The yellow flowers of the Devil’s Tongue Barrel Cactus have been coming out in our patio garden for several years. A few weeks ago, we bought another Devil’s Tongue we saw in the garden shop. Although we knew that the Devil’s produced pink flowers, we did not know until just this week that the new cactus was going to have pink flowers. Click on the image to enlarge.
This beautiful flower opened up today on our patio. It’s a ‘Santana‘ hibiscus, a miniature (4 inches/10cm diameter) version of Hawaii’s state flower. Click image to enlarge.
After I finished signing the various and sundry agreements required when checking out of the workplace on my final day as an employee, I went home and commenced enjoying retirement.
One of the perks is that I can now watch the Glenn Beck Show, which is scheduled at a time I would have been at work. Well, I watched the show today and I was surprised to see Alan Gura‘s face on the screen. It turns out that the SCOTUS decided today to hear the Chicago Gun Case and Beck was interviewing Mr. Gura on the topic.
Of course, we had the great pleasure of meeting Alan Gura at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous earlier this month. Mr. Gura was kind enough to autograph Damsel’s “Heller Kitty” T-Shirt, which she just advised me is a collector’s item to be framed – she NEEDS a new one to wear now.
In the image are (L to R) Mr. Completely, yours truly and Alan Gura enjoying a discussion in the hospitality room at the Silver Legacy.
Here’s an excerpt from the Beck/Gura interview today:
GLENN: Okay. So I know that the NRA didn’t want — I mean, they were afraid of the D.C. handgun bill. They were like, you know, I don’t — we don’t know how they’re going to come out. Why, why were both of you, you and the NRA, as soon as you won the Heller case in Washington, why did you both run to file this case? What is it that gives you confidence in this?
GURA: Well, first of all, it’s inevitable. I mean, you can’t really avoid these questions. And this is why we filed the D.C. case, too. We realized that the way things were developing in the law that the Court would answer the Second Amendment question very soon, and we wanted the question answered in a good case on behalf of law-abiding, decent people instead of the usual way that Second Amendment cases had gone up through the court in cases like U.S. versus crackhead, U.S. versus bank robber. Those are not really the greatest cases to take when trying to vindicate individual rights. The reason we went immediately after Chicago is Chicago has an identical handgun ban. It’s a crazy set of gun laws. And it’s fairly obvious that now that we know the Second Amendment applies to the federal government, the next big question is, okay, does it apply to state and local governments. Because most gun laws live at the state and local level. And let’s face it, Glenn: If congress can’t take a gun away and President Obama can’t take a gun away but the mayor takes your gun away, you still don’t have a gun.
And there are too many mayors willing to do that, Bloomberg being the foremost.
Sheesh – my last day at the office is tomorrow and I’m already homesick for a place where we’ve never lived. Now that retirement is imminent, I can’t wait to get to the new place. This wave of yearning was brought on when I looked at a photo of a sunset in a place we stayed last April in west-central Arizona. Click image to enlarge. Photo credit: Damsel.
Only a couple more days, and I will be enjoying retirement. Well, maybe not at first, since there are myriad chores and planning ahead until we can relocate to a place where:
I’m sure there are many more items I can add to this list.
We have talked about relocating to Arizona, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico – the options are open. Some areas within those states meet our requirements and others do not. There is much to research.
It is desirable to make the move sooner than later, but there is the matter of getting a fairly large Southern California home full of aged furnishings (and our junk, of course) with some items in mild disrepair, in shape to put on the market. It’s a daunting project, but we can work on it more-or-less full time.
Fortunately, we are in an equity position in our home and most likely will be able to pay off the mortgage plus purchase outright or make a considerable down payment on a home in the new location. It will depend on how extravagant we want to be in choosing a new home. Keep in mind that we are not planning to take many furnishings and no appliances with us. It will be a zero-time baseline on most items like that, so we have to take that into consideration in choosing a home.
Now – I have to figure out how to do all this California work while being a resident of another state. Not an easy prospect . . .
UPDATE: Scott Adams’ timing for this strip was perfect:
Today was 9mm day at the range. We scored a couple of fifty round boxes of Remington UMC 115 grain 9×19 at Big 5 yesterday for about $16 a box. We figured that we have enough on hand to let us take the S&W 908 and the Glock 26 out for a shoot. We also took one of the two S&W 686 revolvers and some .38 special for that.
We shot fifty rounds of .38 and 100 rounds of 9mm – basically fifty rounds through each of the three handguns we brought. And, of course, we brought the shotguns – my full-sized Remington 870 12 gauge and Damsel’s Junior sized Remington 870 20 gauge. We shot 25 rounds through each of those.
In the video, Damsel demonstrates that she can handle her 20 gauge and the 12 gauge with equal ease. She says the 12 gauge is a bit heavier for her to lift and has a little more recoil, but as you can see, she deals with it.
I took this really short video on Friday 9/11 at the shooting range where the Gun Bloggers Rendezvous gathered to have some fun and check out the guns and stuff. We had just as much fun watching the activity as we did shooting. We spent a lot of time wandering up and down the range to see what everyone was doing.
At one point, Damsel and I stopped to watch this interesting pistol raise itself off of the table. I’ll let Dave, who blogs at Random Nuclear Strikes, explain the exotic pointing system and tell you about the pistol that shoots .308 rounds.
I can tell you that the recoil from every single shot brought the muzzle six to ten inches above the rest he was using.