Just a quick note to say (once again) that this blog is not yet defunct.

We had a pleasant holiday with the wife's family last week, and are now beginning preparations for the annual gift giving holiday just around the corner.

I had opportunity a few weeks ago to visit with a friend I don't get to see often enough, and spend some time turning money into noise with a nice variety of handguns. Further, I have plans to do the same with another friend in a few weeks, only with rifles. All of us are attempting to identify the proper shooty school Firearms Training Academy to attend in 2010.

My boss is strongly encouraging me to use the little vacation time I have left before I lose it to the end of the year, while simultaneously blocking my efforts by throwing me into a year-end audit and requiring several weekends of off-hours maintenance work. Ah, the glorious life of a professional computer geek.

And a link: If I ever get around to building a home, I still think something like Quad-Lock ICF is the way to go!

If I've not published any of your comments recently, I apologize. I seem to have stopped getting the e-mail notification for comments awaiting moderation.

Comments won't be posted and e-mails won't be answered until September 15.

Here's hoping the world doesn't end in the meantime.

Aloha.

Those of you that have posted comments know that I moderate everything that gets submitted. This is not for censorship reasons - if you're clearly a real person I post the comment unedited. This is because spam-bots were submitting crap. Now I've had to enable moderation in my guestbook as well. I get very excited when someone takes the time to log their visit. Finding advertisements for male enhancement really ruins that for me.

So, real visitors, please sign the guestbook, because it makes me happy. Spam-bots, go bother someone else.

Some people have searched this site for the most interesting things...

I finally bit the bullet and upgraded to the latest & greatest of b2evo blog software. Please bear with me as I track down some bugs...

I've created a new category called Entertainment - at least for the time being. This is a place to comment on relevant books or television shows.

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I just completed Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse by James Wesley, Rawles. (Can anyone explain to me the comma?) It was a fast read, completed in just over 24 hours of having the book.

Without giving too much away, the story is about hyperinflation in the United States, resulting in the collapse of modern civilization and the pending Civil War.

While the title reads like an instruction manual, the story is written in novel form. Large amounts of survival related information is presented by characters in the form of monologues or lectures delivered to other characters.

The book is a little dated (c) 1999 (screaming fast 200MHz computers!) and takes place "after the turn of the century", but most of the information remains valuable.

I enjoyed the story, and would recommend it to others. I picked it up because I understand it is now out of print, and becoming difficult to find. I picked my copy up from Fred's M14 Stocks, at a slightly elevated price. I'm happy to have added it to my library of "Patriot Fiction".

I made a small layout change, to eliminate that huge header banner. I replaced it with a new logo - what do you think?

I've added a guestbook, for you friendly folks who might want to let me know you're reading my ramblings. Please ignore the ugly skin, I need to find a simpler one.

I received an e-mail earlier today from a site visitor, who let me know that my site wasn't working. I believe this was because he was using IE6, but that's just a guess on my part.

At any rate, I modified my index page to be more IE friendly, for those of you who use it. Please let me know if you have continued difficulty.

Also, GET FIREFOX.