtis (screenplay) and Michael Morpurgo (novel), starring: Jeremy Irvine, Peter Mullan, Emily Watson, Niels Arestrup, Tom Hiddleston and Celine Buckens. Rated PG-13 for scenes of intense war violence. Run time of 146 minutes.

Any time you go to see a non-animated film centering upon an animal as the title character you know going in your emotions, if the film has any depth (I mean even the slightest amount of substance) to it, your emotions are going to be played.

This film is no exception.

Taken from the children's novel of the same name and written by Michael Morpurgo this story is a combination love story, between a boy and his horse, and the subsequent odyssey, the travels and travails of his horse, 'Joey'.

The first act takes place in pre-World War One England, Devon to be exact, and this part of the film is slow and terribly paced. Additionally, the family, as presented, is unsympathetic. The father, a war veteran, is a farmer, but one who is also an alcoholic and slightly disabled. The farm, such as it is, is literally a hard scrabble piece of dirt with more than its fair share of rocks and hard soil. The film starts with the birth of the colt on a neighbor's farm and his subsequent auction as a yearling. The father/farmer buys him to be used as a plow horse when the horse is clearly not suited for such a task while spending the family's entire savings and most of his rent money. The rest is predictable. The boy bonds with the colt as it becomes a great and beautiful horse. While the landlord taunts the family.

If the remainder of the film had continued in the same track and vein as the first act, there would be little to recommend this work, but war is declared and the British army comes calling as they need mounts for the cavalry. The father sells the horse out of financial necessity and breaks his son's heart in the process. From this point on the horse's odyssey begins and the story starts to truly pick up.

What Speilberg has created is one of the most visual and realistic cinematic versions of the 'trenches' of World War One I have ever seen on film. We see this not as a main feature of the film, but as the surrounding terrain and background of the events that 'Joey' encounters. Of course, the story that a horse could actually survive such circumstances is way beyond belief, but the story is so compelling you willingly suspend belief and circumspection in order to absorb the emotions being presented.

In the stage play of this story they used robots to portray the horse. Make no mistake, the horse (or horses as the case may be that were used to create 'Joey') is the 'star' of this epic and his stances, reactions, Yes, even his facial expressions are almost beyond belief, but still you absorb them, marvel and enjoy them. You develop a deep respect for his majesty. There is a battlefield scene at the beginning of the third act involving Joey that made me suck my teeth down my throat and my wife admitted later that made it her absolutely furious as she really believed the horse had been injured in the filming of the scene. It's THAT real!

Yes, the emotions of this film are clearly predictable, but after the first act it is truly worth the trip. I didn't like any thing about the first act of this film and that includes the 'lighting' as it was unnaturally and unnecessarily harsh and bright. Later, the lighting was softened and towards the end the film has a scene with colors that were stolen straight from scenes in 'GONE WITH THE WIND'.

I give WAR HORSE 4-1/2 bullets out of a cylinder of 6. I would have given it more but the 1st act detracted from the whole film in my opinion, still it is a film worth experiencing...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

MOVIE REVIEW: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO...

2011-12-29T11:47:00.002-06:00

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, (2011), produced by MGM Studios, Columbia Pictures, Scott Rudin Productions, directed by David Fincher, written by Stieg Larsson (novel) and Steven Zaillian (screenplay), starring: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Robin Wright and Steven Berkoff. Rated 'R' for brutal violence (including rape and torture), strong sexuality, language and graphic nudity. Run time of 158 minutes.

It was about a year ago I first saw the Swedish version of "THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO" starring Michael Nygvist and Noomi Rapace. I was absolutely enthralled with the film; both the story and the acting. Even with the English sub-titles it is a film that flat pulls at you and Noomi Rapace creates a presence on the screen that sucks you in with a force unlike anything I've seen in years. The Swedish film is actually the first of a trilogy of films dealing with the subject matter created in Stieg Larsson's novels. The underlying core theme in all these films is about 'men who hate women', and believe me they are awful, terrible people.

Therefore it was with extreme skepticism that I entered the local theater last night to view David Fincher's version of the same stuff, only now it was the Hollywood version and I had absolutely no faith they would even come close to the performance established with the Swedish language films.

I was wrong. He came close.

I don't think this latest film is as good as the English sub-titled Swedish language original, but it is an excellent piece of work. However it should be mentioned this story in either version is not for the squeamish, nor the morally uptight or the sensitive. It is a graphic film in both versions because it deals with a horrible subject; men who routinely rape or murder women.

The story in a short summation is essentially a disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomkvist (played by Daniel Craig), is enlisted to help an aging industrialist, Henrik Vanger (played by Christopher Plummer), with an extremely dysfunctional family find out what happened to a much beloved niece 40 years earlier. Blomkvist is assisted by a female, tattooed, punk computer geek who is brilliant at security work and investigations, but works with an extremely troubled past, Lizbeth Salander (played by Rooney Mara)

This story is an extremely well done 'mystery' in both instances and to reveal any more of the plot details would ruin it for those with the stomach to view the film.

However, in terms of review and criticism, this latest version is better filmed and better photographed than the Swedish language version. Daniel Craig is powerful as Blomkvist and simply blows Michael Nyqvist's version away. There is no comparison. Christopher Plummer is also excellent as Henrik Vanger and puts Sven-Bertil Taube's performance in the shade.

But poor Rooney Mara was outclassed from the beginning of this comparison and never comes to the performance demonstrated by Noomi Rapace. (The film critic Roger Ebert lobbied hard to have Rapace to play this English language version, but she flat refused, stating simply that 3 years as Lizbeth Salander was more than she could handle. It's shame, because her performance of this character is one that will in time, in my view, be viewed as a film 'classic'.)

I don't like the slight changes Fincher and Zaillian have made to the Salander character and her relationship with Blomkvist from the Swedish version and these changes make this ending in my view difficult. I also feel Fincher and the writers didn't pay enough attention to Salander's previous legal problems or even explain them as well as that seen in the Swedish version of this film. In fact, I liked the Swedish version better, but it remains unknown if there will be the follow-on Hollywood films to complete the trilogy. Still overall, this Hollywood version remains a good piece of work and actually breaks the common expectation that Hollywood screws up their remakes of great foreign films. At least in this instance it's NOT a train wreck.

Even at that, I give this film 5 bullets out of a cylinder of 6, but it should be mentioned I feel the original Swedish language film deserves 6 bullets out of 6...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

THE RETURN AND SOME OBSERVATIONS...

2011-12-28T07:42:00.000-06:00

Having returned home after a really good vacation that was most importantly above all else; r-e-l-a-x-i-n-g, I will post some observations. They deal primarily with a big interest of mine and that is the feminine form. (I am a dirty old man.) For you see we were at a location where there was literally acres of exposed skin; both male and female, but it was only the one that I truly studied. And No, it wasn't some nudist or top-less beach, but with the state of ladies swim-wear being what what it is today there really isn't that much of a difference.

* Most women, regardless of age or condition, look pretty much the same when they are proned out on their backs trying to improve their tans. Only those on the extreme end of the scale, either side, stand out from the others and I'm not sure it's a positive in either case.

* Women laying on their stomachs are a different story.

* More women over the age of 40 would benefit from breast reduction procedures, than they would enhancement procedures.

* Long legged thin willowy women with the bodies of super-models look far better on the printed page than they do in real life. In fact, few -- if any -- extremely thin women really look all that good in the flesh -- and I mean that last part -- literally.

* While I'm sure there is spray painted graffiti that looks good and is artistic on some building somewhere, in most cases, it looks like trash and detracts from the whole experience. The same I feel can be said for tattoos on attractive women. It's even worse on unattractive women. (Your mileage may vary.)

* One doesn't appreciate a truly athletic woman until you see one with an extremely toned body and shape. What made the last one I saw even more attractive was her hands and her face revealed the fact she was well past her 20's and closer to her 40's if not actually already there. She was an extremely attractive, yes, even sexy woman.

* Being around all this skin drove the lesson home in a big way, I am seriously over-weight and I have to do something about it and I absolutely HATE the thought, but it's plainly something I have to work on over the next few months.

* And finally, four days without a watch, a cell phone and only the most infrequent interweb connections are the surest way to unplug from the world today and RELAX. It also helps if you find a bar side hot-tub and hydrate with regular consumption of a good beer. After a couple of hours of that kind of 'therapy' I was absolutely 'flat-lined' in terms of mental activity. I was surprised I even had a pulse.

Now, it's back to the real world...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

AT EASE...

2011-12-24T14:01:00.000-06:00

I will be in the area all day...

Again, MERRY CHRISTMAS to all and may you each and every one have a safe, restful and joyful Christmas...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING...

2011-12-24T08:09:00.000-06:00

Yeah, it's time for some R&R and we have left the country and in the process it seems that 'Blogger' and my operating system have, once again, decided not to cooperate with each other. I'm surprised that after about 3 hours worth of fooling with things I'm even getting this posted.

In any event, more will follow, but mainly I'm working on putting my brain and body in the 'neutral' mode.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

DECLINE AND DECAY and THE RIGHT TO WORK???...

2011-12-21T14:19:00.011-06:00

Presently the agricultural sector of the economy is enjoying record incomes and land value enhancements. After a scare the past 2 weeks the futures price for corn and soybeans are enjoying a rebound this week while the price of good tillable farm ground is constantly soaring well past the age of reason.

How far past?

Granted, it's only a rumor, but I heard the first of this week that two 80 acre parcels just west of Chalmers, Indiana, up for auction from an estate, were well past the $14,000/acre mark by Monday with the bidding still open as of today! And believe me that's not an 'industrial development' price, but actual 'you-bought-it, you-farm-it' corn & soybean farm price.

And NO, it doesn't make economic sense in any way, shape or form, but farmers are feeling flush right now. What they may feel when the national economy improves is another thing altogether.

For you see it's always been my opinion the general economy of this country and the agricultural sector economy are in an inverse ratio relationship. When one is good, the other is terrible. When one is up, the other is always down. The only possible exception to this rule being during the reign of the peanut farmer from Georgia, back then high interest costs were killing everyone, but most especially farmers. (I remember it quite well and it still hurts!)

Yet, despite the good times that farmers in general are feeling presently even a blind man can recognize our local area is decaying and in bad economic decline. Why am I discussing this? Because it's the Christmas season and the truth is things are continuing to turn for the worse economically in our local area. I'm not naive enough to think government and politicians can fix it quickly, nor are they solely responsible for this mess, but I do believe they have been a big contributing factor in creating this disaster and I blame two people and two political parties for it; Ditch Manuels and the Republicans and prior to him Frank O'Bannon and his Democrats.

It's my core belief that government can NOT create lasting, permanent jobs. It's impossible. Only the private sector and a thriving economy can do that, but government can also create an atmosphere conducive to economic expansion and real job growth. I also believe that due to the basic nature of man, all things have to be regulated carefully and can not be left to themselves so don't give me this crap about unfettered growth and government. All that leads to is unfettered greed; agricultural or otherwise.

O'Bannon and the Democrats did it by benign neglect while the efforts to destroy small farming communities by Ditch Manuels and his core of group of Republican sycophants has been more direct. This 'voucher' school plan is only one aspect of this campaign, but presently in our state legislature the big argument about to happen, once more, is over "Right To Work" legislation.

Manuels wants to prevent unions from collecting dues from non-union members, while the unions, and their sycophants, the Democrats, are full bore against it. Last year, enough Democrats took an extended 'vacation' in Illinois to prevent movement on this legislation so we get to do it over again.

My view is IF Ditch Manuels is for it, then I'M AGAINST IT. (And I should remind everyone that I'm farmer who has hated Unions all my life, but on this issue I see nothing good for our small local communities if it passes.) I've learned all too well that whatever he wants will do nothing but put our local communities ever deeper below the poverty line.

Recently I learned that of the "non-farm" households (notice I didn't say 'families', but households. There's a reason) in our local community of just over 800 souls, the average annual income is just above $14,000. That's $3,000 below the national poverty line!

16 years ago when my daughter was a Junior in the local High School with a student population of over 480, the percentage of students needing 'free or reduced payment' lunches was 1.5%

Today it is over 41%!!! And the student population is less than half of what it was when she was in school. Manuels would love to close this school because it doesn't have at least 2,500 students and therefore he penalizes it by withholding money from the general fund that just recently was discovered to have a $320 million surplus.

Over 60% of these same students come from single parent households and of the remainder it is unknown what percentage of the two adults in the building are actually married to each other?

It wasn't that many years ago that following communities in the southern Jasper County, all of White County area, had these businesses:

Remington: a Ford automobile agency

Rensselaer: a Ford automobile agency, a Chevrolet agency, an Oldsmobile agency and a Chrysler agency

Monon: a Ford automobile agency and an Oldsmobile agency

Monticello: a Ford automobile agency, and a Chevrolet agency

Brookston: a Ford automobile agency

Now today, only the Ford agencies in Monon and Brookston remain as does the Chevy agency in Monticello with the single addition of a Chrysler agency as well. Why is this important? Because each of those businesses featured a squad of trained, skilled technicians who earned a living 'middle class' wage. With the absence of these businesses, the only remaining work that is promoted by the Governor and his big corporation contributors and cohorts is based on a minimum wage scale.

It gets worse when you examine the agricultural implement dealers who were once in the area;

Rensselaer used to have an Allis-Chalmers dealer and a John Deere dealer. Now only the John Deere dealer remains.

Remington: nothing, where once there was a White dealer

Monon: Used to have a John Deere dealer, now nothing

Wolcott: Used to have a John Deere dealer, now nothing

Monticello: used to have an International Harvester dealer and a John Deere dealer, now only the John Deere dealer remains

(BELATED POSTSCRIPT CORRECTION: I forgot the CASE-IH agency that was built near Remington 2 years ago and it does employ a whole cadre of technicians. The bad part about this is I've purchased two implements from them, one each year since they opened. I'm sorry I forgot that one. Others might point out the Agco store in Rensselaer, but since I'm one of their customers I will argue vehemently it is only a parts depot and that's only if you get your order in time for the central warehouse in Batavia, Illinois to fill the order and drop deliver it by the next morning.)

Each of those missing dealerships had a core squad of people who were trained and well paid, but now only jobs at the truck stop near the interstate or the McDonald's across the highway offer ready employment.

Manuels is nearing the last of his term in office and for my money we can't see the end of him soon enough. He is the "Anti-Robin Hood" in that he has consistently robbed from the poor and disadvantaged and given to the rich and privileged. The people making $100K+ and living in McMansions in Carmel and Fishers, Indiana are his core consistency and think he walks on water, while I see something else altogether.

The result of all this is I no longer believe in either political party, nor their leaders. The school voucher program is using the failure of schools like those in Indianapolis and Gary to shoot holes in traditional education while our small schools in the neglected rural areas are serving as a backstop for the bullets that pass through their targets.

As for local industry and jobs? Well, if it ain't offering minimum wage, Forget about it! It ain't going to happen. Which brings up the fraud of "Economic Development Bonding" under Ditch Manuels. Manuels would have everyone believe he's about 'increasing jobs'. He said it about our dumbass time change and it didn't happen and he's saying it about this Right To Work legislation and I guarantee you it won't happen there either.

But here's the deal with Economic Development tax cuts to entice business; with every one of these deals it is the husbands who earn the management positions, but it is their wives who determine where they live. And they are not going to live in the middle of flatland farm country. No, they want to live in the exclusive gated communities and have their husbands commute up the interstate to his new job. While we in the local community are left with the people who take up these low paying jobs and fill our school system with ever more uneducated households.

We need those educated management families and their children in our school system, but the deck is stacked, once again, against us.

I write all this because I love the area where I live. I grew up here and I remember a much more vibrant and better place than the one I'm seeing now.

It's Christmas but it's going to be a slim one in many homes around here this year and if the Democrats walk out of the next legislative session in protest to the 'Right To Work' bill and the tyranny of Manuels and the Republicans, to take another extended Illinois 'vacation', then that will be the first step they can make in earning back my respect...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

LAP DOGS...

2011-12-20T10:57:00.000-06:00

For most of my life I have viewed the term "Lap Dogs" as something extremely negative in context. I always thought it described something submissive and a person who in nature was unable or unwilling (which is worse) to demonstrate even the most minimum of intestinal fortitude and individuality or just plain simple courage.

Then our family got a miniature dachshund. Well actually my son got it, but when he moved a few years ago to Los Angeles, I inherited it. (Parents always seem to inherit their pets from their kids.) This animal is most definitely a 'Lap Dog', but I also discovered I was really off base and mistaken when it came to the true nature of a 'Lap Dog', or at least this version of same.

First of all, I should explain this is the first time in my life where our family had a small dog. All the dogs we have had on the farms over the years were far larger in size because they had to be. They were farm dogs of one sort or another even if they were multiple mix breed animals in terms of their pedigree. This one is a pure bred. We have had other 'pure bred' dogs before and generally speaking until we got this one, I have always preferred 'mutts' because they didn't seem to be as high strung. This animal is the very definition of 'relaxed'....most of the time.

But I have been continuously amazed over the years at his level of intelligence. Quite possibly, this animal is the most intelligent dog I've ever been around and if he isn't he ain't shading any I.Q. points to those that are as smart.

He listens to casual conversation, even when it isn't directed at him and he reacts to what's being said if it in any way affects him; i.e. it involves food or eating. It's the darnedest thing I've ever seen. He is no dummy.

But neither is he a coward. In fact, I would have to say he is severely afflicted with small man's disease or in his case 'small dog disease'. He isn't afraid of heights and will jump off anything if given the chance, which we have to guard against CONSTANTLY because back injuries are a big problem with dachshunds. He will tie into any other animal that trespasses on HIS territory if allowed to and he, generally speaking, is pretty damn aggressive. (It's because of this latter tendency I'm extremely watchful of him around small children because I simply don't trust him. He hasn't done anything wrong, but he grew up around young adults and I worry he views small children as just another creature he can intimidate.)

My son had him as a roommate his last 2 years of college and regularly took this dog to his classes. The animal was trained to lay on his book bag and relax. He never caused a fuss. Well, except for the fact I'm sure my son trained him to look for and approach good looking young women in a submissive manner and with his tail wagging. They routinely swoon over him. (the dog, not my son.....well, I guess I don't really know and I'm NOT about to ask) I say all this because this animal always goes with me to the local bank and suddenly he is on his absolute best behavior as HE works the teller line! Yes, he gets treats, but I've noticed his reaction is the same whenever he sees tall, good looking young ladies. His tale starts wagging and the routine starts all over again. You try and convince me my son didn't train this dog to look for 'em.

Yes, he IS a lap dog. If I take a nap in the recliner in the afternoon, he is there muy pronto. He lays between my legs and groans if I happen to move in what he feels is an uncomfortable direction. The process is the same after our evening meal as I return to the recliner and he assumes his usual position. His devotion is absolute as he never lets me out of his sight when I move from one room to another and if I'm asleep he sometimes sleeps between my legs with one eye open to make sure nothing comes up unawares.

Having this dog around has been an educational experience and one that has enriched our lives in so many ways. Yes, he IS big part of our family. He is a beloved member and like most dogs he wears his smile on his butt. His tale always wags whenever my wife drives in and she walks in the house. He greets each of us with genuine interest and concern, but he has also taught me that lap dogs are not cowards, nor those who lack individuality and personality.

Being a lap dog just means he is devoted to those who care for them...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

THIS RECIPROCAL 'FRIENDING' INTERWEB NONSENSE...

2011-12-19T13:50:00.001-06:00

It has happened twice in the past few hours. Someone read my most recent movie review commented favorably and then told me to do a reciprocal posting on their blog. I have 3 words for them.

Kiss My Ass!!!

Look, I'm not a member of Generation "X" or "Y" or whatever. I don't do Facebook and I don't Twitter. I don't put everything that's going on in my life on this blog, nor do I really care if I have a whole bunch of 'followers' who wait with baited breath to read my next posting. I don't write or post things on this blog for anybody, but myself.

I view this place as my practice range for writing and arranging my thoughts. I don't give a shit if no one reads it or if a million people read it. It pays the same either way. I post crap on this blog to practice 'writing' and that is a solitary experience as those who have done it professionally over many years know full well. I don't need the company, it's just another damned distraction.

All This reciprocal nonsense ("I've read yours, NOW you read mine!" type of thing) reminds me too much of elementary and middle-school playground politics which if I remember correctly I never excelled at even back then and after 50+ years I'm sure I haven't gotten a damn bit better at it. It's the main reason I don't display the blogs I follow on a regular basis.

Yeah, I know it's rude and inconsiderate on my part, but believe me those who know me well and have for years won't be surprised in the least about this publically stated aspect of my behavior.

I'm not a nice guy as I'm basically a rude and nasty person to know first hand, but sometimes I'm able to put a coherent thought together that I (above all others) enjoy reading and reflecting upon. That's why I do this nonsense. It's not to make 'friends' and like an armed acquaintance of mine once stated, "If I wanted any more loyal and true friends, I'D GO BUY A DOG!"

I think that pretty well sums up the situation.

You will notice that neither of the comments that prompted this rant will be found here or posted anywhere else on this blog. That's because I deleted them and that's the only guarantee I can give others about this place. Just try and tell me to be reciprocal in some posting and I guarantee you it will never see the light day here...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

MOVIE REVIEW: SHERLOCK HOLMES, A GAME OF SHADOWS...

2011-12-18T12:52:00.005-06:00

SHERLOCK HOLMES, A GAME OF SHADOWS, (2011), produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, Silver Pictures, Wilgram Productions and Lin Pictures, written by Michele Mulroney, Kieran Mulroney and Arthur Conan Doyle, directed by Guy Ritchie, starring Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Rachel McAdams, and Jared Harris, rated PG-13 for violence and some drug use, run time of 129 minutes.

I enjoyed the first Robert Downey Jr./Sherlock Holmes movie and found it to be an interesting variation on the well known 'brand' of this who-done-it cinematic mystery. Therefore I was looking forward to a repeat of the process with this 2nd installment and although the majority of the published reviews rave about this 2nd effort I was initially disappointed with it...

To start with Rachel McAdams is eliminated by Professor Moriarity literally before the credits roll. While that revelation might be viewed as a spoiler by some, it is indicator of the different direction Director Ritchie takes with this tale. Nothing is for sure, even those aspects that added to the drama in the past are dropped in favor of less attractive, but new and different plot techniques. I'm not sure it's worth the effort.

The original 'Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' Noomi Rapace is added to the cast and here my complaint is the same as that with McAdams, I don't think she was given enough to do. She has a great presence in the film, but her dialog and lines are limited in my view.

The plot revolves around the fact that Professor Moriarity is trying to instigate warfare on a world wide basis, or at least throughout Europe. The year is 1891 and Moriarity owns a big percentage of the European based armaments industry. Hence he doesn't care whether its 'bullets or bandages' if there is a war, his business will be good.

If you divide this film into 3 Acts; I found the 1st Act dull, slow and meandering. The dialog is mainly between Dr. Watson (again Judd Law, who is really good) and Holmes. It is indistinct and features I fear far too many remarks that are hard to quickly connect.

The action picks up in the 2nd Act with a train ride that is both exciting and entertaining and from this point on the film starts to 'settle in' and engage the viewer. There are the usual number of cinematic errors. The main one for me being the featuring of C96 Broomhandle Mauser pistols that would have been impossible in 1891 as well as the fact these pistols do NOT load from a bottom feeding magazine well. (They load from a 10 round stripper clip from the top.) In addition to the fact, there were NO handheld 'sub-machine' guns during this time period that Dr. Watson could have used to waylay bad guys. As for the big guns, I'm not that well acquainted with 120 year old artillery pieces to know if they are depicted accurately, but it was still fun to visually enjoy those sequences.

I rate this film 4 bullets out of a cylinder of 6. To me it was not as good as the first, but after the mid-point of the film it turned for better when I was beginning to believe it was going to be a real dog. (Kind of an After-thought criticism: I think Ritchie tried too hard to 'Jason Bourne' Sherlock Holmes. Holmes has always struck me as more of a cerebral hero, not a kung fu/pugilistic hero and all the hand-to-hand in my view diminishes the stature of Holmes, but that is simply my opinion.) I also think this film would have been improved if it had a shorter run time as it runs a bit long and if we would have seen more of McAdams and Rapace it would have helped the effort...

All The Best,

Frank W. James

FILE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE OBVIOUS...

2011-12-16T10:34:00.000-06:00

Look I've never given much thought to Barbara Walters one way or the other over the years. She's an old time reporter/newscaster type who usually does a pretty good interview. If she doesn't like someone she has the ability to make them squirm with good, hard hitting questions and if she likes someone you can tell immediately she's doing a 'puff' piece, but I had to laugh out loud when I read about her interview with the Kardashians which is supposed to air sometime soon. (I could care less and ignored these details in the article.)

Walters stated pointblank to Kim Kardashian "You don't have any talent!"

No Shit, Barbara! I've never figured out what a "reality" star really was anyway? They were guests at this past year's Indianapolis 500 and judging solely by their facial expressions on the jumbo-tron and the pace car drive-bys, they were paid to be there and not enjoying their spell in the Midwest one bit.

My son who works in the entertainment industry out in LA was working production on a talk-show a couple of years ago where they were scheduled to be guests and he said initially he was interested in seeing them first hand. After he did, he said he wondered who carried the trowel used to apply their make-up? In the flesh, he did not find them in any way attractive.

Walters even mentions the video that brought Kim Kardashian to every one's attention, the one where she was video taped fornicating the boyfriend of the moment.

I don't know what was acknowledged about that tape in the interview, but I would say that was probably the height of Ms. Kardashian's 'talent'.

What The Hell is a 'Reality Star' Anyway? And what do they do besides fornicate on camera?

You gotta give points to Barbara Walters however because at least she acknowledged the truth of the situation...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

POLITICAL PARTIES AND THEIR CLOWNS...

2011-12-15T04:55:00.000-06:00

I posted awhile back I was tired of politics, but life currently is very much like trying to transit across a feed lot while trying hard to not step in the shit. It's unavoidable. Everyone is talking, asking or emailing you something about some aspect of the political candidates and/or their parties. And like the stuff on the bottom of your boots after you get across that feed lot, it's all very distasteful.

The latest one I got was from some die-hard 'gun' friends who are paranoid about President Unicorn. Yeah, I know he's a threat to our 2nd Amendment Rights and to prove that, all we have to do is look briefly at Attorney General Holder and this Fast & Furious scandal the mainstream media is working overtime to ignore, but there is one other aspect about President Unicorn that no one is mentioning.

He's Incompetent!

But then so was George 'W' and not one of the candidates, with the exception of Ron Paul, has mentioned repealing the Patriot Act, TSA or any of the other asinine organizations that our all encompassing federal government has initiated in the past few years who have done nothing more than spend money we don't have.

No one, no one, not even Ron Paul to my knowledge, has mentioned disbanding the federal Department of Education, which if you examine the record has only achieved ever decreasing test scores of students nationwide since its creation. Our kids did better, aptitude test wise, before it was created so I say 'Git Rid Of It', but I'm the only one on that aspect of politics.

The MF Global scandal proves to me there isn't a nickel's worth of difference between this administration and the previous one when it comes to New York financial institutions and the money grubbing lice that run them. They can be as corrupt and dirty as anything seen on "THE SOPRANOS" and their friends in Congress will still protect them and bail them out if necessary. Congress even reserves itself the right to conduct insider trading, but openly promotes laws that would put each of us in prison for the same acts.

Bush was wrong to go into Iraq and he was wrong to bail out the New York banks. Now the Republican party is running a pair of retreads as candidates against President Unicorn. In my mind, there is no difference between any of these jerks. Well, actually they are more clowns than jerks. Romney is a weather vane, he will stake a position out according to whatever direction the wind is blowing. He stands for nothing but he is as anti-gun as President Unicorn or Gingrich and it would be foolish to think otherwise.

And I use the 'gun' issue as an indicator of their political position on individual liberty. No one has pulled the wool over my eyes on any of these clowns and I refuse to vote for them......E'var!

Therefore admonitions to NOT vote for a 3rd party candidate are pretty much a waste of my time and my computer screen. And that's assuming I even vote because I'm not sure there will be a 3rd Party candidate I could even stomach come the fall of 2012 presidential election.

I will not reward either political party for not repealing The Patriot Act, not disbanding TSA, or for continuing to protect and shield their buddies in the New York financial market when each and everyone of them should be behind bars, if not swinging from a rope in a public square.

Stop the emails that tell me NOT to vote 3rd Party because the truth is I'm not even sure I'm going to vote.

I've decided that the rankest feed lot smells far sweeter than these political candidates...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

CAD CAM FAILURE...

2011-12-14T07:33:00.002-06:00

Shown above is the "New" Indianapolis 500 race car for 2012. It's still made by the same people who made the 'spec' car used by the series for the past 7 years, Dallara of Italy, but they have already discovered a small problem with this new design that was supposed to give the series a 'boost'.

It's S-L-O-W-E-R, as in significantly!!!

You will notice this new chassis which is called the "Wheldon" in honor of Dan Wheldon who was killed in a racing accident out in Las Vegas a few months back also has a rear bumper. That piece of carbon fiber is supposed to reduce the likelihood of a car coming from behind, climbing over the rear wheel of this car and getting airborne in the process. Best estimates are this feature weighs all of 15 pounds (it's made from carbon fiber).

Yeah Right, a thin piece of material is going to stop cars moving at speed from following the laws of inertia and momentum. Okaaaaay....

There are however two big problems being discovered with this turkey. (That is other than its absolutely horrible appearance. I think it belongs in a Bat Man movie.) It doesn't work well on ovals as it 'pushes' (the front end won't turn) going into the corner and it's loose (the rear end wants to come around) as it exits the same corner. Some test drivers have said that at speed it's a "...handful..."

I'll bet and they were by themselves when they were discovering this little featurette. Wait until they get a dozen or so of these things together going into an oval corner....AT SPEED!!!!

The other big problem is the car is slower in a straight line. It has a whole bunch of aerodynamic drag when the computer says it should be otherwise. Obviously, Dallara's engineers (the Italians who make these things) need to reprogram their cam-cad computers or something.

You would think an issue like weight distribution wouldn't be that hard for a modern computer to figure out, but apparently it is. The car as first delivered had a front to rear weight distribution ratio of 41% to 59%. Oval race car drivers generally like a 45/55 to 49/51 weight distribution ratio depending upon the track and the driver's handling preferences. Many believe this 41/59 weight distribution ratio is the major reason these new cars are such beasts on oval race tracks at speed. If you're racing on a road course this isn't such a big deal but veteran oval track racers use tire size and a thing called 'stagger' to get the car to turn into the corner. (Stagger is having the outside rear tire larger in diameter than all the others. It's done with air pressure and it is amazing the difference it can make on a vehicle that is set up with a 'neutral' balance.) Some guys even believe you HAVE TO pick up the inside wheel in every corner to make a car 'Handle' extremely well on a bull-pen short oval. Their reasoning being 3 points determine a plane, but it puts a lot of wear and stress on the outside front wheel and tire, so it works better for the 10 lap trophy dash than it does for a 100 lap feature.

The problem, however, with the new Indy car is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is an oval and has been for 100 years. (The stupid infield grand prix road course at the Speedway simply doesn't count. It was made for the 6 years of Fraud One races. For my money I wish they would tear it out and put the big, big trees back. The infield used to be a wonderful park where you could pick nick on qualifications weekends. Now its just another shadeless parking lot.)

Speaking solely as a fan who has followed Indy Car racing my entire life (I went to my first Indy 500 in 1954. I was 8 years old and I've missed less than a dozen since then.) my greatest fear is this endeavor is so afflicted with incompetence, greed and sheer stupidity that it has only a few years to live before it simply goes away because this 'thing' is being so badly mismanaged. It is no longer an automotive proving ground. These cars no longer represent the ultimate in automotive design or the most powerful or most daring to drive racing vehicles on the face of the earth. They no longer represent ingenuity.

They just represent stupidity and greed and I'm crying inside because of it. It is just so sad...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

WHAT'S MORE WORTHLESS THAN A SINGLE POLITICIAN?...

2011-12-13T07:24:00.000-06:00

The answer is the UNITED NATIONS! Mainly because they are the worst of ALL politicians and there is a whole bunch of 'em feeding off the rest of the world. Comes word now that UNICEF and three other agencies of the United Nations will not reveal where they spend their money, how they spend their money or even how much they really have. Go here for the story.

They have a bunch because an audit done at the request of Norway (why doesn't the USA Govt audit these guys? They sure seem eager to audit the rest of us when it comes to suspicion about our income taxes.) has revealed that one agency alone earned $109 million dollars in interest payments just this year!

You know I don't want to sound like a John Birch retro, but I think it's time we tell these bums where to go and the first place is OUT of this country. The next thing we need to do, what with our economy, the way it is, is stop giving them any money. Period.

To me the UN was only good when it was first created and used as a shield to whack China and North Korea after the North Koreans forgot where their property lines began and ended. Otherwise, the world already has a sufficient number of rapists and we don't have to give them blue helmets to make 'em politically correct.

I would be quite willing to listen or post (such as the case may be) a good argument why the existence of this boil on the ass of humanity is good for the United States taxpayer.

Otherwise, I'm going all John Bircher on this subject and arguing we need to git rid of 'em....

All The Best,
Frank W. James

TIS THE SEASON FOR.......TAXES!!!...

2011-12-12T10:06:00.001-06:00

I am knee deep in tax preparation. Normal business men post their expenses on a daily and/or weekly basis. I don't and now I have to work most of this week posting everything in the various categories my tax accountant stipulates where they should be listed and totaled. As well obviously as my earned income. I will be digging through a 4 drawer file cabinet for expense receipts, settlement sheets, credit-card statements and various statements from the bank.

Oh! What Fun!!!

My father-in-law always used to say "Be Glad You Have To PAY Taxes. It's better than the alternative..."

Unfortunately, I'm not convinced that in today's society there IS someone who doesn't have to pay taxes of one sort or the other. I'm sure even the Homeless and the completely unemployed or unemployable get taxed on something or other. Presently, my main preoccupation is Income Taxes, but I also have to deal with state inheritance taxes, totaling up our property taxes and figuring out the sale taxes I pay for farm fuel; diesel and a small amount of gasoline. (I should get a refund on some of that because none of it was used on 'roads' per-se.)

One of the things that always bugged me about Obama Care is the mandate the federal government can force someone to buy it. Coercion in the form of taxes is centuries old and I don't understand why the feds don't simply say Obama Care is a 'tax' that will be imposed on everyone? It has never made sense to me they never called it a 'tax' when it operates on the same basis as all these other government instituted "income re-distribution" actions?

Hope you all have a great day and a good week, mine is already colored by what I'm doing...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

GOVERNMENTAL NONSENSE...

2011-12-09T10:42:00.002-06:00

In the department of Lunacy and you-can't-make-this-stuff-up, the EPA awhile back proposed outlawing "farm dust". My thought when I first heard of it was it was a joke of some kind, a bad one to be sure, but still a joke.

Well, as we all know the federal government has absolutely no sense of humor and to prove that point all we have to do study the testimony by Attorney General Holder about "Operation Fast and Furious". Holder has revealed himself to be the most anti-rights, anti-gun Justice Department administrator E'VAR in the history of this country and with the support of President Unicorn we now know the true intent of this administration.

But, to get back to the 'farm dust' problem the House of Representatives yesterday passed The Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act, H.R. 1633, to prevent the EPA from ever raising the subject again. Yes, it was a waste of time, but unfortunately because of the clowns we have in the administrative branch of the federal government it was a necessary waste of time.

For those who disagree with me about this subject, please explain to me how you're going to eliminate 'farm dust' from the following illustrated situation without a massive amount of engineering, unnecessary expense and a complete squandering of valuable resources?

Although I'm sure those in charge of the EPA believe otherwise, I would advise them in the future to invest their considerable energies as well as having their time be better spent into insuring their own shit don't stink ( I meant that literally!) as opposed to trying to eliminate 'farm dust'...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

AGING AND LONGEVITY...

2011-12-08T14:41:00.000-06:00

I read a thing yesterday in USA TODAY about how Presidents have aged well even though they have a tough job. Most are of the opinion the responsibility someone takes on as President of the United States and the decisions, yes, life and death decisions, have a tendency to curtail their health and the number of their remaining years, if not actually age them dramatically.

I guess recent research indicates otherwise. Lyndon Johnson was the only President in recent history to have died prematurely of a heart attack and he died at age 64. Everyone else who has been President in the past few decades seems to have done well physically after they left office.

I don't know any more about the job of President of the United States than anyone else, but I do know the popular 'urban legend' in rural areas is that when farmers retire early after a long life of hard work and plenty of stress...........they die early.

I can think of several farmers I have known who retired to live the easy life and shortly thereafter they were gone. Essentially, that was the point of the article talking about Presidents, it seems the stress of the job is actually good for them. I know many who feel otherwise, but for someone in my age bracket it is a subject that draws more than passing interest.

My dad always used to say he knew more friends of his "...who rusted out before they wore out..." At age 88 he drove his own combine and his own grain truck. Then he got sick and died 6 months later.

Yeah, the job of being President is a hard one and far harder than what many of us are willing to acknowledge, but there are many hard jobs out there and even with all our modern technology the job of farming is still a physically demanding one.

I never wanted to be President, but I wonder if many of us have a mistaken or warped view of aging and retirement. I personally believe that all too many people when they 'retire', they also 'give up' and that's when they suddenly turn up dead...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

HOW CONVENIENT...

2011-12-07T10:51:00.003-06:00

Ditch Manuels announced yesterday an auditor in the Indiana State Department of Revenue suddenly discovered $320 million, that's correct $320 MILLION, that was formerly unknown and lost....Supposedly!

Geez, why is it only the Democrats in the Statehouse link this money to the $300 Million that was cut from funding for Public Education by Ditch Manuels? Talk about a scam artist? This idiot takes bait and switch to a whole new political level and to think a number of dead-enders wanted to run this idiot for President of this country.

Of course, THERE IS over $300 Million laying around in the state's treasury. Manuels took it from public education and no one will convince me otherwise.

And while I'm on the subject of Dead-enders and missing money, how about former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine and the missing $1.2 Billion from the accounts at MF Global. Essentially what Corzine tried to do when he took over management of MF Global in 2010 was create a mini-Goldman Sachs.

Well, I guess in a sense he did.

MF Global specialized in brokering commodities, as in grain commodities, and it is feared that Corzine used customer deposits (made to guarantee positions on the future's market) to make bets in various markets around the world in pursuit of increased corporate profits. The financial debacle in Europe as well as reduced lines of credit for the company led to its collapse and now suddenly there is a whole bunch of red ink on the books and everyone wants to know where the money went and who was responsible?

Now the fear is $1.2 Billion is forever missing and will never be recovered. A big percentage of that money came from farmers who were hedging their crops for future sales. Now they are out their hedge cash deposits and for many this financial disaster could spell bankruptcy for them and their farm operations through no fault of their own.

Of course, the House Agriculture Committee and the Senate Agriculture Committee want to hear from Corzine and he is sure to be subpoenaed, but will he take the Fifth Amendment?

As one source close to the situation said, "It's just too embarrassing for a former U.S. Senator and someone close to the president to take the Fifth."

Politicians never seem to tire of the same old tricks. A lot of farmers are going to fail because of this and I say imprisonment is too good for the culprits responsible for these latest misdeeds.

It's time to invest in some hemp and I don't mean the kind the kids smoke, either...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

CLUELESS AND MEANINGLESS...

2011-12-06T12:58:00.001-06:00

I see where our former Vice-President and prior to that former resident of Huntington, Indiana, Dan Quayle has endorsed Romney for President in next year's election.

I think this falls into the same category of critical thinking as his renown ability to spell the word 'potato'.

Talk about 'clueless' and meaningless. The more and more I see on the political front, the more I'm convinced the Republican Party is intentionally trying to throw the election in President Unicorn's favor. I mean, try and argue that "THE FIX" isn't in? All they are doing is providing us with a constant parade of clowns as an alternative.

I say it again and I will continue to do so until I can't say it anymore......I. WILL. NEVER. VOTE. FOR. ROMNEY...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

SOME INDY CARS FOR SALE...

2011-12-05T22:22:00.001-06:00

If you go here you will find a heck of a deal on 3 of last year's Indy cars; complete with spares, but without ANY motors. Of course, no one can say there were driven by a little ole lady from Pasadena if you watch this because two of them have seen more than their fair share of collision/body shop repair.

I found the YouTube video funny, but that's just me because the entire thing was assembled from clips from just the past two years.

I spent most the day Saturday cleaning the combine and prepping it for winter storage and that night I could feel it in my back as it was physical work. In fact it wasn't until this morning that my back finally calmed down and wasn't hurting so much. Good thing I did it when I did because it's been cold and rainy ever since.

Other than the above beginning it's been a slow news day for me as it was another afternoon at the tax attorney's office....

All The Best,
Frank W. James

T.G.I.F.....

2011-12-02T15:39:00.001-06:00

It's been a long week and I've spent the majority of it with lawyers and tax accountants due to the inheritance situation with my mother's passing.

I've also got another project on the 'stove' that's been cooking since early summer and we are fast approaching that point in time where it is either going to go or it's going to die, but so far I'm hearing .....s-i-l-e-n-c-e.....

It's frustrating.

The good news this week is I received a new shoulder holster from A.E. Nelson and it's like all their products; absolutely superb. (Intrusive Govt Disclaimer: I paid full price for these items....NO DISCOUNTS! No bennies!) The rig listed for just under $100 and then I had them add 12 cartridge loops for the 'off' side which added $43.95, plus the shipping. I got the whole thing for just under $150. Which I think is reasonable considering their quality, their timeliness in terms of delivery and the over-all design and utility of their products. If you go to their website (http://nelsonleather.com) they don't have a listing for shoulder holsters. You have to go to "Vintage Leather" (seems appropriate for something I would purchase) and you will find them there.

The big thing to me is they are an honest firm, doing a superlative job and their products are top notch, even if they don't claim their holsters were used in some movie (they have been used in literally 100's of films, but they don't say a word about it)........they don't need to.

Hope you all have a great weekend. I plan on washing the combine tomorrow because tomorrow is supposed to get up into the 50's and then it will turn cold for the remainder of the year.

At least even if I get soaking wet tomorrow it will be more fun than discussing tax laws...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

STRANGE THINGS...

2011-12-01T11:03:00.001-06:00

Well, it would appear I've been invited back to do another guest appearance on the 2nd season of GUN STORIES on THE OUTDOOR CHANNEL. The invitation was extended yesterday and again this morning in conversations I've had with one of its producers, so that pretty much takes care of one idle evening for me for the upcoming 2012 Shot Show.

My son warned me when we were out visiting him over Thanksgiving that if I wasn't careful I was going to have to have new stationary and business cards printed up that added the description "TV Personality" to "Writer & Author".

I guess I'm okay with that as long as I don't get lumped in with the Kardasians. I think Daniel Craig nailed it the other day when he said they were a bunch of "...F***** Idiots..." for being 'Reality Stars'.

At least I tell stories, maybe not great ones, but at least I try to entertain without intentionally trying to make a fool of myself...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

THINGS THAT DIDN'T GET DONE...

2011-11-30T09:47:00.000-06:00

Among the things that didn't get done this fall was discing the bean stubble down. Yeah, I've got my potash, phosphorus and nitrogen down for next year's corn acres, but beyond that there is a long of crap that still needs to be done.

First up would be the cleaning and winter storage preparation of the combine. Yeah, it's still dirty and with the temperatures well below freezing this morning that doesn't look like its going to happen any time soon.

The recent wet weather also means that field work for this calender year is over. Of course, the wet weather doesn't give me an excuse for NOT organizing the piles of paper, scale tickets and grain receipts that currently litter the office, but then IF I did have them organized that would indicate I was a fairly ambitious and efficient worker, wouldn't it?

I'll probably post something more later on today, but right now I'm just not that excited about it. Count today's post among the things that aren't getting done...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

DIRECTIONAL VS. OMNI-DIRECTIONAL...

2011-11-29T02:04:00.001-06:00

I watched a program last night on the late 'Osama' and it got me to thinking about weaponry. One of the reasons I really enjoy firearms is they are directional. The 'harm' is pointed in only one direction at any one time and it's not a 360 degree thing like explosives. Makes it easy to guarantee the darn thing is pointed in a safe direction, doesn't it?

I grew up with all kinds of stories about flawed or failed explosives because my grandfather had an absolute love affair with 40% dynamite, sometimes he used the 60% stuff, but most often it was the 40% variety. He wasn't a terrorist or a safe-cracker, but a farmer who bought timbered poor ground and cleared it by hand often with the help of Hercules Explosives! It was long before back-hoes, track-hoes, or excavators had ever been invented and dynamite to him was a gift from God.

My father often told how at the east place, just north of what used to Grandma's home, he and his brother when they were teenagers dug a trench around a big oak tree out in the middle of the field for Grandpa. My grandfather then proceeded to load the trunk of the tree, well below the surface and among the big roots, with all the dynamite he could find. (It was cheap.) The boys were watching when he lite the fuse and IT RAN!

All 3 of them immediately turned and ran for their lives.

Dad said he looked back just as it went off and the force knocked all 3 of them face down into the sand, but before he hit he said he saw about 6 feet of daylight underneath the bottom of the tree as it was attempting a pre-WWII sub-orbital launch. Of course, it came crashing down and it was a large, tall tree. Dad said the top branches were about 2 feet from 'em when it was all said and done.

There were many other stories like that; like the time Grandpa removed a concrete corner post and in the process proceeded to scatter fist sized pieces of it over the approximately surrounding 40 acres! Dad said they were easy to pick up, but it took forever.

All of those stories and many others made me aware that explosives, while neat when you're a kid playing with inch and a half Black Cat firecrackers, are a lot more dangerous when you get to the bigger stuff. Later I would attend 2 different 'bomb' schools; once as an executive with a bank and the other as an adjunct member of a local sheriff's department. Neither changed my mind about fooling with this stuff. They only reinforced and confirmed what I already knew.

Anything that can throw projectiles in ALL directions at thousands of feet per second is not to be messed with.

But unfortunately bombs, explosives and improvised devices are probably the future for both military involvement and the really twisted criminal behavior. I'm a gun-guy, but I wonder if in the future guns will figure more toward the "one-on-one" situation and less toward serious criminal assaults. The brazen criminal behavior types when seeking maximum attention when it comes to murder and mayhem, will they turn more toward this stuff? I say that because of the ever increasing use of electronics that can be used as igniters and the information spread via the interweb on how to mix this stuff. Granted most of the 'explosive' formulas found on the interweb are baseless and without science or value, but crews like the one Osama put together don't source them any way. They have their own venues, sometimes from shadowy nation-states or intelligence agencies with scientific resources like Iran or others who hate Israel or America.

In a show I watched last night they said they were alerted when an inspection of a travel bag at a customs station revealed the presence of several packages of 'TANG', a sugary drink additive in a suspects kit. I had no idea, but obviously these things are being developed continuously by some pretty serious people.

I think I'll just stick to firearms. Thank you. I don't find the idea of messing with any kind of explosive enticing. I'll take the one directional weapons over omni-directional weapons every time...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

De-FENCE...

2011-11-28T03:51:00.008-06:00

Over the holidays the Republicans had a debate for the clowns seeking to replace President Unicorn in the next election. I didn't watch it. I probably should have though because I've spent about as much time as it lasted just reading what each was supposed to have said.

I'm no fan of the former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. His ethics and 'global' view are beyond what I find to be just plain common sense, but his statement about giving legal status to illegal immigrants who have been here for 25 years or more is, in my view, reasonable. I'm totally opposed to unearned amnesty for illegal immigrants and living here in the Heartland we have more than a passing acquaintance with the problem of undocumented workers overwhelming our county supported health care system, violating housing regulations, or refusing to follow the basic rules on vehicle insurance and driver license standards, but his proposal for those who maintained a low profile and established roots is sound.

If a family has been living here in the US, working hard, staying out of trouble, have purchased their own home, educating their children (in English) and are paying taxes...............Isn't that what they are supposed to be doing? Gingrich's statement helps define the problem and by doing so, we can find points to debate and employ to help solve this problem.

There is one area, however, where ALL the candidates are living in an illusion and that is this concept of S-E-C-U-R-E B-O-R-D-E-R-S!!!

Speaking solely as a farmer who has had a lifetime of experience with fences, building them and maintaining them to keep livestock 'in' or 'out', the idea that a fence or even a wall, by and of itself, is going to make our borders secure is beyond a fantasy. It is a cruel JOKE on everyone who has to pay for it.

Fences only work when the contained animals learn they can't possibly defeat it or they fear it. The latter being a couple of strands of electrified wire that will shock the living shit out of you if you touch it, especially on a rainy day.

If we use history as a guide we can only look to the Berlin Wall to see what's required for a barrier to be effective and the policies that made it effective. The Berlin Wall encompassed all of West Berlin for a distance of 91 miles and then also separated West Berlin from East Berlin for an additional distance of 27 miles. That's nothing compared to the length of the border between the United States and Mexico. Yet, it still resulted in the deaths of 171 people who were shot by the East German Border Guards when they were attempting to navigate this formidable barrier.

If someone in government really wants a "Secure" border, we are going to have construct belts of mine-fields, guard towers and a "Shoot On Sight" mentality. It worked in Berlin and still works today pretty effectively on the DMZ between North and South Korea, Israel and the Gaza Strip, and India and Pakistan.

The problem of course is when we start shooting innocent women and children for the simple act of trying to find a better life. If we would descend to that level I'm sure Joe Stalin would be complaining to the devil about how hard his ribs hurt as a result of laughter from his residency in the 9th circle of Hell.

I will start taking all of these clowns more seriously on this issue when they begin focusing on the root cause of illegal immigration ---- Illegal Employment!

If the illegal immigrants couldn't get jobs over here they wouldn't come. Yes, stoop immigrant labor is absolutely necessary for the harvesting of most fruits and vegetables, but don't tell me it's necessary to run the pork processing plant in Carroll county Indiana. Those people are here because they will work for less, take less in terms of provided health benefits and would never consider trying to organize a labor union or if they do, one that doesn't rock the corporate boat. (Not that I'm favorable to labor unions, but let's be honest about this situation and acknowledge it.)

To me all this talk about building a wall between the USA and Mexico is stupidity in action. It is a magician's trick to distract us all from the real cause of this problem and like the trick that it is, it will do nothing to solve the problem. It is an illusion. I say the latter because I pray no one in control of either political party seriously wants to indiscriminately murder people attempting to cross this boundary.

When they propose arresting and jailing the CEO, CFO, the Board of Directors and Exec. VP's of any firm, including any Fortune 500 companies, found to have employed even one illegal immigrant then I'll know they truly are serious about this problem.

Otherwise I feel they will continue being circus clowns honking bicycle horns and playing grab-ass with each other...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

AH YES, THE 'JOYS' OF AIR TRAVEL...

2011-11-26T15:34:00.000-06:00

I honestly don't know how OLD NFO does it. He is the blogger who routinely flies (via commercial) all over the world and after a short hop this morning I have to say I don't envy his life. We presently are on layover in Salt Lake, but to get here we had to endure 2 hours of particularly bad behavior from 2 small children and their idiotic mother in the seats directly behind us.

Why does the scream of a child have the ability to set your nerves on edge?

The contrast between their behavior this morning and that of a wonderfully behaved, bright, imaginative 2 year son of a close friend of our son's a couple of nights ago couldn't have been more dramatic.

The little boy from a couple of nights ago was quiet, busy and completely able to entertain himself without bothering the adults. Yet, he was so sweet and he took suggestion so wonderfully that you just wanted to scoop him up and bring him home.

The kids behind us this morning.........not so much!

Is there anything worse than a screaming/crying infant/small child on a small passenger plane?

Oh well, it's just another wonderful feaure of air travel in the 21st Century.

I will be glad to get home this evening....

All The Best,
Frank W. James

THANKSGIVING GREETINGS...

2011-11-24T13:01:00.000-06:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking and reminiscing over the past few days. Of course, some of this is the result of traveling as my wife and I are with our son in his apartment in Los Angeles. Our family, such as it is, is together and we are enjoying each other immensely.

This is some of what I'm giving Thanks for on this day. We are All Together.

For my mother's service on Monday we had a private ceremony; just family and a very few friends. My aunt spoke about Mom and her talk hit it out of the park because she made it so real we all felt Mom was in the room. I closed the ceremony by thanking everyone for coming and with the following observations:

"I think mothering and farming are a lot alike; Both require a great deal of Love and Everyone does it differently..."

"I think the greatest gift my Mother gave me was she taught the World doesn't put limits on what we can do. Only we, ourselves, put those limits on us. She taught me I could do anything I wanted. All it took was focus, determination and the guts to try. Both my mother and father (as well as my Grandfather Rufus James) put a premium on physical courage in all things and taught us it was always to be valued and cowardice was always an act of shame.

When I graduated from high school, I was 5'6" tall, skinny, asthmatic and audacious. I believed completely what my mother taught me..."

Today I am thankful for many things, but I am most thankful for our family, both past and present.

Today I will eat too much, but I don't think that's a bad thing because we live in a country where food is readily available at reasonable cost and I attribute that to the best agricultural system the world has ever known. American Farmers have created the vast majority of the food we will eat today. Truck drivers have delivered it and our retail merchandisers have seen to it that it was available in a wholesome and timely process.

Despite all our problems, the United States of America is still the land of plenty. All one has to do to prove that is walk through any grocery/supermarket in any American city today.

I am thankful for all this on this Thanksgiving Day...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

LIGHT BLOGGING ALERT...

2011-11-21T10:21:00.001-06:00

What with the services for my mother this afternoon and the holidays coming up this week, plus the fact our daughter's birthday is this coming Sunday, I feel obliged to let everyone know I'm not going to be posting much for awhile.

Quite honestly I find myself lost in my own private thoughts and in some ways I'm revisiting areas I last saw when we lost our daughter.

For the next few days I'm going to be a very private person...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

NOTHING GOOD AFTER MIDNIGHT...

2011-11-20T12:48:00.000-06:00

I have a Sheriff friend whose motto is "NOTHING GOOD HAPPENS AFTER MIDNIGHT..."

Well, yesterday morning around 4:00AM we were awaken from our deep slumber by a phone call. It was the nursing home and the news was my mother had just passed away. Of course, we dressed and drove over to see her. She had died in her sleep and her death was discovered as the nurses were checking their rounds.

The truth is, however, my mother left a long time ago, a long, long time ago. She suffered terribly from dementia and Alzheimer's disease. She hadn't known me for some time, or at least she never reacted as if she knew me for the past several years.

There are all kind of ways to die, but after watching my mother fade away I've told our son "Don't cry for me if I die a violent death in an automobile accident, or something brutally farm related or even if I die in a shoot-out or some wild animal control-hunting escapade. I will have gone out the way I prefer..."

I know that sounds harsh or overly melodramatic to some, but there is NO good side to wasting away in a nursing home; especially if you suffer from dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

The death of most any loved one is an emotional event, but in this case what has happened is a blessing. My mother's pain has ended and while the event was anticipated we still didn't know when it would occur.

So, on the surface it would appear that that well-after-Midnight phone call was not a good thing, I feel in the long run it was an act of great mercy and kindness by the God I believe in...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

A QUESTION OF ETHICS AND INTEGRITY...

2011-11-18T11:05:00.000-06:00

Anyone who has been involved with law enforcement, either as a long time officer or on the periphery like I was for awhile, have encountered individuals who compartmentalize their 'ethics' and 'sense of integrity' and here I'm not talking about the usual list of law enforcement's clientele, but also those holding a badge or working with those who hold the badge.

Law enforcement as we all know would be severely handicapped in its prosecution of criminal offenders without the use of informers and undercover personnel. Almost certainly few drug prosecutions would prove successful in terms of convicting the truly 'BAD' guys without the testimony of the undercover 'buyer'. The problem, however, develops when the lines between the job, patriotism and a desire to do what's right becomes blurry and fuzzy after the 'for profit' motive enters the picture; both for the agencies involved and those doing the undercover work.

What I've seen first hand has given me a jaundiced view of these things and this is coming from someone who years ago was pretty hard-core pro-police and right wing. Now, years later I've seen too many with feet of clay and privately question some of the subsequent testimony on the witness stand.

I'm mentioning all this as a preamble for this article I read this morning; www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-guns-that-got-away-11172011.html.

My experience and my conviction, on a personal level, is paid-confidential-informants for any police agency are to be avoided. They make their money only when people go to jail. I won't say anything more about that process.

I believe true 'patriots' act out of a sense of duty, NOT for a profit motive, nor do I believe they complain about it afterwards when they feel they didn't get paid enough. You may have different ideas.

Another good reason to avoid these people was pointed out to me by a criminal defense attorney friend I was visiting with earlier this week while discussing this case. He pointed out these people routinely wear 'wires' the way we wear guns and they do so daily to catch any phrase, any comment or any sentence (even out of context) from everyone they encounter daily and to capture those phrases and implications so they can use them to pay their bills.

You can draw your own conclusions as to the conduct of the individual in question, but I'm going to do my very best to avoid him.

It is simply an act of self-preservation...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

A MINI-RANT ABOUT A PERSONAL PET PEEVE...

2011-11-17T10:37:00.001-06:00

It seems like every merchant of note these days have their check-out people trying to sell you some sort of volume discount card for their business. You know a credit-card size piece of plastic with a magnetic strip on the back that entitles you to X% off your next purchase, or all the purchases you make in the next year.

On the surface it seems like a great idea, but it's not a new one and years ago I discovered I don't have a big enough wallet to carry one for every establishment I frequent on a regular basis, soooooo I decline all their offers. (My hip pocket can only carry so much crap.)

Whereupon the perky, pretty young sales person will detail all the economic benefits you're missing by declining this offer (and preventing her from upping her weekly bonus check).

Whereupon I point out to this female (and believe me, they are 99.9% of the time, female) that she doesn't carry a wallet on her hip that already contains a driver's license, a gun permit, various insurance cards (or in my case, my old guy registration with Medicare), multiple credit cards and assorted other odd bits of family photos, sundry trivia and assorted paper and plastic nonsense.

I always come back with if she was really serious about offering me membership in some sort of volume discount service she would accept my home phone number, with area code, as my membership number and it wouldn't be necessary for me to carry yet another piece of meaningless plastic around that often does nothing more than give me a back ache.

To which she walks away with a blank look on her face because she isn't programed for counter-proposals.

Just for the record, both STAPLES and BARNES&NOBLE use my home phone number with area code in exactly this manner and I really appreciate it and is the main reason I'm quite happy to give them a 'plug' for this kind of service. All I have to do is recite the home phone number at check-out and together with the name on my credit card the system works.

As for all those you insist upon me daily carrying a piece of plastic with their company logo on it. My final response is you have to up the pay and truly make it worth my while to carry that extra weight on a daily basis and so far none have...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

WONDERS NEVER CEASE...

2011-11-16T18:20:00.001-06:00

Well, I got the email today. I've been asked to come back and do a 3rd season of GALLERY OF GUNS as the resident 'Handgun expert'. It all started with an email from a viewer who wrote in to Davidson's and told them how much he liked the show and thought I was a "...character..."

I've certainly been called far worse. You know I'm starting to get used to this television stuff and it doesn't intimidate me now like it used to.

Other than that it was a busy work day and I really didn't accomplish much, but I spent a lot of time driving here and there.

Maybe I'll get more 'insightful' tomorrow and come up with something that's more worth your time...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

PROFESSIONAL WRITING...

2011-11-15T16:45:00.000-06:00

Short post today because I'm under deadline for something that was due yesterday. I've always said that just about anyone can write when the mood strikes them, but it's a 'professional' who writes when they have to!

Today I have to and it's tough after being out in the farm fields for so long, but that's one of the reasons why I blog. It keeps me in shape (writing-wise). It's kinda like a boxer who is constantly in the ring practicing or training, or the shooters who spent every free minute working on their sight picture acquisition, grip and stance.

I found today went easier than I dreaded once I got going and I put much of that credit to this nonsense. This blog is my practice range for writing. I have a practice range for shooting behind the house here on the farm, but this is what keeps me in shape (such as it is) for my professional writing endeavors.

Thank you for reading this and stopping by as it keeps me going and forces me to work on my craft. It is this practice that kept me in the game today...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

AMMONIA IS DOWN FOR NEXT YEAR...

2011-11-14T15:11:00.002-06:00

I was a heathen and ran hard all day yesterday to get done putting ammonia on next year's corn ground. The interweb said it was going to rain today so I wound up finishing up around 9:00PM last night, but it wasn't easy. Due to my concerns about future wet weather and the lateness of the calender I decided to fore go working the bean stubble and just knifed the ammonia on without working the ground.

It worked good at the west place, but I figured why later.......the sun was shining. When the sky was overcast or after the sun went down it was a different story altogether. The bean straw wouldn't go through the applicator without plugging up and I made some wonderful 'bunny hutches' in the process yesterday afternoon and last night.

I set 'em afire yesterday afternoon but with the wind blowing, the neighbors got all excited and everyone was driving past trying to find the field fire after the smoke traveled a couple of miles. Finally about dark I quit lighting fires because I was concerned about the wind changing.

Of course the weatherman was only half-right. They predicted rain today and we got it, but they said it would come in the afternoon. Guess again, it came soon after sunup and I was back trying to burn my bean straw piles. (My truck smells like the worst case of wacky weed smoking you've ever smelled.)

Any way I've got the N-P-K down for next year's corn crop and I've got enough of the piles burned that I should be able to work the ground without plugging up the equipment either later this year (when or if conditions improve) or next spring.

As for the applicator plugging up, when I took it back and explained what happened I was told that everyone else got along fine and I was the first to complain.

Isn't that always the case?...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

ONE THING ABOUT THE WIND...

2011-11-12T21:18:00.000-06:00

It dries things out, even when the temperature doesn't get above 45 degrees. The ground was 'mud' this morning and I figured I would spend the day cleaning the combine for winter storage, but around 1:00PM I got a 'text' message from a friend saying the ammonia was going on 'nice'. The dirt was sealing and very little was picking up on the tires.

Soooo, I pulled the big tractor out, fueled it up, as well as check all the fluid levels and after lunch I headed to the fertilizer plant to get an ammonia applicator bar. Didn't get started in the field until 3:30PM but by 9:00PM I had done 88 acres and emptied 4 'bottles'. 1 more bottle and I'll be done over at the west place.

It was all due to the wind. The wind has blown hard all day today. The ground was absolutely a mess this morning as I took the assault van out in the field across the way and then when I pulled out of the field I left 'pebbles' of mud for over a half mile on the blacktop. I figured it was a good day to cut those nuisance trees out of fence rows and that's what I was doing when I got the text.

The bottom line is the wind was beneficial today, but you know I still don't like it. I think those days where the wind blows hard and long all day long across the prairie, it just sets all our nerves on edge...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

BOOK REVIEW: EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON...

2011-11-10T10:38:00.001-06:00

EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON, by S.C. Gwynne, Scribner, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, trade paperback edition May 2011.

I'm not the western American history buff others are, but there are aspects of our western history I find fascinating. Many of my 'hog control' adventures have taken place in the areas described in this work. That area formerly known as "Comancheria" and where the Comanches Indians over 150 years ago reigned supreme. It was the southern Plains and took up much of present day Texas and Oklahoma.

I feel this work can be divided into thirds; the first third dealt with Comanche's history and their origin. The middle third deals with the area of history that any western cowboy film buff will easily recognize and the last third deals with a single individual; Quanah Parker, the last and only over-all, singular Comanche Chief.

Truthfully, while I recommend this work without reservation, I found the first 2/3ths of the book far more interesting than the last third.

Perhaps I haven't studied this subject thoroughly enough to be familiar with the Comanche practices and behavior but I was horrified to discover they routinely tortured and gang raped both women and children. None of the stuff that was published prior to World War Two about the Indian Wars or dealing with the turmoil associated with settlers and expansion of the West were ever quite so detailed or explicit in the horrors perpetrated upon those who fought the Indians or tried to establish settlements, farms and ranches in the southern plains.

The history revealed in this work leaves you with the conviction that as far as the Comanches were concerned there was nothing 'noble' about these red-men and it does much to explain the hatred many of the old-timers expressed for 'injuns' which can be found in period historical texts.

The most amazing things to me about this work is the explanation of the range of the Comanche influence and presence and really how small in number their tribe really was. After the American Civil War there were never more than 4,000 in their entire 'nation'. Yet, they ranged from the Rio Grande river north to what is now Colorado, north of present day Kansas and east to Missouri.

It is, however, the detailed history of how they treated their white captives that sets this work apart from all previous books on the Indian Wars that I have read. Take the case of a white captive girl, Matilda Lockhart who was taken in a raid in 1838 and returned in 1840. Her entire body bore scars from torture by the Comanche women and the end of her nose was burnt off to the point both nostrils were wide open and absent any flesh. During her time in captivity she had been repeated gang raped by the Comanche 'warriors'. And she was one of the 'lucky' ones in that she was returned to her white relatives. Many were not. There is even a description of how they slow-roasted a 7 year old girl just because she was white.

I highly recommend this work as it is not cover-up about what really happened or a piece of alternative history. The author has performed an amazing piece of research and should be both rewarded and commended for his work and excellent writing style...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

WITHOUT A DOUBT, I'M A 'RETRO'...

2011-11-09T18:46:00.002-06:00

I suppose it's natural for a guy who enjoys good double-action revolvers to be something of a 'retro' when it comes to semi-auto pistols. Of course, I enjoy the 1911 designs (in both .45ACP and 10mm Auto calibers), but I really like the old Browning Hi Power; especially in .40 S&W.

I've said before I don't like the cartridge, but I do like what it does. To me there is a demonstrative difference between 9x19mm and .40 S&W in terms of their terminal ballistics and center-mass results when used on the wayward farm critters. (NO! I wouldn't use either one intentionally on feral pigs! But, that's just me.) The vast majority of .40 caliber vehicles, however, are those found with polymer frames and bits.

Okay, here's where the 'Retro' part of my anatomy comes into play. I've decided after much introspection I really don't like polymer pistols. I prefer aluminum alloy and modern steel guns. Why? Just Because. (How's that for a scientific answer?)

I've played and worked with a number of polymer pistols. Without question my favorite Glock is the Model 26 and I worked long and hard over the years with the Walther P99 and its S&W counterpart, the SW99. The problem as I see it is over time polymer frames 'wear'.

They are like shoes, the wear points on the grip correspond to your particular hand and contact points and those that have been 'rode hard and put up wet' inside the 'used' gun counter never seem to fit my hands the way a new one will or even wear in. Trying to get used to a well-used polymer pistol IS very similar to trying to wear someone else well worn shoes or boots in my opinion. I know I'm being picky, but I like the fact that if we have to, a good craftsman can always 'weld' and built up an area on a metal gun in order to customize it to my particular needs.

Yeah, I know I'm carrying a lot of extra weight around with just about any metal framed gun and often with less capacity than that found with the polymer equivalent, but that extra weight in my view is also a benefit.

I suppose this is a long winded explanation why I purchased a Browning Hi Power in .40 recently off Gun Booger. Today I took it to the indoor range. I like these things, even with their 'sharp' points around the rear of the frame, the heavy factory trigger pull and the 'limited' magazine capacity.

I get around the 'sharp' points on the rear of the frame primarily by gripping the gun like I would one of my N-frame revolvers; strong side thumb down. My revolver affinity is again, another 'retro' aspect of my personality. The trigger pull on this latest acquisition really isn't all that bad and as for the magazine capacity......Well, I don't have to worry about putting too many rounds in the magazine during an IDPA match, now do I?

How did it shoot? The gun itself is virtually new, but I've never found Browning Hi Powers in .40 to be tack-drivers. It shot well enough and I was able to keep 10 rounds inside the black on a slow-fire NRA target at 25 yards indoors. Surprisingly, I found I could shoot it almost as well with my left hand as I could with my right hand.

Yes, the Browning Hi Power is an old design and definitely a candidate for the 'retro' class, but it suits me...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

"FLOATERS"...

2011-11-08T15:40:00.000-06:00

Two days ago I came home after church service (it had been so long since I'd attended I had to re-introduce myself to the pastor) and spent the day in the recliner alternating between dozing off and watching mindless television. I think I did this for more than 9 hours! Very relaxing and wonderful.

What with the Strep infection and the fatigue from 'harvest' it was great, but by mid-afternoon I noticed some 'floaters' appearing in the vision of my right eye as I watched something on the 'military' channel. Now after my experience from 2-1/2 years ago I do more than pay attention to these things. "Floaters" at my age are no longer innocent little images floating through my vision. I've learned my lesson. Ergo; yesterday morning I called my retina doctor and got an appointment yesterday afternoon.

Short summation after a careful and lengthy examination is the 'gel' in my right eye has separated. No big deal. Things are cool, but in examining the retina of my right eye I was again cautioned against E'VAR shooting any more hard-recoiling long guns; rifle or shotgun. The last laser surgery we had 2 years was done just for this possibility and careful planning has preserved my eyesight.

My eyesight is really the neat aspect of this whole thing; my right eye vision is 20/20 and the vision in my left eye is 20/15. At age 65 I have the vision of a teenager. (It's a shame he's not a urologist!) I am almost literally a 'poster child' for this retina specialist because my vision is so good, but still I'm at risk.

He figures for the next 6 to 8 weeks I have a 5% risk of losing/tearing the retina in my right eye and after that a 2% risk will remain with me for the remainder of my days.

So, 2 things: the first is I don't shoot anything heavier than a .308 Win./7mm Rem Mag in rifles or a 2-3/4 dram equivalent in 12 gauge shotguns anymore and the second is for those of you approaching your 'later' years DON'T IGNORE THE PRESENCE OF 'FLOATERS' IN YOUR VISION.

When you see them get to a retina specialist ASAP, that stuff came from somewhere just make sure it isn't part of the retina in that eye...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

THE TRAVESTY OF HOOSIER 'RIGHTS'...

2011-11-07T09:26:00.001-06:00

All my life I've been pretty proud (and YES, pride is a sin) of our Hoosier state; especially our political freedoms, but in the past very few short years that has all changed for the worst.

Most everyone around the interweb is familiar with the Indiana Supreme Court decision handed down on May 13, 2011 that pretty much eviscerated the 4th Amendment rights of everyone living in Indiana when it comes to illegal entry into our homes by police officers. In short, Justice Steven David ruled "...if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry."

In Indiana now, there is no need for a warrant, consent or even the hypothetical 'probable cause'. They, the police, can just do what they please when it comes to walking into the privacy of your home any time they damn well want to. The remedy according to Justice David can be sought in civil court afterwards. That's just GREAT, because if it happens in the middle of the night at James Family Farms there is a good chance there is going to be a very loud noise and one of us is going to be D-E-A-D. No civil court in the land has jurisdiction in that arena.

Talk about a prescription for human tragedy.

Comes now further erosion of our rights in Indiana and they deal with the simple act of Trespass. There was a front page story yesterday in the regional paper about how a man, who doesn't live that far from our home, was convicted of felony animal cruelty for shooting 2 hunting dogs because of Indiana's IC 35-46-3-12 that was passed and signed into law back in 2009. The law applies to ALL domestic animals and the requirement to establish that the animal, which was 'shot and killed', was, in fact, feral is pretty hard to overcome, and YES this same office has already prosecuted someone for shooting a feral cat, again a felony!

Denny Yerk was convicted in White County court of these offenses and sentenced to 18 months probation. Of course, he's now a convicted felon from a crime involving a firearm so we all know what that means.

His defense was the dogs attacked him and he defended himself, which is permitted under the law, but the jury didn't buy it. What the newspaper article didn't explain is the back story to all this and here my personal experience comes into play.

Yes, the dogs were hunting dogs, but they weren't labs, pointers or spaniels, but rather coyote hunting dogs and they were part of a group of 'sportsmen' (and I use that term extremely loosely) who routinely range over the entire county chasing coyotes and foxes during the winter months.

The big problem is, they are, to a man, HABITUAL TRESPASSERS who demonstrate repeatedly arrogance and total disregard for private property rights.

They run these dogs where ever they damn well please.

About now, the chorus among you, will be singing "Contact the authorities and have them arrested for trespass." The answer is I HAVE! And it never works the way, 'they' (whomever that is?) say it will.

First of all, the same White Co. prosecutor's office that prosecuted Yerk, won't prosecute a Trespass violation unless an 'officer of the court' witnesses the act. (I guess they don't want to get into a 'He said, She said' situation.) I've called the DNR Conservation Officer who lives locally and he has responded, but you know cell phone technology is hard to beat once a confrontation has taken place and the offenders have scattered to the four winds........only to reappear at a time and date of their choosing.

IF THEY ARE GONE, NO CRIME HAS TAKEN PLACE. Unless of course you shoot their damn dogs that they let loose to run all over the place.

As a youth raised on a livestock operation I was taught responsibility for our animal's welfare. Our family has always had pets. The little family dog is asleep only inches from my feet right now and I enjoy our 2 'outside' cats who patrol outside our home for small rodents like they were paid for it, but this is a 'wrong' sanctified by our legislature.

I speak with some authority when the subject of coyote hunting comes up as I have both 'tracked' them and 'called' them for decades, but I've never used dogs. In the years when I was extremely active I ran across property owners who, both politely and impolitely, told me to get off their land. I DID. I honored their requests because to do so was to invite trouble, far more trouble than a selfish pastime deserved.

But that's NOT the case with this group and they are using the law and the situation to their advantage. Indiana was among the first of the states to grant the right to carry concealed firearms to ordinary citizens and in the past 30 years or so we've enjoyed many freedoms associated with ownership of BATFE Class III weapons, but the recent evisceration of our 4th Amendment Rights and now our right against private property trespass makes Indiana one of more undesirable places to live.........Rights Wise.

Dennis Yerk may have been convicted of violating Indiana's Animal Cruelty laws, a felony conviction no less, but I will never believe he did anything wrong...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

STREP...

2011-11-05T20:05:00.000-05:00

Finally figured out why I've been so tired and I kept thinking "Man, this aging stuff is really tiring and just kicking my ass...."

Well, yeah, but it had help. I've got a Strep Throat. Went to the Urgent Care Doc yesterday and he recognized it immediately.

So, until the nastiness settles down, it may be a while before I get back to posting...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

DAY OFF...

2011-11-03T18:07:00.000-05:00

Put some farm stuff away and other things today, but I think I'm going to stare at the ceiling for awhile, so today (and maybe tomorrow) is going to be a day off for the blogsite...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

COMBINE REPAIR PHOTO ESSAY...

2011-11-02T20:10:00.000-05:00

Most Gleaners use a pivoting unloading auger. The exception being the later versions that have the optional 'turrent' auger with the 90 degree bends. The Gleaner pivoting auger only has one u-joint and the grain during the unloading function doesn't turn any 90 degree bends. The unloading auger is only supposed to extended during the unloading function as it is supported solely at its pivoting base. Here, you can see the 'kink'.

The 'kink' really wrinkled the tube, both outside and later we saw inside. The auger as well was bent as you will see below.

The technician unbolted the entire assembly from the pivoting base and then lifted it using the crane on his service truck. It should be noted the grain tank on this machine is full of corn, approximately 220 bu. worth.

This photo shows the pivoting base, the hydraulic cylinder that activates its movement 'in' and 'out' and the fact the tube is separated from the base. The auger, however, is still connected to the internal grain tank cross-auger and has to 'slide' off its driver shaft.

Because the replacement tube and auger is lengthy; over 16' long, I had to borrow this pick-up and trailer from the truck driver. I couldn't carry these parts in either the assault van or our short bed farm 4x4 pick-up. The trailer was the only solution for transporting these parts from the AGCO dealer in north central Illinois to northwestern Indiana. Plus, it had lights that worked. I got home just at sundown yesterday.

The technician emphasized this was the most dangerous part of the whole deal because if he was even a little off on where he put the sling, the balance point would cause the damaged auger&tube, once free, to swing wildly. It could crash into the side of the combine, the service truck or.....US! To prevent that kind of movement I took this photo from the seat of my loader tractor as I have the loader bucket under the high end to prevent any wild swings.

About as straight as your typical politician!!!

This was the most tedious aspect of the whole procedure. The original tube was factory riveted to the base piece. Those rivets were ground off to remove the old damaged tube and the new tube was then mounted to the base piece. To replace the rivets these small allen head bolts were used to replace the rivets with insertion and tightening taking considerable time and cramped hands and muscle. Thank God for pneumatic wrenches.

The auger guard was used as a makeshift sawhorse and to hold one end of the new tube in place while the crane maneuvered the new auger into position.

Once the new auger (it's called 'flighting' by the company) was in, the end cap was installed as well as its bearing and the spout. The new unloading auger is completely assembled now with only the 'guard' to be added after installation. In this photo it is being brought to the pivoting base and the mounting bolts almost jumped into their proper holes on the base after this photo was taken. One of the easier aspects of the whole job.

SHE WORKS!!!

My view from the cab. And Oh Yeah, I finished with my 2011 corn crop soon after this photo was taken.

This year's harvest is over...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

A BOO-BOO...

2011-11-01T19:48:00.003-05:00

Nobody got hurt is the big thing, but we had a mechanical mishap today and I still have 50 rows of corn to harvest before I finish this season. The combine is definitely D-O-W-N for awhile!

The truck driver was moving my big tractor and big grain cart up to the combine. I was up at the shop unloading the little grain cart into his truck because he was running a little behind and I had everything full awaiting his return. Now bear in mind, this driver doesn't have to do any of this and hasn't needed to for almost a week. It's like he's been my 'hired man' he's been so helpful. It's due to his help that I've got so much done the last few days, but today we had an accident....

He's 71 and like many old guys (myself included) he has a hard time turning his neck and looking over his shoulder, which is something you have to do as you approach the unloading auger on a combine.....even one sitting still. He did the best he could and gauged his distances carefully.

He was off by about 6 inches....

But, Oh Boy, what that misjudgement did. The extended unloading auger on the combine now has a 'kink' in it, of about 20 degrees, and believe me they DON'T work that way.

He was really, really upset. In fact it scared me, I was afraid he was going to have a heart attack he was so agitated. I grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him square in the face and said in great sincerity:

"It's just a THING. I miss my daughter every day. This is NOTHING. It doesn't matter."

I guess those words struck home because he calmed down almost immediately. He said, "Yeah, you're right, but..." I didn't let him finish. "It doesn't matter. It's just metal. No one got hurt. It's not your wife or your son, it's just a THING. It can be fixed."

I felt bad for him because he is one Hell of a worker and a guy who really tries. How can you get upset with someone who works that hard at his age? I meant what I said, it's nothing.

So I spent the rest of the day chasing parts, only this time I went west of Pontiac, Illinois and across some of the best farm ground this country has to offer. I realize I'm a farmer and I see beauty where others see the 'nothing-ness' of fly-over country, but Ford County, Illinois has spots in it that literally looks like a corn and bean farmer's version of Paradise, the soil is a deep black, level and lays that way for so far that looking south from high on Hwy 116 one could almost see the curvature of the earth. To me, it was absolutely beautiful and gorgeous.

Gawd, it makes you want to be young again and look for the chance to farm ground such as this.

Maybe tomorrow we will get the unloading auger on the combine replaced and its full grain tank emptied. Then maybe I'll get those last 50 rows done?? Who knows????....

All The Best,
Frank W. James

LESS THAN 20...

2011-10-31T20:29:00.001-05:00

Well, I'm definitely looking at the down-hill side of things as there is less than 20 acres of corn left to go. I worked yesterday and got 4 loads out before the rain put an early end to things. That moisture made for a late start today, but when I got going, things began to 'roll'. Most of it was due, once again, to the great truck driver I got from the elevator. I seldom got out of the combine once it started and he was the one emptying the grain carts into his semi-trailer. Such a good guy.

I can't say much about it because the outcome is so unknown, but this morning I mailed a new proposal off in hopes of starting a new project next year. I felt the 'package' was strong, but it's a new venture and something totally out of my comfort zone, so who the heck knows what's going to happen?

Listening to the radio in the combine today there was a lot of talk on the AM 'news-radio' station out of Chicago about Herman Cain and an alleged sexual harassment situation years ago with some woman. My first question is, "Was there a Blue dress involved and did it have semen stains on it?"

If there isn't, then let it go. We've seen far worse as a country and I'm neither for or against Mr. Cain and his run for the Presidency, it's just that some people (in the media and elsewhere) have a tendency to pick and choose the history they remember and the situations they try to exploit.

That's it for tonight...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

FIELD #12...

2011-10-30T04:18:00.004-05:00

I finished "Field #12" well after dark last night. It has also been known in our family as the "North 40" because it's a small 40 acre field that's about 2-1/2 miles north of the west place or the farmstead where I grew up and was my parent's home.

(I numbered all our fields over a decade ago and now since I no longer farm some fields for a variety of reasons, the numbering system makes no sense at all, but the numbers remain just so our records don't get any more confused than normal.)

For me to move everything 6 miles and then finish 40 acres of corn in a single day is a task and I came in the house last night very satisfied with myself. Of course, I didn't do it all by myself as I had a Great truck driver, who is also a neighbor. He had me stay in the machine and he emptied the grain carts into the trailer, while I kept on cutting the small forest of standing corn down. Then after dark, a good friend loaned me the use of his semi and then even later still his son and daughter-in-law helped me move my equipment to the shop at the west place. I think we finished around 10:00PM. Their help was really an act of charity and kindness and something I truly appreciate.

Field #12 is also the place where 2 years ago bloggers Og and Brigid, each, shot their deer during gun season. He got a nice buck about 3 minutes after he got out of his vehicle and walked up the corn rows into the field. Brigid later nailed a doe who was trying to sneak across the end rows from my field to the next.

Field #12 is a good field in terms of its profile and fertility level, but it's also a 'rocky' son-of-a-bitch. This year was the first year in 5 years that I beat the 'wind' to the field as the last 2 times it was in corn, the corn on the hilltop was flatter than Rosy O'Donnell's sex appeal.

When you're trying to pick up 'downed' corn with the snouts on your combine in a field known for its number of hard, semi-round objects and you've laid the cornhead down, absolutely flat on the ground, while trying to slowly push the stocks in, it does something very unpleasant to your sphincter muscles. You can't see under the fodder and for all the world you could be loading a series of multi-thousand dollar rock induced repair bills into your machine as opposed to ears of corn worth perhaps a fraction of a penny.

And you only find out after it's too late!

This year with the corn standing straight it was easy. The last 2 times not so much.

Unfortunately, although the yield was not a disaster, it wasn't up to my expectations either. I'm finding that as I'm working down to my last field things are not what they seemed. It's not as bad as some feared, but still our native optimism always wants a good performance. The east place, while not a disaster, was a disappointment. This place were I live was a surprise, a very pleasant surprise, because the yields on the 2 fields here were so close to some of my better years and then last night, another disappointment where I think the average yield is going to work out to be around 20 bu/acre below what I hoped for.

The only possible explanation I can think of (besides the possible non-performance of some new hybrids) is I experienced nitrogen loss during the excessive rain of the past spring. It simply got washed away. The east place is easy to understand as it's hard for sand to retain nitrogen under 'wet' conditions and I suppose the topography of Field #12 worked against it in this respect as well because it has a significant natural 'swhale' running across it. That angled dip in the terrain carries a lot of water, I mean A LOT OF WATER when we have heavy rains like we did last spring and while soil erosion isn't a big problem I think it took away a bunch of the nitrogen I had in place for the growing crop.

All of which only reinforces the point that no matter how long you've farmed or how much experience you have at this game, it's always something new every year.

It's never the same...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

CORN 2/3ths DONE...

2011-10-28T19:38:00.000-05:00

In the past 24 hours I've harvested 60 acres of corn with only one minor breakdown. (I wasn't going s-l-o-w enough this morning in the frost and the stocks/fodder broke a knife off a snapping roll! My Bad.)

Only 2 more fields to go. I'm tired.

Say "Good Night, Gracie."

"Good Night Gracie"...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

FARM IMPLEMENTS AND 'MONEY'...

2011-10-27T14:00:00.004-05:00

It's raining once again, so I'm waiting on more SUN! Homer asked me some good questions about farm equipment over the previous few posts; most of which dealt with my Gleaner 'impeller' problem. Essentially, he wonders why farm equipment can't be built like automobiles so there is fewer repairs and down time?

The answer in a nutshell comes down to cost and to answer it properly I'm going to address a wide range of issues facing American grain production from the operators standpoint because they all need to be taken into consideration when one contemplates the purchase, or even the 'lease', of a new piece of farm machinery.

My Dad's Teachings...

My father and I worked side by side as farm operators for 29-1/2 years. There was only one way......HIS WAY!!! No exceptions, no deviations! He told me when I started in partnership with him that "You can own nice farm machinery OR you can own land. IT'S DAMN NEAR IMPOSSIBLE TO DO BOTH, so decide what you want? Because I don't like giving the implement dealer my money!"

If you examine a grain farm operation like a military one; there are only two absolutely essential pieces of equipment and they are the PLANTER and the COMBINE. Every other pieces of equipment, including tractors, is secondary in the sense you can 'fudge' the alternatives.

You have to have a good working planter and drill (for small grains and possibly soybeans) in order to start the whole process properly. This equipment doesn't have to be brand spanking new, but IT DOES HAVE TO BE IN PERFECT WORKING ORDER or the mistakes made will haunt you throughout the growing season. So, the proper, if not perfect, operation and order of the planting equipment is paramount. That piece of equipment requires your utmost attention.

The other essential piece of equipment is that used to harvest the crop; otherwise known as the COMBINE. Now, I know in the wheat growing parts of middle America there are traveling crews that start with the wheat harvest in Texas and end up at the end of the season in North Dakota or Canada.

That doesn't work in corn and soybean production. Most often when corn matures, it's mature at approximately the same time in Ohio as it is in Iowa. There is little difference in harvesting dates for soybeans in Kentucky or Southern Indiana and that seen in Northern Missouri or Wisconsin. In other words, if you grow it and you want to harvest these crops in a timely fashion, you have to do it yourself.

The problem is the Combine is the most expensive piece of equipment a grain farmer will own or operate. It is one of the more complicated in technical terms, but it should also be mentioned the 'rotary' combines are far simpler than the old conventional designs with their tail-end straw walkers. (I don't think I would run a conventional now if you GAVE me one.) Combines today are classified according to a number size with Class "5" being the smallest sold presently. My Gleaner is 13 years old and a Class "5" machine, but the difference in terms of features and production capacity between it and a new Class "5" from either John Deere or CASE IH is worlds apart. (Incidentally, those 2 companies are the only ones still making these 'small' machines.)

The big problem associated with combine ownership in my view is the rapid depreciation factor. A good rule of thumb is every 5 to 7 years a combine loses half its value; depending, of course, on make, model and condition or use. The CASE 7120 shown below retails for $340,000 for just the 'box'. The heads are separate and can run up to over $100,000 apiece and you will need two: a corn head and a grain table.

This particular machine has either a 35' or 40' 'Draper' head so it would be in the $100,000 range for just the grain table, then add another $340,000 for the 'box' and a 12 row narrow corn head would probably be between $85,000 and $100,000. You might find a good 'used' corn head for less than that. Who knows?

So, let's say the complete outfit is going to cost well over a half-million Dollars. But, here's the kicker, in 5 to 7 years, that same entire ensemble will only be worth $250,000 and another 5 to 7 years it will be around $125,000. By the time this machine and its heads are over 20 years old it will be worth approximately 1/4th what you paid for it.

And, I'm not trying to insult CASE-IH, it's pretty much true with all colors, makes, models and brands of combines. Yet, the combine remains an absolutely essential piece of equipment.

However, take that same half million Dollars and use it to purchase farm ground. In the past 2 weeks we just had 232 acres that sits cheek to cheek with my field across the road sell for $9,500/acre! And it's for crop production, NOT industrial development. So, a half-million will purchase approximately 53 acres of tillable farm ground. That farm ground should pay the owner 3.5% to 4.5% on a yearly return for rent, depending upon its soil profile and productivity level. Additionally, good tillable farm ground over the past 20 years has appreciated 10.2%, on average, in terms of value here in the corn belt Midwest. (NOTE: That's 10.2% annually, not for the whole 20 years.)

But farm machinery is a lot like automobiles; if you have the rental agreements for the acres to make the payments through your cash flow you can purchase that half-million dollar combine for 0% interest for the 1st 2 years and very little down. Of course, you are tied legally to a contract that runs for 20 years and its on a piece of personal property that devalues steeply as it ages.

So you pretty much have to pay for these things in that 1st 5 to 7 years or it won't work financially. That means you take the cost divide it by the number of acres operated and then divide that number once again by the 5 or 7 year figure and you arrive at what each acre you operate has to contribute toward payment on that machine each and every year. This is in addition to cash rent (4% on $9,500 acre land is $380/acre), fertilizer, fuel, seed, depreciation schedules, property taxes (local counties absolutely LOVE these big machines) and the usual assorted fees and expenses one must pay to live. Oh, and you might also include living expenses per acre for your family when you're budgeting this shit as well.

Now then if you're producing 200 bu/ acre and selling it for $7/bu, I can tell you it's going to be somewhat easy to make all these numbers work, but if you have a weather stress (somewhat like this year) and the yields are down, or if those who hate ethanol get it banned altogether and corn goes below $4/bu., then you're going to have trouble making ends meet.

How much is that combine payment again for the next 20 years?

The situation gets even more complicated if you DON'T agree with my assessment about essential equipment and you want to own the latest, greatest farm tractor and believe me they are available today with all the Gucci features and cost almost as much as a combine. Auto-Steer alone on John Deere tractors costs between $16,000 and $18,000, but that's nothing compared to its $225,000 list price.

What I'm saying in a long winded answer to Homer's question is cost, economics (I did graduate from Purdue with a BS degree in this stuff) and limited income make it impractical to engineer an absolutely 'perfect' combine. You're better off financially working with older equipment, 'off-brand' equipment and suffering through the difficulties involved when you look at the alternatives.

I feel Dad was right; you can own tillable farm ground or you can own 'nice' farm equipment but it's damn hard to do both.

Personally, I'll take the land...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

SOURCE OF THE 'IMPELLER' PROBLEM...

2011-10-27T10:12:00.002-05:00

It's raining currently, but the machine is back together. We finished just after 7:00PM last night and I was too tired to test it. I will wait until the fodder is dry today before trying it out. (After these past 3 days the LAST thing I want to do is break a chain because the fodder is tough.)

Yesterday was also another 300 miles in 5 hours or less day as I had to go get another round of fresh parts. We discovered the bolt holes on the old rollers, upon close examination, were egg shaped. So, I got the 2 new rollers from 2 different places, approximately 170 miles apart. After removing the packing we discovered the bolt holes in the new rollers were NOT threaded. The impellers are attached with self-tapping bolts.

That means when you change the rubber impellers on the accelerator rolls, you should also change the rollers. When the agency's resident Gleaner 'expert' last installed my impellers 2 years ago, he did NOT change the rollers. He used the old ones.

No wonder they were shedding impellers, this was the 4th set bolted through the same damn worn holes!!!!

The above technician is actually the agency's 'sprayer' mechanic, but due to a number of factors (one of them being they are overwhelmed with broken/maladjusted combines) he has been drafted in as an emergency combine mechanic. The truth is he's a pretty good mechanic. He just doesn't know combines, BUT he admits it and that's a good start.

He also said after 3 days of working side-by-side with me, "you know You're really NOT a bad guy. Everyone told me you were an Asshole!"

(Probably had something to do with me mentioning their combine 'expert' was arrogant and didn't know what he was talking about a year ago when we locked horns over the tailings elevator repair and then my argument with upper management over their atrocious billing statement that followed that screw-up.)

See the hole is NOT threaded, so once you change the impellers you should also use a new roller. Yeah, it's more expensive but believe me it would have been cheaper than the past 3 days!!!

The above assembly is the front accelerator roll with new bearings, new roll and 6 new impellers. We had to re-use 2 of the old impellers because I couldn't get 2 new ones yesterday to replace the 'thrown' and damaged impellers from a day ago. The 2 we used were the best of the old ones.

Before he left I had the technician write down what I was willing to pay for from this whole fiasco and what I thought his company should eat. I'm sure that at some point in my immediate future there is going to be an animated and interesting phone call between me and the 'managers' (his bosses) at this particular agency.

I'll get back to the farming, combines and money thing on this blog when I get caught up or it rains more heavily as I see through the office window it's starting to clear off. I'll go eat lunch and by then I should be good to go...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

AWAITING THE MECHANIC...

2011-10-26T08:31:00.000-05:00

It didn't rain like it was supposed to and the temperature this morning is warmer than it was yesterday morning. So, here I sit awaiting the mechanic before we tear the combine back down (at least a 2 hr. job) to find the extent of internal damage from yesterday afternoon's re-occurance of the accelerator roll problem and the REAL reason why this shit is happening.

I didn't sleep well or much last night and of all things about farming being 'broke-down' during harvest is my absolute least favorite. This is the one aspect of this job I hate with a passion. I hate working on the machines because of my allergies and asthma (I always get sick) and I hate the thought of 'losing' good weather window conditions to harvest the crop before it gets blown down or something other damaging event. In short, THIS SUCKS!!!

In the comments from a couple of days ago, Homer and others asked how we, as farmers, can amortize the cost of a combine or even prepare for the expenses related to mechanical failures like I'm presently experiencing? I can't speak for others, but how I do it (and I learned this from my father) is every year during tax preparation I total the repair expenses (both routine and exceptional) from that year and then divide that number by the acres I operate in production. That gives me a rough per acre cost of repairs and is a key ingredient as I establish an operating budget for the coming year. Normally, my per acre repair cost has been running in the 20's, from a low of $21/acre to sometimes over $28/acre (bad year?).

I did have one exceptionally bad year some time back when I first started working with our grain carts. I had the big one on the 2-135 White and used the transmission on the tractor (as opposed to the brakes) to slow a fully loaded grain cart down. WRONG! It stripped the planetary gears out of the Hi/Middle/Lo tranny and cost me $12,000 to fix that winter. I had been negotiating on getting the wife a new car, but that was postponed indefinitely due to that unforeseen event and she wound up driving our older car another year when I did trade for a newer, but 'used' car. The brand new car has yet to be seen.

That's the way it is with unforeseen farm expenses and repairs. To pay for them something else has to go away and when the repair expenses exceed that budgeted the hard analysis is you are engaged in 'recreational agriculture' because the money has to come from the 'personal' side of the ledger that would have normally been used to pay for vacations, new cars or those other luxuries many take for granted.

The farmer has to pay for those things out of money he has, NOT going to get from something mythical in the future.

Ooooops, the repair guy just drove in. I gotta go...

TO BE CONTINUED (when it really does rain.)

All The Best,
Frank W. James

YOU AIN'T GOING TO BELIEVE THIS...

2011-10-25T18:55:00.001-05:00

So, the mechanic and I worked two days diagnosing the problem, taking the machine apart and then putting it back together after I got all the parts. (I drove over 300 miles this morning getting parts before 11:00AM!) We get it together and it purrs, actually purrs. Great! I'm good to go.

For about 2 hours!

Because I loaded one semi and was working on the short rows before moving to the next field when IT HAPPENED AGAIN!!!! Yeap, I threw another impeller off the front accelerator roll. A Brand New One I might add. As I backed up, after shutting the separater off, THERE IT WAS LAYING IN THE FIELD. It had already come out the back of the machine.

My first reaction was complete, unadulterated anger. I mean I was really PISSED!

Now, I'm just disgusted, just flat disgusted. Called the AGCO franchise agency mechanic and he moaned. He simply moaned. He's buried in broken combines and this one, that took 2 days, isn't even fixed.

He called back after checking with his boss and said he would be here first thing in the morning tomorrow. This will be fun because we are supposed to get bad weather tonight and tomorrow and I don't have a shed big enough for it at this location. We will be working on it outside in the rain tomorrow.

His last words on the cell phone were "We'll make it right, Frank..."

I sure hope so...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

HERE'S THE PROBLEM...

2011-10-24T19:43:00.002-05:00

My Gleaner is a 'rotor' machine, but Gleaner's do it different than everyone else. On a Gleaner the 'rotor' (they call it a "processor") sits crosswise on the machine. The material is fed into the rotor on one side (the machine's right side) and exits the rotor on the left. That means all the instruments used to process the grain also lay crosswise on the machine.

You've heard the old adage that for want of a nail, the horseshoe was lost, etc., etc. Well, in my case yesterday I lost two bolts, just two, but they were holding the rubber impellers to the accelerator rolls and that was the source of the problem as we discovered this afternoon as shown below:

If you examine the 7 o'clock position in the opening you will notice that piece of rubber is out of place and NOT in alignment with the others. That's because it came loose (due to the lost bolts) and in the process tore Hell of everything it came in contact with. Fortunately, rubber doesn't do as much damage as a piece of steel does it, but it took some effort to find it as seen below:

Essentially, we had to open up everything on the left side of the machine that was below the 'processor' to get to the end of the accelerator rolls. (Their function is to increase the velocity of the shelled grain as it comes out the bottom of the processor before it is hit with a hard blast of air to help seperate the chaff and trash from the grain. The light stuff is blown out the back of the machine.)

Of course, in order to pull these rolls out the left side of the machine we also had to remove all the driver grears on the right side of the machine as shown below:

The big worry was how much ancillary damage was caused in the short time this damaged accelerator roll operated? It would appear I got it stopped in time to avoid damaging the big money parts, but still tomorrow morning I've got a 2 hour drive to get a $16 idler plate that was cracked. (It isn't available anywhere else but Rushville, Indiana.) The shafts are still straight. That was a LARGE concern because the back shaft is back-ordered till next year!!!!

You can see here what it looked like once we got it out of the machine tonight just after sundown.

Tomorrow, once I get all the parts cornered we will put it back together. The bad part is these rubber impellers were only 2 years old, but I'm going to replace all 16 of them with new as well as new bearings.

Hopefully, by mid-afternoon tomorrow I'll be back running and you rest assured that when we bolt the new impellers in they will be 'Lock-Tighted' as well...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

BROKE DOWN PRESENTLY...

2011-10-24T09:44:00.001-05:00

I lost a bearing (maybe 2) last night around 6:00PM so I'm awaiting the Gleaner mechanic as I'm sure we have to take a whole bunch of stuff apart to get to it. I hope I shut everything down before the damage got too severe as none of the alarms went off, but I heard the "howl". Maybe we won't have to replace any shafts or accelerator rolls. The mechanic is already committed to a tractor for the better part of the day, but I have hopes he will arrive by mid-afternoon.

Some of my neighbors wonder why I don't do my own repairs and the answer is simple: I'm the kind of guy who routinely breaks cast iron skillets and bends anvils. It wouldn't do me a bit of good to do the repair because within minutes after completing 'my' repair I would have to do it all over again, only this time it would be worse. I've found it's cheaper to call the guy who has been trained and get it done right the first time.

(Most of the people who help me with repairs and I have an agreement. I won't attempt repairs and they won't attempt to write articles. It's worked well so far.)

Of course, that's assuming AGCO is selling good parts because the night before last the unloading auger drive belt broke with less than 25 engine hours on it. The reason? We have no clue. Everything else was running smoothly when it just flat broke.

I personally think the main reason it broke was printed plainly on its outside, it said "Made In Mexico"...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

HAD A GOOD DAY, I GOOFED OFF...

2011-10-22T20:04:00.003-05:00

Yesterday all my neighbors were running through their corn fields like they were killing snakes. I changed the oil on the Gleaner, greased it and took my time checking it over. Then I moved the two tractors with grain carts to this farm and......I quit for the day!

The wife and I then went out for supper.

You see, I thought the ground was still a tad wet yesterday and the grain carts when full compact the ground bad enough when conditions are dry, so when it's wet you make bricks and concrete. Besides that I've decided this year that I'm not going to kill myself. I'm going to do things when I feel like it and not according to the march-step routines I practiced in the past.

That's why early this morning I got up at 5:00AM and drove to Indy for the 1500 Gun Show. I was goofing off and I had thought about it all week long. IT WAS GREAT! Truly, I enjoyed myself because for someone with my interests it had many items I like to look at and haggle over. Additionally, I found the answer to my needs for some spare magazines for various guns as well as my never ending requirement for more .50 caliber ammo cans. (Can you e'var have enough .50 caliber ammo cans?)

By 10:30AM I had spent all the money I wanted to and pretty much marked off my list all the things I wanted. (Well, NOT all the things, but those that made sense.) I got home just a little past noon, changed clothes and started combining corn here. Conditions were good, if not great but they got better as the afternoon wore on. Everything went great until just past sundown when the new drive belt I had installed on the unloading auger last week.......BROKE!!!!

That started to tick me off, but then I realized what a good day I'd had up to that point and after calling the mechanic and explaining the belt has less than 20 hours on it, a plan of remediation was put forth.

With that in mind, I decided to let things be and 'retire' for the evening.

As Scarlett said in GONE WITH THE WIND, "Tomorrow is another day..."...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

SUBJECTIVE VS. OBJECTIVE...

2011-10-20T16:31:00.000-05:00

Spent most of the day in the office catching up on odds and ends as it has rained more than 1.5 inches in the past 24 hours. I've got water standing in the low ground now. I also got a much needed haircut, but I digress. I was reading something on the interweb this morning that got me to thinking about firearm calibers and how so many argue over which is better.

We all have our personal favorites, but I have to confess many of my choices are based on subjective evaluations, not scientific study. I know that someone who has earned a small amount of notoriety writing gun articles shouldn't admit to that, but it's actually the case.

And I say that because I reflect often on what has worked for me.

Obviously, my infatuation with the .41 Magnum is based on almost 40 years of use and the fact it has worked so well for me on so many occasions at making things I wanted stopped----STOPPED! Granted, they haven't been drug laden home invaders, but then feral hogs, whitetail deer, coyotes, soybean eating groundhogs and a number of other wayward beasts that caused me displeasure, annoyance or downright disgust have fallen to its influence, often without delay.

The .41 Magnum has always worked when I did my part and the nice thing is after all these years that part seems somewhat easy.

But, there are other calibers that also fall into this favoritism simply because they have worked when others in similar situations did not. The argument about the 9x19mm vs. .40 S&W is a classic example. Initially I was never very fond of the .40. I've always had concerns about its chamber pressure. It's ability to 'kill' recoil springs as well as beat frames to dust, but then I started shooting things with my Browning Hi Power in .40. Things like grain fouling raccoons and to my surprise it worked much better at this task than a similar handgun in the more often encountered 9x19mm caliber.

I enjoy shooting 9x19mm because it is universal and relatively inexpensive for a centerfire pistol cartridge. I also used it for years when I ran a professional trapline, but during those years my gun (an old much abused Browning Hi Power) also had an aftermarket barrel with an odd twist rate that made the FMJ projectile do weird things to the living target. It was an effect I've never been able to duplicate and long before I recognized this aspect of that aftermarket barrel I traded the gun because the whole thing was well past its 'due date'. It had been 'rode hard and put up wet' if you know what I mean.

It was only later that I discovered that not all 9x19mm caliber pistols would do what that oddball/aftermarket barrelled gun would do. So now I restrict my use of 9x19mm guns and ammo mostly to paper targets. Yeah, I know bullet technology today is greatly improved over that seen only a decade ago, but here's the thing. I, as a general rule, don't shoot people.

I DO shoot critters and most often ones that are too small for the bullet to work as designed all high-tech-wise. By the time that high-tech hollow point has opened up, the whole thing is already 'out' of the target and digging a furrow in the farm field dirt behind them. Fat lot of good all that high tech bullet stuff does me.

The .40 caliber Hi Power by contrast has them rolling into a ball that often comes to an inert stop.....as in motionless afterwards! I like that.

So when it comes to 9x19mm vs. .40 S&W, I'll pick the .40, not for some objective reason, but because I've seen it work for my purposes when the 9mm (save for the one with the odd rifling twist) doesn't do nearly as well.

Yeah, I know it's not objective or scientific, but again you go on what you have personally experienced and here's the thing, IF you have shot something and it went down, you're more likely to rely on that same combination when you REALLY need it, as opposed to something some commentator recommended because he was part of a scientific research team that developed it and it does this and that to ballistic gelatin.

Yeah, science is hard fact, but personal experience, even though it's subjective, is hard to overcome...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

FINISHED CORN AT THE EAST PLACE...

2011-10-19T14:35:00.001-05:00

I worked late yesterday and wound up eating supper at 11:10PM! BUT, and it's a BIG 'But', I'm just short of a third done with corn for this harvest season. I ran late last night because the radio and the weatherbug on the blueberry said we were going to get 'weather' today and we have, so I wanted to finish over there and start the move to this farm. Good thing I did as it's been rain on and off all day.

I'm taking it easy now and recovering from my late night extra-effort to get finished. After I finished the 2nd field, one of my cousins helped me move the combine over here as well as the straight truck and the assault van. I think I got to bed just before 1:00AM.

If you will go to my last posting I think I've updated a pretty complete list of all the drivers we have lost since World War Two and who at one point in their individual careers drove in the Indianapolis 500. The only exceptions I've made were for those who may not have driven in the race, but were actually killed at the Speedway in their efforts to make the race.

I'm not being morbid or bizarre, but I've listed these names to illustrate the fact this particular endeavor is different from any other, even other forms of motor racing, because it has been so dangerous for so long and due to the speeds attained at the Speedway and by the cars designed to run this race it will never be the same as other levels of sport or motor racing.

Only the truly Brave Need Apply.

That's it for now, I'm going to goof off for the rest of the day...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

RACING's LOSSES...

2011-10-18T02:16:00.005-05:00

I'm in the process of harvesting corn and sitting in the combine yesterday I tried to remember all the drivers who had once raced in the Indianapolis 500 that were killed in subsequent years and the 1960's were particularly deadly.

The following is a list of those I can remember but it is by no means all inclusive, if you can think of some I've missed (the only qualification is they have to have raced in the Indy 500 or were killed at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway) please bring them to my attention:

(UPDATE: THIS LIST INCLUDES ONLY THOSE LOST SINCE WORLD WAR TWO)

Ralph Hepburn, killed 5/16/1948 during practice for the 1948 Indianapolis 500

Ted Horn, killed 10/10/1948 on the 2nd lap of the DuQuoin championship race

Chet Miller, killed 5/15/1953 during practice for the 1953 Indianapolis 500

Bobby Ball, died 2/27/1954, injured in a race at Carrell Speedway, Phoenix, Arizona and died 14 months later in a coma

Bill Vukovich, killed 5/30/1955 in a crash on the backstretch during the 1955 Indianapolis 500

Jerry Hoyt, killed 7/10/1955 in a sprint car race in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Bob Sweikert, killed 6/17/1956 in a sprint car race at Salem, Indiana

Pat O'Connor, killed 5/30/1958 in a 15 car pile-up at the start of the 1958 Indianapolis 500

Jimmy Reece, killed 9/28/1958 at a champ car race in Trenton, New Jersey

Jerry Unser Jr., killed 5/17/1959 during practice for the 1959 Indianapolis 500

Ed Elisian, killed 8/30/1959 at a champ car race at Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Jimmy Bryan, killed 6/19/1960 in a champ car race at Langhorn, Pennsylvania

Tony Bettenhausen, killed 5/12/1961 during a test drive for his friend, Paul Russo, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Shorty Templeman, killed 8/24/1962 midget car crash, Marion County Ohio

Allen Crowe, killed 6/2/1963 sprint car crash, New Breman, Ohio

David MacDonald and Eddie Sachs killed at the start of the 1964 Indianapolis 500

Bobby Marshman, killed 12/4/1964 tire testing on an Indy car in Phoenix, Arizona

Walt Hansgen, killed 4/7/1966 while practicing with a Ford GT40 near Orleans, France

Chuck Rodee, killed 5/14/1966 during qualifications for the 1966 Indianapolis 500

Jimmy Davies, killed 6/11/1966 in a midget race at Sante Fe Speedway, Chicago, Illinois

Jud Larsen, killed 6/11/1966 at a sprint car race in Redding, PA

Don Branson, killed 11/12/1966 at Ascot Park, CA

Al Keller, killed 11/19/1966 during a champ car race at Phoenix, Arizona

Billy Foster, killed 1/20/1967 at Riverside, CA

Gary Congdon, killed 9/24/1967 at a midget race in Terre Haute, Indiana

Jim Clark, killed 4/7/1968 at Hockenheim, Germany during a F2 race

Mike Spence, killed 5/7/1968 during practice for the 1968 Indianapolis 500

Ronnie Duman, killed 6/9/1968 at the Rex Mays champ car race, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Jochen Rindt, killed 9/5/1970 practicing for F1 race at Monza, Italy

Jim Malloy, killed 5/18/1972 during practice/qualifications for the 1972 Indianapolis 500

Art Pollard, killed 5/12/1973 during practice/qualifications for the 1973 Indianapolis 500

Swede Savage killed in an accident during the 1973 Indianapolis 500

Peter Revson, killed 3/22/1974 in practice for the South African F1 Grand Prix

Mark Donohue, died from a cerebral hemorrage suffered as a result of an accident in 1975 F1 accident

Sammy Sessions, killed 12/17/1977 in a snowmobile racing accident

Gordon Smiley, killed 5/15/1982 during a qualifying attempt for the 1982 Indianapolis 500

Jim Hickman, killed 8/1/1982 practicing for a CART race at Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Rich Vogler, killed 7/21/1990 during a sprint car race at Salem, Indiana

Billy Vukovich III, killed 11/25/1990 in a sprint car at Mesa Marian Raceway, Bakersfield, CA

Jovy Marcelo, killed 5/15/1992 during practice for the 1992 Indianapolis 500

Scott Brayton, killed 5/17/1996 during a practice session days before the 1996 Indianapolis 500

Tony Renna, killed 10/23/2003 during testing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

I'll get back to my usual posts when I get more corn done...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

DEATH AT THE TRACK...

2011-10-17T04:42:00.002-05:00

Dan Wheldon was killed yesterday in Las Vegas in the last Indy car race of the 2011 season. He was the key figure in a $5 million dollar promotion put on by the league to spark or increase interest in open wheel racing. To win the money he had to start last and still win. At the 13th lap when the accident occurred, he had already moved up 10 positions, but it occurred in front of him and he had no place to go....or even time to brake. His car became airborne and it appeared his car hit the catch fence cockpit first.

The track itself was designed for NASCAR's taxi-cabs in that it has corners that are 'banked' and the racing surface is extremely smooth. That's great for the full-bodied cars that weigh 3,400 pounds, but Indy cars (even with their lower horsepower) go approximately 50 to 60 mph faster. The speed really wasn't the problem per se, it was the fact they were bunched so closely together. It's called 'Pack' racing and while it makes for a good show for NASCAR, we witnessed why it don't work for the open wheeled boys. Racing journalist Robin Miller has been for years writing against this type of racing for open wheeled cars and we were lucky in the fact that none of the cars or the resulting debris got to spectators as this high speed disaster unfolded.

Indy cars are facing a corundum. Their series is down in popularity and as a result so is the sponsorship revenue, especially in this economy. This has made it hard to go back to the innovation and free thinking that characterized open wheel racing for so many decades. This was the last race for the current 'spec' racing chassis and engine combination. Next year we will see a new chassis and possibly 3 new engines; Honda, Chevy and the Lotus/Judd engines in the cars, but it will still be 'spec' racing in that everyone will have the same mandated chassis and body work.

Additionally, the only oval tracks that are successful promotion wise are those built for NASCAR and Indy cars have always been associated with oval racing, but due to "The Split" between the IRL and CART the old oval fans have walked away and the tracks where this racing is safer are no longer profitable promotion wise.

So we are left with a shadow of a historic racing venue; one where there is little innovation and almost no relevance to the everyday automobile that each of us drive on a daily basis. The main purpose is to put on a 'show', but it is a show where men die. Safety for auto racing has seen tremendous strides in the past decade, so much so many equate the sport to some of the 'stick and ball' sports, but we were reminded yesterday that driving at 225 mph is deadly serious business. Always.

I personally see no reason for the 'wings' or 'ground effects' aerodynamics on Indy cars. What do they prove? Why are they relevant? Does this technology translate to your Camry, Taurus or Impala? I'm just a fan but I would like to see narrower tires, wingless cars and engines limited solely by their internal displacement. Then racing's really smart guys could demonstrate what technology could be developed that would help our everyday vehicles.

This dis-connect with everyday vehicles also affects NASCAR's taxi-cabs because theirs is also dedicated to the 'show'. They are no longer 'stock' cars where some showroom vehicle was welded up and tuned to make the race at Daytona. They are just full bodied race cars with big block V-8 motors that no manufacturer offers any longer in their product line. Granted, they are relatively safe and there will be charges I'm sure from some about racing's Roman Circus, but the thing to remember is Dan Wheldon died doing what he loved to do.

That may be small concession to his grieving family or his two young sons who will grow up without a father, but it is a reminder that everything in life comes at a cost. I pray for his family but racing has always been a dangerous business and in the 1960's we lost so many, almost on a weekly basis, that this event reminds of us why auto-racing is different from any other sport on the planet.

I'm sure over the coming winter there will be young drivers who will 'retire' because of this sobering calamity, but there will always be young men who understand the risks and brave enough to find the speed to move to the front and I will remain a fan and a supporter...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

DUSTY DAWN...

2011-10-14T10:39:00.001-05:00

During soybean harvest I didn't get up as early as I should have and as you can see here the sun beat me up and out of the house a couple of mornings back. What I found unique with this particular morning is the low lying dust across the cleaned fields which appears almost exactly as it did the previous evening at sunset. Only in this case there were no combines running! Strange, that.

The other day I heard of another combine burning to the ground here locally. I saw a picture of it on fire on someone's cell phone but because they didn't take the picture it couldn't be forwarded to my email address. I guess they took it off a facebook page and I don't do facebook. Naturally, it was a 'green' one. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the machine, a big one, was a total loss.

I've been spending time in my office catching up on bills and other snail mail correspondence. I got a letter this past week from F&W Publications telling me that my last book, EFFECTIVE HANDGUN DEFENSE, is going out of print and they don't intend to do another edition. The tone of the letter was very conciliatory, but you know I'm not all upset over it. That book did what it was supposed to do and it had a very troubled birth as well, so it's probably good it is now history.

I originally wrote that book back in 1996 for a firm in the London, England suburb of Hammersmith. They took their time reviewing the submitted copy as I submitted it well ahead of my deadline and in the meantime our family lost our daughter, Valerie. When they did review the copy, they objected to my reference on page 32 about the "Spiritual Side of Self-Defense" and wanted it removed.

Long story, but essentially I faxed them back an answer that said "NO!" in several different ways. We agreed to go our separate ways.....after I paid back my advance and then the work and all the photos laid in a box on the floor of this office till late 2003. In 2003 our farms suffered some crop reversals due to excessive rain in July and the fact is I needed some extra cash. So, after updating the text and photos I shopped the work to Krause Publishing with the original title of "CONCEALED CARRY FIGHTIN' HANDGUNS". Again, another long story, but they agreed to publish it after the usual extended period of haggling about contract details and that was that..............until I discovered at literally the last minute before printing they had changed the title without my permission!!!

I went ballistic! I wound up talking to the owner of the company and I explained (in a rather 'raised' voice) I had killed this book once before and I was quite willing to do it again. Well, they actually wanted the book, but their little old ladies (literally, I guess in this case) in the book selling division objected to the word "FIGHTIN" in the title and it had to go.

It took us over a week to agree on a compromise title and even then neither of us were happy with the result.

I know I certainly wasn't, but it was the least objectionable of all the alternatives suggested. It turned out as I was told later (well off the record by a few within the company) that I was right and they were wrong, but by then the damage had been done.

Most of the review criticism I've seen about the work centered on the fact, the title didn't accurately reflect the content.

NO SHIT!

And I've agreed with every criticism pertaining to that aspect of the work, but book publishing is a strange endeavor that doesn't correlate to normal business practices. Yes, books in a niche market can provide you some extra income, but the truth is for all the hours of work that are involved you could probably make more money being a greeter at a Big Box Store with the headquarters in Arkansas.

But, at the end of the day, I'm not sure profit is a good motive for writing gun books. You have to want to do it whether it's profitable or not. You explore a subject and as you do so you learn, to a far greater extent than what people realize. It is an exasperating, time consuming, obsessive exercise, but in the end it is a fulfilling one whether people like the final work or not.

I've been lucky in that all 3 of my books have paid what I considered to be a generous amount for the situation. Many have viewed them as successful efforts. I'm presently working on the research for another and like all gluttons for punishment I will be shopping it around for publication in a year or so.

I will never learn...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

FINISHED SOYBEANS AND DEER BEDS...

2011-10-13T07:46:00.002-05:00

In an attempt to beat the rain (which has turned out this morning to be quite 'lite') I cut beans night before last till past 11:00PM. After 9:30PM it wasn't good and it kept getting more difficult as time progressed. Fortunately (or unfortunately) as the case may be, I loaded a truck at 10:00PM (the driver was a good guy who wanted to help me get done before this 'rain') and tried to keep cutting.

Soybeans pod all the way to the ground, so you can have to run the cutting bar right on the ground. After 10:00PM the skid pads under the grain table started to quit 'skidding' and pushing dirt instead. This was the result of moisture setting into stubble and the fodder as the night air cooled. It was a mess and did nothing for the sickle bar on the machine. Finally, at 11:10PM I gave up and didn't even complete a 'through'. I just pulled out of the field in fatigued disgust, fearing this 'rain' would come early and then I'd be in a mess.

Well, it didn't happen, so I waited until the sun was up good and had dried the plants yesterday and I finished my last field in good order with almost perfect cutting by mid-afternoon.

Now, I'm ready to start corn harvest..........when I feel like it, because I'm still recovering from my late night escapade and I suddenly remembered I'm still the BOSS, so I can do what I damn well please.

DEER BEDS...

I took the following photos from the combine cab while cutting my last field. Two are 'deer beds' and one is a 'scrape'. (I've got 4 areas that have this as a constant problem when I drill soybeans.)

I don't like deer and these bare spots are the reason why. A lot of farmers get all upset over what deer eat. Other than in the Spring of the year when they eat the crap out of the soybeans when they are only 3" or 4" high, I've never seen much evidence that deer really eat much of what I raise, but these things are another story altogether.

Get 50, 60 or 100 of these things in a soybean field at harvest and collectively you've got enough space to handle the parking for a small truck stop or allow the kids to play a little league game.

The really bad part about it is they always pick the best part of the field to create their nightly 'Sleep-By-Number' bed. They seldom lay down in the thin or crappy part of the field. It's most always the most luxurious and best area for the plants.

I've complained to the Indiana DNR before about this problem, but it's a "GotCha" for the farmer. You see the farmer has to prove $500 worth of damage and with soybeans at $12/bu and 50 bu/acre that wouldn't seem hard to do, would it? But, here's the catch, the 'biologist' has to see these things before September and the guy I got wouldn't crawl all over the field. He just walked the perimeter looking for 'tracks'.

The only way you can really determine the extent of the damage in a field of drilled soybeans is either from a combine cab or a helicopter and obviously they won't do either one, so I'm left to pay the bill for everyone else's wildlife party once again.

Did I say, I don't like deer?

That's why in the Fall of the year when hunting season comes around I shoot as many of these bastards as I can, but not for the meat. I just plain want to kill 'em. I take the carcasses, after check-in, down to Food Finders in Lafayette and give 'em away. To me it's about like eating rat.

However, I will say this damage is benign when compared to what Canadian Geese do. I don't like deer, but I flat HATE Canadian Geese and if I had magical powers, everyone of those vermin inside the state of Indiana would die at Midnight tonight.

And I would go to my grave knowing I would have done far more for the betterment of mankind than any politician could ever dream of doing for their own glory...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

OOPS!!!...

2011-10-12T07:22:00.001-05:00

This happened a few days ago to the neighbors and it's only 4 miles from our home. It's a brand NEW 1,300 bu. capacity J&M grain cart which probably cost around $75,000. At the time it was approximately 2/3ths full of shelled corn. They came in on Monday and used a vacuum to suck up the corn, so at least that's cleaned up.

I'll bet the tractor driver had to check his underwear afterwards.

KEEP YOUR NUTS TIGHT!...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

SMOKIN' HOT JOHN DEERE COMBINE...

2011-10-11T05:10:00.001-05:00

This was sent to me by Rob Keeney. According to the note accompanying these two photos this happened right in front of his house yesterday. I know fire hazards are a threat to all makes of combines, but I personally believe they are a bigger problem with the 'Green' ones.

I should finish my next to last field of soybeans today and move to the last one. The beans I'm cutting now were planted by my cousins while I was finishing up with the GALLERY Of GUNS tv show. They are dry but they still have their leaves on them and to keep from plugging up my 'tailings' elevator on the machine, I've got the bottom sieve opened up well past the 'corn' setting.

(Yeah, it's a mess in the grain tank, but at this point I don't care....nor it seems does the grain elevator as I haven't been docked for FM.)

It's been years in this area since farmers have had such a continuous string of dry, warm weather during soybean harvest and everyone is running hard to get it done before the rain and the cold front that is supposed to come in a couple of days. I've got to the point where I rethink everything twice when the machine is running because 'Fatigue' has become such a factor.

So far it's been working, as has everything else...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

THE DUST IS THICK...

2011-10-08T20:24:00.003-05:00

If you've even seen a 30's movie of a Navy destroyer laying down a smokescreen you can imagine what our fields look like around sundown the last few evenings. The air is still. The light is amber and the dust is so thick it makes smoke look like thin water.

We've been running hard now for 6 days straight. I've finished the soybeans at the west place and here at home. All that is left are the 105 acres over at the east place. The past 3 days have gone well, but I'm tired.

I now realize I am truly an 'Old Man'.

To me farming has always been like 'war'. No quarter given, nor none is ever asked in terms of the 'physical' by farmers in farming. You think it through and if you're wrong, you die, or at the least you suffer the consequences of your own stupidity, nor do you cry about it afterwards. (Re: last posting on this blog!) I've had 6 good days (more or less) and tonight it feels good to have done what I have over the past few days.

Unlike many in this area I am a 'sole' operator. I work completely by myself. I was even asked about it the other morning at coffee. You see, many consider farming by one's lonesome to be equivalent of a high-wire act performed outdoors in a stiff breeze or one of those EOD guys who deactivates bombs with a ticking fuse and both hands in a cast. Yeah, it can be dangerous....if you're tired, or stupid.

As for the 'tired' I've learned that physically 8:30PM is the NEW Midnight!!! After running hard all day by 8:30 my butt is dragging and I'm whupped. I admit it. I'm not as young as I used to be and I'm certainly not the athlete I never was, so I made the decision I'm going to slow down next year. I'm going to make some changes, but Gawd how I love this life. Even with that love, I'm going to rent the east place next year to my cousins. I'm going to make some changes and slow down, or at the very least do something completely different. It all depends upon what transpires over the next couple of months.

Yet, I love those thick clouds of dusty fog on evenings like tonight as they block the failing sunlight across a clean shaven soybean field. I love the power of a good tractor pulling a grain cart heaped high with soybeans. I love it when a combination of ingredients you selected as the farm operator during the previous winter months, planted during the spring and nurtured during the summer creates a decent or a totally unexpected high yield when you harvest the crop.

"Damn, you mean it actually worked???"

The soybean yields so far for us this year are not record setting, but they're decent. Above average in places and 'average' in other areas. I actually believe they're probably better than what I deserve, but I'll take 'em.

Tomorrow is Sunday and a day of worship. I've worshiped God all day today because I'm thankful he's allowed me to be my own man. To work for myself, by myself. To be outdoors, to work outdoors and to be the 'ruler' of my tiny kingdom, even though I'm often a stupid monarch. Tomorrow I won't go to church. I'll spend the morning servicing the 'machine'. The combine needs all its filters (cab and engine) cleaned and blown out, the sickle bar needs a number of new sections and I want to vacuum the cab. I have a small dab of beans to haul in the straight truck and then I'll move to the east place, our family's ancestral home.

The next days will be my last go-round there and it bothers me.

The radio has been predicting rain come Wednesday and with any luck by then I will be close to being finished with all my soybeans...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

3 DAYS OF BEAN HARVEST AND 'ONLY' 2 D.A. ATTACKS...

2011-10-05T21:50:00.004-05:00

D.A. stands for 'dumb ass'. I've only had 2 so far but they have been LuLu's. The 1st occurred as I was opening the first field and suddenly discovered a big rock sitting on top of the sickle, just getting ready to be grabbed by the cross-auger. I stopped the machine immediately and succeeded in NOT ingesting said rock. However, I hit the wrong the button and literally STOPPED the entire machine which was full of material.

When I wanted to restart, she was plugged tighter than a constipated accountant. Finally, after about 45 minutes I got it 'un-plugged' and got going again.

Today, however was a different matter because it's probably a good thing my father passed away seven years ago as if he was here he would most likely be in court seeking a 'guardian' for his idiot son.

Our soybeans are decent (in terms of yields).......except for the wet holes and drowned out spots. They are weedy. I mean they ARE REALLY WEEDY in those places. Yet there are a few beans in amongst these weeds. Rocket scientist that I am just couldn't leave well enough alone and I had to try and cut these weedy patches.......because it got the beans out and it looked so much better afterwards.

Except for all that shit I put in the machine was about as dry as a wet, extremely soiled diaper and plugged up, 1st, the tailings return chute, dumping said shit back into the 'processor' inside the machine and then, 2nd, the tailings elevator itself. Big Time. It took us over 3 hours to clean out the tailings elevator. I say "us" because the Agco repairman took pity on me and showed up to help me with my mess. Thank God he did, even at the $89/hour labor fee, plus travel charge.

To say I'm less than pleased with myself would be an understatement. WHAT A FUCKING DUMB ASS I AM!!!!!

Anyway after we got it cleaned out and working I returned to the field and except for the wet hole patches I finished soybeans over at the west place, which was well after dark I might add. (There are times I think I'm too old for this nonsense.) Tomorrow I hope to move here and start just south of the gun range and house.

That is, of course, IF I can reduce my rate of Dumb Ass Attacks to something far more manageable!!!...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

FINALLY STARTED HARVEST...

2011-10-04T00:26:00.003-05:00

This blog will be 'Down' for possibly this entire week as said proprietor does his combine/harvest/farming thing.

I started soybeans yesterday and the weather prediction is for good weather each day of the week through next weekend.

See ya! I have to go. 1st semi-load of soybeans sent off the farm were 12.4% moisture content when the test sample cut at 1:30PM was 13.7%, so I have to get with the program to git 'em out....

All The Best,
Frank W. James

BAD, BAD DAY AT THE GRAIN MARKET...

2011-09-30T14:17:00.001-05:00

Just got the text message alert. Corn closed down 40 cents and soybeans were down 51 cents today. That's a BIG loss and drop for a single day, but dramatically so for a Friday or even for today's computer generated orders at the CBOT.

I believe the overall economy is starting to affect the ag sector which has been one of the few bright spots in the overall economic picture. The grain market experts are saying they've found more "carry-over" stocks than what they thought was out there.

I don't believe it.

The people with the money; i.e. 'rich' people are pulling their money out of the markets and putting it somewhere the government can't tax it or get at it. It's simple human nature and a natural reaction to President Unicorn's call to tax the 'rich'...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

THE WIND IS BLOWING AND I REMEMBER...

2011-09-29T22:33:00.002-05:00

The other day when I rode with my friend in his new combine we talked about how it was farming when we were kids; especially in the Fall of the year when so much had to be done before the ground froze.

Unless you've done it, no one can truly realize just how miserable farming on an open tractor really was.

The wind is blowing tonight and at a pretty good clip too. I had to reset some of the patio furniture as I came in from the studio just a moment ago and with the chill in the air you will have to forgive me for traveling down memory lane. Believe me it's not one lined with hearts and flowers, but rather chuckholes, broken axles, busted tow chains and body parts so cold you started believing you were never going to get warm again.

Really good cab tractors didn't materialize until the mid-1970's. A few years before then there were several after-market cabs you could mount on open tractors, but they were loud, terribly hot in the summer and provided damn little warmth in the winter.

Back then the moldboard plow was king and for good reason. Everyone fall plowed after harvest, but they had such poor trash clearance it seemed like you had to do 9 different things to the cornstalks before they would 'flow' through the damn plow. I can't tell you the number of times when I was plowing that I would look back and all 4 or 5 bottoms on the plow I was pulling were plugged tighter than Hell with cornstalks. Whereupon you pulled out of the furrow and spent the next 20 to 30 minutes cussing, pulling and cutting to get it clean, only to plug once more in about 15 minutes or less.

Sometimes you could disc the cornstalks and get away with it, but it depended upon the hybrid of corn that was grown that year and its condition. And sometimes you had to 'chop' those stalks first before even attempting to turn them under. We plowed in the fall because it made the ground so mellow in the spring. We never had time to spring plow and if you did, we never had the conditions. If the ground was plenty dry we should have been planting, that's why spring plowing was always on the 'edge' if you had to spring plow and often its memory is associated with stuck tractors, axle deep in the furrow. Most everyone who spring plowed drove around with multiple log chains on their front weights or piled high in front of the driver's seat.

Of course, fall plowing was terrible for the soil. Water erosion around here was awful. The Delta outside New Orleans has more Corn Belt dirt in places than Iowa. But, we did it because it made it easier to manage the weeds. Back in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's we really didn't have very effective herbicides and fall plowing was a practical, if extremely flawed, alternative.

Of course, the big problem was getting it done because plowing is a s-l-o-w process. We (and by that I mean everyone in the area) only had so many days before the snow flew and the ground froze after harvest back then. Even at that, men like my father pushed it to the limit and I was right there in my pre-teen years and teenage years at the tip of his spear.

Hearing the wind blow tonight reminded me of those dark nights after school when I was running an Allis Chalmers WD-45 and a 3 bottom 14" mounted plow till well past 10:00PM. I would get off the school bus, eat some supper that Mom had for me and then put on every piece of clothing I could think of. Even then after an hour or so in those conditions, I wasn't able to feel my toes or my hands. The lights on that tractor after dark were just good enough to see the ground in front of the rear drive tires. A lot of times when it came time to turn around at the end of the field I would discover a raccoon or a red fox had been walking down the furrow just in front of me.

Dad had a heat-houser on his tractor. It was a canvas affair that blew the heat from the engine back on the operator. It also blew all the dust in the world on you and that was where I drew the line. I would rather be cold than fight that damn dust with my asthma. This very subject is where we had our first serious fight and he learned I was going to stand up to him, come Hell or High Water. He backed down about the heat-houser being on MY tractor, but we still had the work to do.

I think the worst were the nights when it was sleeting. Even to this day I hate it when sleet hits me in the eyes. Damn, that stuff would sting. I would sit cross-ways on the tractor seat but I still had to watch the furrow in an attempt to plow a somewhat straight line, so I would pull the wool shaw-scarf Mom gave me around my face and kinda peek around the corner of my eye to watch it in an effort to lower the incidence of eye stinging sleet.

Dad was a tough taskmaster who was very goal oriented. One night I remember I was discing in these conditions and I heard a loud BANG! I looked back and everything seemed normal but the light was so poor you couldn't really tell, so I keep driving and working ground. Finally after about an hour I finished the field and drove up to the barn. It was late and we couldn't see much, but I told Dad about the BANG, but I couldn't figure out what it was. He went and got a flashlight and started looking at the Kewanee 12' disc. Son of a bitch, I had broken a gang axle when I hit a big rock in the dark. He was NOT amused and I was told off in a loud manner. Yeah, I should have been more careful, but IF I was really careful I would have skipped school and worked that damn field in the daylight.

Dad always said the invention of the farm tractor was God's gift to horses because he hated how they suffered doing farm labor. I've always felt the invention of the air-conditioned/well heated tractor cab was God's gift to farm families who had hard task master husbands/fathers.

Hell, when you're warm and comfortable working after dark was no big deal in a cab tractor even if the ground was about to freeze hard as a rock. These are things the young farmers today will never know and I guess I'm glad because it was so mean.

It really doesn't matter how hard the wind blows, I remember and tremble from the days when it did and I was spending hours on a machine out in the open after dark...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

LUMPS OF LEAD...

2011-09-28T18:18:00.001-05:00

I finally got the chronograph set up and tested the velocities on some of my reloaded rounds I've made during the past rainy days. (We've got over 2" of rain in the past 3 days and the traders up at the CBOT have 'hammered' the grain market really hard over the past few days. Corn is down over almost a full Dollar while soybeans are down more than a Dollar from just a month ago.) Hopefully, by the weekend we will be able to make the dust fly and get into the fields around here with our machines.

Shown above are the Lumps of Lead I've been casting due to my frustration with the farm situation the last few days. Starting from the left and going to the right: the first is the 170 gr. SAECO (by Redding) truncated cone #409G11 bullet, next is the RCBS 210 gr. semiwadcutter #82038, the middle bullet is another SAECO (by Redding) bullet, the #415F4C that weighs 210 gr. and employs a gas check, the 4th bullet is the old reliable, it's the Elmer Keith designed 220 gr. SWC from Lyman #410459 and the last is another Lyman product (which they haven't listed for years), mold #410426 and it's a 240 gr. round nose. I have to say I think the Lyman 4 cavity molds, regardless of design, throw a more consistent bullet once you get the temperature regulated and adjusted properly in your furnace.

I'm a big fan boy of Winchester's Super Target propellant. (FCC Warning: Yes, years ago Winchester gave me some of this propellant, but it's good stuff.) You won't find it listed in any of the loading manuals because I've searched everywhere for loading recommendations, but 6.5 grs. of WST over any of the bullets shown above makes a really comfortable 'plinking'/practice load for the .41 Magnum. I especially like the fact this propellant meters so consistently. It never changes and is always spot-on.

Out of the Model 58-1, shown here, a charge of 6.5 grs. of WST under the Remington 210 gr. JHP averaged 928 fps while the same load under the 170 gr cast TC SAECO bullet averaged 965 fps. While those are not engine block cracking loads, they are not 700fps 'will-only-break-paper' loads either. Plus, the fact the felt recoil, in my opinion, is no different than that experienced with a mild .38 Special load in a K-frame revolver.

The other gun I worked with on the chronograph today was the Les Baer AR-15 in .264LBC (same thing as the 6.5 Grendel) and here I'm not seeing the velocities many others are shouting about. Essentially, the fastest load I've seen is 30.5 grs of WWW748 under a Hornady 123 gr. AMAX bullet and it is only averaging 2,458 fps. I have never seen a 6.5 Grendel load with bullets weighing 115 grains or more (factory or handload) from this rifle break 2,500 fps.

As you can see in the field surrounding my range the 'beans' are finally mature, but now we have to get them and the ground dry enough to run. You can also see my backyard range set-up and how I deal with my frustration at not being able to start harvest...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

ARIZONA GUN RADIO...

2011-09-28T10:42:00.000-05:00

Kate Krueger had me as a 'guest' on her early morning radio show this morning. I'm not sure I was a good guest, but it's always nice to be asked. She mentioned this blog nonsense as well so maybe a couple of her listeners down Arizona way, NBC 1260, 96.1FM, will stop by and read my silliness.

If I could get her locally, I would listen to her every morning.

I found the experience enjoyable and marvel at how our world has changed. Think of it, Kate, along with Tom Gresham, and a few others have actual shows on radio, on a regular basis, now that are dedicated to guns and their possible use in self-defense. Thirty years ago the mere suggestion of such shows on even the tiniest level would have been ridiculed and protested.

Bottom Line: We're Winning!!...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

THINGS ARE OUT OF WHACK HERE ON THE FARM...

2011-09-27T23:52:00.004-05:00

A year ago I started combining corn on the 8th of September and even then it was 16.5%. Not going to happen this year as we are obviously at least two weeks behind, if not three.

It's been raining here off and on all day and it started during the middle of the night last nigh. At times it was raining heavily. Yesterday I worked on getting the combine ready. I still have a number of things to do, but today I've spent my time in the reloading studio reloading .41 Magnum ammo by using the bullets I cast and sized last week. I guess you could say it's one way I deal with the stress of not getting started on time with harvest as well as the frustration of not being able to work outside on my machines.

I probably have an excessive amount of ammo loaded up and stored, but there have been times when I feel like marathon shooting sessions at the range and this excess enables that. Additionally, even though I'm not shooting near the round count, handgun wise, on an annual basis I did 20 years ago, I still like having a bunch of it stored away so that I can shoot whatever amount I feel like on any given day or moment. Yeah, it's a sickness......I'm an Ammo Junkie.

I've probably loaded close to 2,000 rounds of .41 Magnum this month. All of it has been done on a Dillion Square Deal semi-progressive press. Most of the bullets I've used have been cast from linotype and wheelweights and so far I've loaded a 170 gr. truncated cone cast bullets from a 4 cavity Redding/Saeco mold, 210 gr. cast SWC bullets from a 2 cavity RCBS mold, the Elmer Keith designed 220 gr. cast SWC bullets from a 4 cavity Lyman mold and 240 gr. cast roundnose bullets from a 4 cavity Lyman mold (#410426) I purchased off fleabay.

It's supposed to rain some more tomorrow so if I can I'm going to try and do some chronographing of these loads. I had been hunting for the 240 gr lead RN .41 Mag bullet mold for some time, several years in fact, and when one came up for sale on fleabay, I put a really high bid in just to make sure I got it last year. I have to say at even moderate velocities all of the guns I've fired this heavier bullet through demonstrate some 'felt recoil'. An old Lyman reloading manual recommends 8.5 grains of Unique as the "Accuracy" load for this bullet and it doesn't feel as bad as the alternative load I did with a healthy dose of H4227 powder. It also seems to shoot well, but I haven't done anything on paper. Just shot the steel in my backyard.

My thought process with these particular cast bullet is it will make a great 'Hog' load because it should penetrate like an X-Ray. And at 240 grains and over 1,000 fps it should also make its presence felt along the way, particularly if I can place it between the eyes and just below the ears.

I also reloaded about 100 6.5 Grendel cases with 120 grain projectiles from 3 different manufacturers. So far, I'm neutral on this round. I haven't had the chance to shoot a lot of stuff with it. I acknowledge it is a great square range round because it is so accurate, but I want to see it how it works with the bullets presently available on hogs and I probably won't be able to address that question until February of 2012.

I've shot one hog with it already. It was a year ago last spring, but it was not successful, nor impressive. The range was about 70 yards and the hog was straight on, looking at me. I shot him between the eyes. He dropped like a bag of wet socks..........and then jumped up and disappeared. Only to be shot once more by my hunting companion with a .50 Beowulf at about 50 yards on the other side of the small hill to my left. The hog did one somersault at the 'whack' of the shot and then continued rapidly on his way. (The .50 Beowulf load was a 300 grainer at approximately 1,900 fps out of an AR-15, BTW.) I'm sure he had an Excedrin headache for quite some time, but I didn't drop him or put him instantly out of action.

The 'Head-On' shot on hogs, by the way, is probably the toughest and most difficult shot there is because it requires absolute precise placement of the bullet.

Well enough of this nonsense, with this post I've done my daily writing exercise and now it's time to drink a brew and hit the shower...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

MOVIE REVIEW: KILLER ELITE...

2011-09-26T19:37:00.002-05:00

KILLER ELITE, (2011), produced by Open Road Films, directed Gary McKendry, written by Matt Sherring (screenplay) Ranulph Fiennes (book), starring Jason Statham, Clive Owen, Robert DeNiro, Dominic Purcell, Aden Young and Yvonne Strahovski. Rated "R" for strong violence, language and some sexuality/nudity. Run time of 105 minutes.

This film is NOT a remake of the Sam Peckinpah film (1975) starring Robert Duvall and James Caan. They share nothing in common, well other than the fact they are both about 'killers' and 'killing'. No, this film is based on the 1991 book "THE FEATHER MEN" which was marketed as a 'novel', but was supposed to be based on 'fact'. Even the book's author, Fiennes, called it a "factional" which is supposed to be a blend of fact and fiction. (Silly me, I thought that WAS the definition of 'fiction'.)

The time period is specifically set at 1980 and 1981. It is not set in the present day time frame. The main character is Danny Bryce (Jason Statham), who with his older partner and mentor Hunter (Robert DeNiro) are staging an ambush and assassination at the very beginning of the film in Mexico. It goes awry and next we find Bryce in Australia, having renounced his mercenary life.

The problem is Hunter is now being held hostage in Oman by Sheik Amr (Rodney Afif) and to get his release Bryce must kill, after getting their confessions, three former SAS men who were responsible for killing three of the Sheik's sons during their 'deployment' in Oman.

And Oh Yeah, if he does this successfully, not only will he get Hunter free, but the Sheik will pay him $6 Million dollars! He enlists his old pals from his mercenary days, Davies (Dominic Purcell) and Meier (Aden Young), who are located in Paris.

Okay, at this point the movie is a 'murder for hire' snuff film, except that another dimension is added with a mysterious group known as "The Feather Men". (They are named that because their 'touch' is so light.) Their hatchet-man is Spike (Clive Owen) who is a former SAS man disabled from the Regiment because he only has one good eye. He becomes alarmed by the deaths of his former comrades and sets out to stop Bryce and his crew.

Although, I found the film a cut above Statham's usual fare, it's far better than "THE TRANSPORTER", this film is not "RONIN", nor "HEAT", nor does it even come close to the latter two. DeNiro is too old for this stuff. Additionally, his 'acting' in this instance in my opinion was marginal. (I think he showed up for the check.) As for acting Dominic Purcell is quite believeable as is Yvonne Strahovski, who plays Bryce's girlfriend. When both are on-screen your attention is focused and captured.

As for Statham, well, what can one say?

I'll be kind and guess he must have flunked those acting lessons he took from Sylvester Stallone and Steven Seagal.

On the 'Gun' front I question how Meier could use a Smith & Wesson Model 624 in 1981, when S&W didn't introduce the gun until 1985? There were other screw-ups I'm sure, but that was the only one I caught out right. They employ the usual number of Beretta 92s, Sigs and I thought they used a Glock or two, but I wasn't sure whether it was a Glock or something else and if they had I'm sure they would have been ahead of the curve in 1981.

I don't mean to imply that KILLER ELITE is a bad movie. It's just not up to the standard I was hoping for. I rate this 'action/thriller' film at 4-1/2 bullets out of a cylinder of six...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

GRAIN STILL PRETTY DAMN WET...

2011-09-23T10:48:00.000-05:00

I rode 2 rounds last night with a neighbor and a friend who was combining corn. He said he was doing it for two reasons; the first was his machine was new (the engine hour meter on the computer screen said "6.5 Hours", that's how NEW it was) and the second was to see if his corn drying set-up was going to operate properly and to find the 'screw-ups' before the 'rush' truly starts.

The machine itself was a hoot. It was as quiet inside the cab as a 'fine' automobile. There was no 'dash-board' or a row of gauges anywhere. Instead everything is displayed on a laptop-type device to the right of the control stick or wand. The top of the wand had a quadrant that was operated by his right thumb. Occasionally, he had to touch the computer screen to get a new display for checking various internal functions but the amount of information available to him was simply mind-boggling and he admitted he still had more 'programing' to do in terms of adjusting the bu./acre calibrations, his farm field maps (he farms 4,000 acres!) as well as the specific varieties of corn, their planting dates and populations. As it was it took him 7 hours to put in what he already had, but he could change just about every internal function and adjustment from that computer screen. All without need of a wrench or opening a side panel!!?!?!

Yes, we ARE in the information age........even in agriculture.

The corn, however, was wet. It was ranging from 25.8% to 29.1% in terms of moisture with the average probably being around 27%. It was all displayed on the screen as we worked through the field. [To the un-initiated, we would like corn to be below 20% and closer to 18% in moisture content before going full-bore on corn harvest.] The corn-head on the machine (a CASE 7120) was a couple of years old, but it was a heavy built after-market head; specifically, a DRAGO 12 row unit. His comment was it was heavy and would cause the rear wheels to come off the ground on his previous machine. The amount of plant material this machine would eat, even going slow at 2.4 mph, was simply unreal.

Here's a 'For instance': he hopes that after the corn dries down (that is, if it E'var does) he should be able to harvest 4,000 bu./hour. By comparison with my 1998 Gleaner, I hope to average 6,000 bu. per DAY when I get to harvesting corn!!!

Of course, there is some serious doubt about the dry-down on corn in this area. I heard this morning that a guy south of me opened up a field that he planted on the 7th of April and the corn was still 29%. If it's still that wet after all the heat we had this summer, I have real doubts about it getting much better.

No word yet on yields, the stuff we were going through last night looked to my eyes to be in the 160 to 180 bu. range, but since his monitor wasn't calibrated there was no real and honest way to tell. It was just experience and the old eyeball.

The biggest problem facing large operations like that of my friend is the ability to HAUL IT AWAY from the fields. Semi-trucks by law are pretty much limited to 1,100 bu. of wet corn because of the weight load limits. His machine will require two grain carts & operators plus a minimum of four trucks per hour to keep him from sitting still and waiting when he gets to running hard and heavy. That's a large support staff and it's almost impossible to find experienced and competent people who can do the job from now to just after Thanksgiving, or who are even willing to work 12 hour days, 7 days a week.

Plus, they have the problem of staying gainfully employed during the winter months until the next need arises come the Spring.

I'm glad I'm just a little guy working by myself...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

LESS THAN YESTERDAY...

2011-09-21T18:55:00.000-05:00

It's hard to believe, but I got even less done today than I did yesterday.......including this blog.

Aches and pain (Honest, I'm not whining!) kept me awake most of the night last night and as a result I felt pretty much like a bag full of A**holes all day and with about the same amount of ambition to match.

I'm going to bed early tonight and maybe, just maybe, I'll have more 'Spark' tomorrow; both in terms of putting words on this silly screen and in terms of getting some work done in the shop and on the machinery...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

NOT MUCH OF A DAY...

2011-09-20T21:41:00.001-05:00

I really didn't get a lot done today. I moved some equipment from storage at one farm to another. I also discovered a number of dead batteries, as in D-E-A-D. Since I made this discovery at close to 4:00PM I decided to put things away and quit. I was tired anyway. This fall I'm in no rush and it shows.

Yesterday I spent the day casting and sizing bullets for the .41's. You know handling a 4 cavity mold all day long with your left arm.......makes it ache like a bitch all the next day. (Yeah, I know I'm a real rocket scientist, aren't I?) The funny part is my left bicep is decidedly 'larger' today when I examined it while shaving this morning.

"What a Maroooon!" as Bugs Bunny would say.

After supper tonight I returned to ammo shed/studio and started melting down automotive wheel weights. You have to turn the heat up on the electric furnace and then wait....wait....wait.....and then wait some more when melting wheel weights. Finally after you get the pot of crap melted you can start to ladle off the metal clips. Of course you really should wear gloves and safety glasses and make absolutely sure you don't drop any liquids in the pot. (That's a good way to get hurt!!!) Once I got the clips out, I fluxed the mixture then I poured everything into a Lyman ingot mold.

Linotype, by the way, is available from Midway USA (FCC: I wasn't paid for that so go screw yourself.) In recent years Linotype has become ever more difficult to locate and purchase at a reasonable price. All the old printers guys seem to think it's become gold simply because they don't use it anymore and they think we will pay through the nose to get it. Midway USA is reasonable and far easier to deal with because you can order it over the internet.

Melting all the wheel weights down in a big pot mixture in the RCBS furnace helps because I think I can do a better job of mixing the alloy of the melted wheel weights to a more homogeneous mixture. (There are some rough guidelines to wheel weight alloy, but different manufacturers alter their mixtures so who knows how much antimony, lead and whatever else is in them?) My process attempts to blend them to an equal level on a slightly larger volume. Additionally when I'm adding Linotype for my final bullet alloy, it's easier to count the ingots necessary to get a good ratio of tin to lead.

But tonight rather than do more work (my arms is still stiff) I played a DVD on the work bench of "BODY OF LIES" with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe and checked the pot every 15 minutes or so. By the time the film was over I had 30 ingots of straight wheel weight material and a whole pile of burnt metal clips...along with a bunch of other crap that came off the used wheel weights, laying on the sidewalk outside the shed.

Not much of a day, so I will say "Good Night, Gracie"...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

LATE SEASON...

2011-09-19T11:38:00.001-05:00

Historically, I usually look seriously at starting soybean harvest around the 22nd to the 24th of September. In scouting my fields this morning, I can easily see that ain't going to happen this year. Not with all the green leaves and green stems I'm seeing.

Our late, wet Spring really set us back on soybeans and I suspect that I'm at least a week to ten days away from my first 'cutting' of beans. The corn front doesn't look a bit better, even with the 'heat' from this summer that gave us a bunch of 'degree-days'.

For the past few years I've usually planted a short season, early number over at the west place in order to get the premiums from the processors who were running short on corn. That is until my seed company could no longer get the good genetics from a criminal organization I won't name for their short season hybrids, so I planted full season stuff first this past spring and it is no where close to being ready.

I've got one field of 110 day corn I would like to start on because it got hit by a touch of hail and the stock quality for that field is deteriorating, but I know the moisture content is still in the high 20's, if not low 30's, so that won't pay any better than letting the damn stuff fall down.

It's raining today so I can't even work on equipment or move it from one farm to the other. In short, it's a day where I practice inserting my opposible digit up my posterior...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

MOVIE REVIEW: DRIVE...

2011-09-17T13:38:00.001-05:00

DRIVE, (2011), from Bold Films, Odd Lot Entertainment, Marc Platt Productions, directed by Nicolas Winding Rehn, written by Hossein Amini and James Sallis, starring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Christina Hendricks and Ron Perlman. Rated "R" for brutal violence, language and some nudity. Run time of 100 minutes.

This film tells the story of a 'Driver'. His name is never revealed and in fact the whole movie works with the most minimal amount of dialog I can ever remember experiencing in a film except for maybe "VANISHING POINT" (1971) which was also a film about a 'Driver'. Perhaps I was expecting too much from this film because just about all the reviews about this movie posted on IMDh are glowing.

Which leads to me wonder if I saw a different movie than they did?

Quite simply this work is an Art-House film and maybe my intellectual concepts aren't at a sufficiently high enough level to appreciate a film about fast cars and a hot driver which moves at the pace of a slug, an asthmatic slug, at that and believe me, I really, really wanted to like this film.

Flat out, this work needs an editor. The photography is beautiful, if often dark, but still the scenes are wonderfully photographed. The acting is superb and the basics of the story are gripping, but the pacing and the lack of meaningful dialog made me want to yell "GET ON WITH IT!!" more than a couple of times as the camera lingered far too often on a poignant, but empty, expression or moment.

Additionally, Ryan Gosling's character is a flawed soul. If he were real, I would suspect this guy was a classic sociopath. He works during the day as a mechanic, who gets bit jobs being a stunt driver for the movie studios. At night, he plies his trade as a 'wheel' man or get-away driver for various hoodlums.

Gosling's driver has the appearance of a rosy cheeked, sweet smiling guy-next-door type, but when prompted to violence (he doesn't carry a gun) there are NO limits. He is not restrained and the film illustrates the resulting gore, but the film tempers this violence with his unexpected benevolence as he befriends a neighbor woman with a young son. Although they flirt, the relationship is reasonably chaste as she awaits the return of her husband from prison.

The Driver befriends the convict upon his return and agrees to help him out with a problem and this is where things go from bad to worse. For a film plot it was at this point I expected things to pick up and the pacing to quicken. But, It Doesn't! Many commenters felt it was at this point where the film illustrated its "art". I just think the frickin' director was too cheap to hire a decent editor for what could have been an entertaining experience instead of a frustrating one.

I will say one thing positive about DRIVE and that is Albert Brooks stole this film as far I'm concerned. Every scene he's in captures your attention. Who would have believed he could play such a great bad-guy? Christina Hendricks talents were wasted because her appearance is far too short and she should have been given more to work with. As for the remainder of the cast, including Mulligan, it was all about what I expected. Well, that's not completely true, they were less than what I expected and that includes Ron Perlman who did himself no favors with this one.

I guess I'm just not 'artsy' enough to appreciate this slow moving morass and I will only give it one cartridge out of six for this review...

All The Best,
Frank W. James