Shooting Glasses

Thus far I've come across three types of shooting glasses that accommodate prescription (Rx) inserts.

1. Radians StrikeForce and StrikeForce II (8600 & 8650), which use the RX-85 inserts
2. Revision Bullet Ant, Desert Locust, and Sawfly, which use the Rx carrier
3. ESS Profile NVG and Advancer V-12, which have an available Rx carrier

Radians is the cheap solution, but the Rx insert sits such that the top of the insert is slightly above the outer lenses, which is pretty uncool.  Revision or ESS are much more expensive, but appear to be much more rugged.

Charisma Man

Charisma Man is an amusing, if not chauvinistic, comic about a Canadian dork who goes to Japan and manages to get girls—except when his arch-nemesis Western Woman shows up and ruins the effect of his "special charisma".

Some people have commented that the perception of Japanese woman going ga-ga for Caucasian men is racist.  However, I've seen it in action enough that I consider it a fair assessment.  I've found it completely annoying when a girl is hanging off the arm of a total dweeb, way out of her league, who wouldn't be able to get a girl back home, which is probably what drove the authors to write the comic.

I would make the point, too, that some Caucasian women, particularly American women, have gotten too big for their britches, e.g. excessively liberated, and they could use a dose of reality.  Perhaps if enough eligible bachelors find mates elsewhere, Western Woman will have a change of tune.

Japanese women's discretion has improved in recent years due to the popularity of American TV shows in Japan; at least they have a cultural frame of reference, however exaggerated.

Full-Auto Battery-Launching Airgun

This is bad-ass.  This would be a cool project, except I'm more interested in launching smaller, more practical projectiles!

NSNs

I've seen NSNs on listings of military surplus (both used and new-old stock) for a while, and determined that only the items that actually had a NSN shown were the genuine article and not repro.  There's a site ArmyProperty.com that has a lookup of NSNs to goods, which is pretty handy.

As far as gas/water cans go, olive-drab.com has some detail on how they went from metal to plastic.

The "War" on "Terror"

Excellent.

There is no War on Terror. If there was, the whole nation would be told to take up arms. Everybody would be armed, even on aircraft. Inexpensive AK47s would be stored in every closet, much like arms are stored in homes all over Switzerland because the Swiss government has nothing to fear from its populace. There is only a war against our freedom in the name of a created threat that doesn't exist. We have been duped into surrendering our liberty in the false name of security by a government that sends us out into the "War On Terror" unarmed because we cannot be trusted with guns. The most basic of all rights is the right of self defense against criminal attacks. A great equalizer between the weak and the strong, guns in the hands of women could reduce assaults upon them by stronger male attackers by 80%. How can it be said that women have equal rights if they cannot carry, yet Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush all hide behind guns for their protection because they're much more important than our wives, sisters and daughters? Again, the only 'war' is on our freedoms.  (Jack Duggan, "The Bear That's There")

CCW AAR & Lessons Learned

One gunblog had a link to an after-action report on Arfcom of a shootout between a concealed-carry type and a bad guy.  There are two lessons to be learned from this: 1) Carry a weapon without a grip safety, as you might not be able to operate it with your hand(s) shot, and 2) Either carry a weapon without a manual safety, or leave it off, since the bad guy might hear you switching off the lever.  #1 kind of disqualifies 1911s and XDs from being a good CCW gun.  Maybe they're ok for competition, but there are features that compromise their usefulness.

Build Your Own First Aid Kit

Yet another prepper site, BePrepared.com.  The build your own first aid kit page is a neat idea; too bad they're low on interesting items like NPA/OPA and coagulant.

Mall Ninjas

Apparently the term came from forum posts on GlockTalk and later HK91 from a seriously delusional individual.  They're archived on LonelyMachines, as they should be because they're truly legend.

Load Calculation

In lieu of a real structural engineering calculation, from various reading online, here's how I gather it's done.  In my application, I need to calculate the minimum number of jack/trimmer studs to support a 24 ft roof truss span with a 2 ft overhang to get a clear opening of 6 ft.  The load factors are the dead load of the roof weight itself and the projected roof snow load.  Live load is irrelevant since the snow load will exceed the live load requirements.  One concern is that I don't know what kind of wood was used in the construction of the house, so I need to determine that as well as the relative strength with respect to the wood specified in the tables.

The Southern Pine Council has some nice resources to calculate spans and such, of course using southern pine for framing.  The Headers and Beams document contains information to calculate the header needed for a given span, as well as the allowable roof load given a header and number of trimmers.  The latter is what I was looking for, and the illustration for the load calculation is quite helpful.  (This is the ref207.pdf file, numbered page 27, which is 29 of 36 in the PDF.)

eHow has an article on the calculation of roof snow load based on ground snow load and the pitch and area of the roof.  The article makes reference to a Cornell University snow load calculator, but doesn't provide a link.  A search turned up a course page with a calculator.  (Perhaps I should buy the textbook, Structural Elements for Architects and Builders, by Jonathan Ochshorn.)

The other concern is wind load, since we get a lot of wind on the hill.  The IRC has something to say about that, which I have yet to research.

Of course I'd feel more comfortable having a professional do the calculation; the conundrum being, am I neglecting my due diligence if I don't?

Sleeping Bags

So I was looking at the sleeping bags that FDG carries, as I've been considering what I ought to add to my prep kit.  There's the military ECW gear that costs some serious coin.  FDG has Wiggy's bags.  I was intrigued because supposedly the military uses them in some applications, but there're some forum posts that totally trash their performance.  Recommended in place of Wiggy's were Western Mountaineering or Kifaru.  Finding good gear without buying a bunch of not-so-good gear is difficult.

Apparently the buzzword in insulation is "continuous (filament) fiber", which doesn't require baffles or attachment to the bag shell.

Silhouette

Interesting device to "print" out cut stencils.  The wife might find this useful, so it could be a neat Christmas present for her, albeit a bit of a spendy one.