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Reagan1k

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Reagan1k

  1. That's always been fascinating to me. Through blood and marriage I only count five first cousins. I couldn't tell you their spouses' names nor their children's names. At times I've been insanely jealous over larger families. At other times and when I see dysfunction, I am grateful for my small circle. We all have different paths.
  2. That's pretty cool. I could not write down the names of 19 living relatives (even combining my wife's family)...much less cobble them together for a trip. Hats off to you for maintaining that bond.
  3. Walk right up and show him..."Can you believe I got this fake for $50 at the flea market? Looks pretty nice, right?" End of conversation.
  4. My watch comes off when I shower and when I sleep. Only comes off in the shower right now because I have a new leather band. Once the band gets a bit of age on it, I won't even bother with it then. Checking a phone for time during a meeting or even some social occasions can be distracting.
  5. Investors better get ahead of this, because as these guys hit mandatory retirement, they'll need a place to go.... Brings a new meaning to "The Villages" of Pakistan. Bingo night will just hit differently there in Sun City / Kandahar. .
  6. Listened to an interesting conversation / discussion focused on how we talk about mental illness - including alcoholism (and addiction). Specifically on the words we (society as a whole) use and how those words become engrained (even subconsciously) into our thinking about the disease. According to the speaker - Society says "He is an alcoholic." or "He is an addict." His point was that if we do actually consider them a disease, then mind-centered afflictions are the only diseases that redefines a person's identity. We don't say "He is cancer." or "He is Alzheimer's." People "have" cancer and other diseases, but alcoholism and addiction are referred to as an identity. The same hold true for Bi-Polar disorder and Schizophrenia. Joe IS bi-polar. Sally is schizophrenic. The thesis was that there would be more willingness to accept the diagnosis and more importantly the treatment if the party in question only had to accept having it rather than BEING it. Obviously, AA would refer to that as a 1st step problem. Very interesting take that I don't recall having heard before.
  7. @BearSchlong That is tragic and I am 100% sure you added comfort and peace to the situation for your family.
  8. I do have some good news for anyone struggling to quit or stay sane while quitting. There is a treatment that’s been proven basically 100% effective in a double blind study of several million alcoholics. The bad news, if you will, is it has to be used as a daily infusion at full strength to work at full efficacy and doesn’t work well in random or sporadic doses taken only to deter drinking on weekends and in times of stress. Relapse is proven to be non existent in those who use daily infusions at full strength exactly as prescribed. Unfortunately scientists haven’t yet found an alternative delivery method that works as well when taken only when the alcoholic thinks they need it or in doses of their choosing. The disease of alcoholism makes it tricky because the illness tells the victim not to continue the infusions and to try taking the treatment like an antacid before a spicy meal, but that doesn’t work well; making the disease itself such an efficient assassin.……insidious disease, but happy to report the full, genuine treatment is widely available. There is a 164 page report written in layman’s terms that provides PRECISE details on how to take the infusion and gives EXACT instructions on how to recover.
  9. Good luck! Should be a fun labor of love. One easy idea would be to wipe them down, clean off any new rust and catalog as you go with good high res photos of each piece that includes both sides and all factory markings. A good dealer or auction house could take a flash drive of that info and give you a rough valuation range by item , if nothing more than for insurance valuation. Some may charge for the service. Others will do it gratis for the enjoyment and the hope they earn your future business.
  10. You won’t hurt anything with a light wipe down of oil. Should be done regularly anyway. Patina is patina and shouldn’t be changed (to your point about blueing being out of the question.) If there is speckling of fresh rust, that should probably be cleaned off. Fine brass wool is softer than the finish / metal and will remove surface rust but leave finish / patina beneath. To the extent you’re comfortable doing that, you won’t hurt anything, but if ever in doubt, do no harm and get several opinions / offers to compare. Just like a major medical decision. Is the goal to sell or just clean up and store properly going forward?
  11. Yeah - what he said. Don’t “restore” anything. You can wipe them down and prevent further damage but refinishing is most often worse than doing nothing. Some very fine BRASS wool, gun oil, and a gentle hand can be used to remove small areas of new surface rust and prevent it from spreading but again, tread carefully and get some professional advice from multiple sources before you take any real action.
  12. ******Full credit to @BearSchlong for picking this out of the MAC tribute****** I probably would have missed that had you not stuck it under my nose. “One doesn’t teeter and totter without gaining some sense of where the fulcrum rests. To know that place and still transfer weight to one side, for any or all of the reasons, is its own burden. One I hope has been lifted.” Those simple sentences sum up a lifetime of this alcoholic's experience - both drunk and sober. Fulcrum - the point on which a lever rests. I thought a lot about this last night and this morning. That lever is my mind. That resting point is my peace and serenity. This disease still shifts my weight. The author is correct. That shifting of weight creates pain in and of itself, but equally as painful is the knowing; knowing where that calm is and for whatever reason not being able to stay there.
  13. Five inches of rain in a week and +10 inches for the year (on Hwy 16 north of Fredericksburg) has to eclipse all of 2022 rainfall. Setting up to be a better year. Just having some grass will help immensely with fawn survival. They didn't have a chance last year between the tough browse conditions and zero cover to hide from the coyotes. We didn't shoot any mature bucks last year. If things continue like they are trending, we should have a better year. How much better will depend on the non-hunting mortality of and ability to bounce back better in that 5-7 yr old class.
  14. I dunno. I’m no old timer, but I have a little experience and one thing I’ve learned for me in that time is that I tend to plan for a lot that never actually occurs, and have a lot of very hard conversations in my head that never have to be verbalized. Left to my own devices, in or out of active alcoholism, I’m approaching life like trying to drink from a firehose. Working the steps in order, and with a sponsor helped to reduce the pressure in that firehose so I can actually sip a little life. 99% of my problems today are fear based and exist only in my mind. I regularly run those fears and crazy thoughts through the filter of my sponsor’s experience, and get a different perspective. Most of that mental angst I create for myself evaporates when I verbalize it. The initial instinct to live in fear, catastrophising, and self doubt never really leaves, but to the extent I choose to employ them, I have tools to keep the monster asleep under my bed. Some days are better than others. I get to choose how much I’m willing to suffer. Hope that helps in a small way. It helped me to say that and remind myself.
  15. I hunt with 10mm underwood loaded with Lehigh bullets . Very good ammo
  16. For me….. 99.99999999 % of the people on this earth don’t give a shit if I drink or not, 99% of my acquaintances have never given it a single thought. Reality is that alcohol and drinking doesn’t consume the mind of normal folks. If ever pressed, “I’m just not drinking today.” is a true and easy answer. For that sliver of 1% that notice or might care, all they need to know is that I hit my lifetime quota earlier than most and that my life runs more smoothly without booze. As with most things, I magnify how many people notice and to what degree they give me and my drinking even a passing thought. If my drinking has affected my relationship with someone, then that’s a direct amends I need to make and with my sponsor’s help, I decide how to approach that individual.
  17. When you say your safe safe bonds haven't been doing so well, are you talking about open ended bond funds, and seeing their NAV dropping? That's probably true. IMO, open ended funds are designed to designed to give bond exposure over a long period of time and ideally were bought to provide diversification from equities, as their performance (historically) was not highly correlated. (Tell that to bonds over the last 12 months). They aren't really designed for principal preservation over short periods of time. I'm no guru, but I don't think that anyone with a period specific need for parking assets would want to use open-ended fixed income. I'd prefer to look at the time period, and either purchase a single bond, or a series of bonds (a ladder), so that the bond or bonds have all matured on the date desired. In that situation, you don't look at the daily net asset value. You'd know you have X amount of bonds maturing on Y date, plus whatever interest they've paid in the interim. Technically that bond's value is bouncing around every day, but you don't care because you are holding the bond itself and know the face amount will be available on X-date. We just had a scenario where we "think" we'll need X amount of money available in 12 months, but the date keeps getting pushed out. We laddered 12 bonds - each maturing in 30 day increments from 1 mo. to 12 mo. Every 30 days, we have 1/12 of our principal maturing. Each month we can decide to leave it in cash, or buy another bond maturing in 12 or fewer months. Once we know that yes, we finally will need the principal on Y-date, we'll quit buying new 12 month bonds and either leave it in cash or buy a new bond maturing at the Y-date. Short of the apocalypse happening (we won't care anyway if that happens), we know we will have X amount of money available on Y date, and will have earned market interest rates in the interim.
  18. I watched a table of 8 grown-ass adults split one bottle of wine the other night. Boggles my mind to this day that people can enjoy drinking like that.
  19. Godspeed John! The intro paragraphs of the NEISD enchilada article really struck a cord with me. Many, many decades ago my grandfather would (strategically in hindsight) come eat lunch with me during grade school. Those are some of my most cherished days and looking back I can see they were targeted around specific home-cooked cafeteria dishes of days gone by. Whatever the reason he came, my grandfather made my week on those days. John’s article brought those memories and gratitude back into my consciousness and I’m extremely grateful. A skilled author never knows the impact his words will have on the individual reader.
  20. There's this old story about sobriety and AA. I can't remember if it was a Clancy or Chuck C. recording, but I laughed when I heard it because it so perfectly described my experience. If I'm the man who finds that he can't stop and stay stopped own my own power, it's akin to my being lost at sea; treading water on the open ocean. Two idiots come into view and they appear to be sitting above the water in an imaginary boat, rowing with imaginary oars. They ask if I want to get in and row to shore using their 12 steps. I tell them they're nuts and to leave me alone. I keep treading water hoping to be rescued by a "real boat" until I'm just about to slip under the water and I finally accept their extended hand. Somehow now I'm sitting in that imaginary boat and they tell me to start rowing, but there aren't any oars. These idiots tell me it doesn't matter; just row. I "row" like they tell me, knowing its not going to work, but to my suprise, slowly a boat appears underneath me and oars materialize. The more I row and watch them row, the more I realize that what they have is real, whether I understand it or not.
  21. No idea if this will help but it helps me when I can put it in practice. I view myself and interactions with family (or whoever is difficult and creates a feeling of dis-ease) as if I were watching a movie. Sandy Beach referred to it as a spiritual being having a human experience. I TRY and ask myself, what am I going to learn from this? What tools can I put in practice here? Viewing the dialogue as an unaffected third party watching a skit....uninvested in anything but being kind and tolerant to the best of my ability. It's interesting. It takes the power out of the circumstances and the future-casting. I ask for my higher power's help in remembering that it is nothing more than me walking through a normal human experience (even if my family is full of wackadoos). I wish I did it better and more frequently, but it does help when I apply it. My sponsor continues to tell me that all my god wants is for me to chop wood, carry water, and leave the outcome to him.
  22. Still U.S. govt. property and would be an NFA item to boot. They’ll never legally enter the US again and if they can source .45 acp they’re probably already in the fight. But, it’s fun to imagine that the CMP would offer them like Garands and 1911s.
  23. Not sure how to post the link or photos, but there are some fascinating pictures floating around showing where the Russian Wagner troops have found a cache of old weapons stored in salt mines near Ukraine border. There are crates of new Thompson M1A1 sub guns from the 40’s that we sent over in the Lend-Lease program that never made it into the fight and have been sitting there for 80 years.
  24. My G40 is smooth and I like it. Haven't shot the 20 but my experience with the 40 would lead me personally in that direction. YMMV
  25. My son has just begun using Huntin Fool. I’ll be interested in your follow-up posts. He’s young so he’s decided to go all in for the long game on tags with the goal to hit some of those 20 year waits. I’m hopeful things work well for both of you!
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