Free In Idaho!

I’ve been hearing polars bears mentioned on the radio lately, way more frequently than is normal.  Of course, since I listen to “right wing radio” in order to keep up with  our marching orders from the mysterious Mr Big who controls all of us mind-numbed robots, most of the polar bear talk has been of the subversive, glowball warming denier stuff you’d expect. 

Well, I mention this because the other day I was in my neighborhood shooty stuff store looking to replenish my .22 ammo stock (which took a little hit over the weekend at Appleseed).  My interests in shooting goes beyond targets.  Yes, I have Fudd tendencies.  So I noticed the picture board in the lobby had been updated and I decided to check  the pics.  There was one there from end of March of this year of a broadly smiling young man with a polar bear.  Hmmm, says I to me, that looks like it’d be pretty fun.  But I didn’t know it was still legal to hunt the big white bears… after all, aren’t they nearly extinct what with all the drownings from falling off melting ice flows and all the heat stroke deaths they’re so prone to now that man has screwed up the planet so badly?

Apparently not.  I found a couple places on the net advertising guided polar bear hunts (in Canada).  One of them is Adventures Northwest, and the other is Alaska Hunting Safaris.   Now, I can’t vouch for the timeliness of these two sites, I just included them to illustrate a point… if we’ve got concensus on global warming, and the bears are truly threatened, how is it possible that a Fudd from Boise, Idaho was able to jump on a plane, fly north, shoot a bear, then come home and post a picture on a public bulletin board with his name on it?  I mean, shouldn’t he be in jail with his picture on the front page of USAToday “Boise Bear Killer Gets 200 Years To Life For Shooting The Last Polar Bear”?  I wonder if Dirk “Save The Polar Bears” Kempthorne knows about this?

(BTW, this is NOT the actual Boise hunter, but this guy is guilty too.  Why is it only GUN Fudds are the bad guys in all of this?)

I’m off to Vale, Oregon to participate in the Appleseed Shoot.  This is my Father’s Day present, and I’m pretty excited about it.  It’s expected to be 100 degrees or so over there, so I’m carrying about equal weights ammo and water.  I’ll have a report  and maybe some pictures later this weekend.

Just as a side note, we went in to town for the Dairy Days Parade last night.  There were a couple of young men sitting near us who were open carrying.  I doubt many folks even noticed (my wife didn’t).  We spoke for a minute after the parade about Appleseed, and about the assault weapons ban.  One of them mentioned that we only have a few months left to “stock up” before “the change”.   All his budget is being diverted to acquiring the things on his list before the gun grabbers take over.  Sounds about right to me.

This story is about as creepy as they come, and I would love to know what’s going on here

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Another human foot was found Wednesday on a British Colombia shoreline, the second this week and the sixth within a year in a bizarre mystery that has confounded police.

Like most of the others, it was a right foot encased in a running shoe, said police Sgt. Mike Tresoor. He said a citizen spotted it on a beach and no other remains were found.

Yup, that’d make your day wouldn’t it?  Strolling along the beach with the kids, looking for sand dollars and agates, maybe keeping an eye open for someplace to drill, and one of the kids shouts out, “Wow, look at THIS one, it’s a size 12!!”.  Gross.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more exciting afternoon of golf than yesterday’s round of the U.S. Open.  If you watched, you know what I’m talking about.  If you didn’t watch, let me give you some clues… Tiger Woods, knee surgery 2 months ago, bogey to start the day, 5 shots back, pain, incredible self control, fantastic skill, some luck, two eagles, Tiger Woods… whew!   There is no one better.

You know where I’ll be this afternoon.

I received a comment on the glowball warming post, suggesting I might want to post a pic of the seven inches of new snow that fell last night at Brundage.  Seven inches!  Yes April, you’re right, the snow stake doesn’t lie.  Simply amazing.  I’ll plug Brundage again too, because when it isn’t snowing there in the summer, the ski hill makes a great hiking and mountain biking destination, and they even run the lift to get you and your bike to the top.  My Sweetie and I hiked there last summer, and it’s wonderful.  But probably not today…

This morning we celebrate the official start of summer here in the Boise area,  marked by the opening of the Boise River for floating.  Six miles upriver from downtown Boise we have a wonderful park where there are innertubes, floats, rafts, and kayaks available for public rental.  One of our best things to do in the summer when it’s 100 degrees out is to park in the park downtown, catch the White Whale shuttle bus out to Barber Park, and rent your preferred river floating device.  Just drop into the  river and take a wonderful couple hours floating back to town.

Glowball Warming Update:  It is currently 39 degrees in Boise this morning.  Mixed snow and rain was reported at the Boise airport weather station during the night.

There will not be a line for floats at the Barber Park Rental Station today.  Wet suits advised.

Because if we weren’t having glowball warming, it might be snowing down here in the valley, instead of just up in the mountains.  Here are a couple of highway cam shots from this afternoon, one from Washington state, and one from Oregon.   It’s also snowing at Brundage, a ski area about 2 hours north of us, but the system that is bringing this stuff hasn’t really gotten us here in SW Idaho.  But today, instead of temps in the 80’s here, we’re struggling to hit 60 and there is a 30 mph “breeze” blowing.

Too bad B…S… isn’t an energy source, we’d have been independent a long time ago.

I had an opportunity to take the .308 out to the desert on Sunday afternoon.  In between thundershowers, blocked off roads for a bicycle race, and the always present range cows, I actually got some shooting done.  Here are a couple of my targets, the first at 100 yards, and the second at 200 yards, and two different handloads.  For the time being I think these loads are quite good for me to be practicing with (although I’m curious whether I might try a Varget load of 43.2 under the 175 SMKs?).  I think I’m making progress here, considering I still haven’t shot 100 rounds through the rifle yet.  This rifle is a lot of fun to shoot.

The other thing that was fun was shooting the old Glenfield .22 and the AK at 100yards, iron sights at an IDPA  shaped target.    Most fun of the day though?  Hitting a half gallon milk bottle full of water at 100 yards with the .22… no picture, sorry.  I did notice though, that shooting the other 2 very different rifles in between rounds with the .308 made for sloppy shooting towards the end.  I wasn’t trying to shoot the fun rifles with as much concentration as I was the .308, and after awhile it affected my concentration.  Probably won’t do that again.  But I will save up our milk cartons though.  Just make it a different day…

I had planned to write a post or two this evening, but I think I’ll pass… I know you’re probably sick of hearing how important it is, meaningful, critical, and just downright interesting, but if you’ve missed it, I must remind you that today is the Idaho Primary Election.  No, I won’t be liveblogging it.  They’re only expecting 35% turnout, even though we have a couple of good state races where there is actually a clear difference between candidates.  Sigh, it’s hard to feel sorry for Florida and Michigan Dems voting too early and not counting… Idaho’s Republican primary at the end of May means even less; and no, I did NOT vote for McCain, Paul, or “uncommitted”.  I wrote “Fred Thompson”  on my ballot.  Laugh all you want, but what else could I do?  I won’t hold my nose, and I won’t do the “party faithful” thing, because it isn’t my party.  And they’ll know what I mean when they read it.  (It just won’t change their mind.  Not changing mine either.)

We’re also expecting a tremendous rain/hail/lightning storm in the next little while.  We did this last night, and the road out front was flowing water from my neighbor’s grass all the way up into my grass.  It looked like a river, and today there was a line of pinecones and twigs on the crown of the street that looked exactly like the high tide line at the beach.  Whew!  It was exciting and more than a little nerve wracking.  So I’m going to turn the machines off, and wait for karma to hit me, or not.

(note: this has been sitting in the draft file for awhile, but this storm isn’t turning out to have the punch at my place that last night’s did.  Eagle was spared last night, but I hear it’s getting pounded tonight.  Just the same, I’m going to post it and be done for tonight.)

Wide open, for 1000’s of yards… all you can hear is the breeze.  And the distant rumble of the National Guard working out with some VERY large ordinance.