Neanderpundit

I like being the Big Guy. I have always been big, and part of the time I have been fat, too, but I’m back to being just big.

I like that people equate my arrival with tectonic activity. I like that my stride is measurable on nearby geiger counters. I like that I have long arms and a tall and big reach (not as tall or as long as some, but adequate for me) I like that I’m big, and strong, and don’t have to prove anything to anyone.

Two things:

A long time ago, a friend got me into the habit of hitting things. Building columns, floors, anvils. he did it all his life- his knuckles were tough with callouses and the hide was thick and knobby over his fist. He said “if you spend your life hitting iron as hard as you can, a jaw feels like a pillow”. I fell out of that habit. I used to punch a brick as hard as I could stand, two, three hundred times a day. I fell out of the practice. I’ve started again.

I should start wearing a shirt that says “if it was me, you’d be dead” A cute picture of my dog for the first person that gets that reference.

Roberta speaks about Guy Lautard , serendipitously, at the same time I am about to take delivery of “The J.M. Pyne sories & other selected writings” by Lucian Cary.

Anyone who doesn’t have a clue who Pyne was, well, could be excused, because it was not a real person. The real person was H.M. Pope.

Harry Pope made what at the time were arguably the best rifle barrels of the day. The Pope muzzle/breech loading system was legendary- and Harry himself, along with his contemporary Franklin Mann used his barrels to outshoot just about everyone on planet earth. Speaking of Mann, my copy of “the bullet’s flight from powder to target” is dog eared and worn, and I wish I had a new one.

Anyway, I just today got my copy of “The J.M. Pyne Stories” and I’ll be absent blogging until I’ve gotten it read, and reread, and digested. And read again.

I have read some of these stories- Cary wrote for Gun Digest, etc. and i enjoyed his work there- but the idea of having all his stuff collected- I’m tickled.

Yeah, i fully expect to read this three times before I write another word.

Amuse yourself until I return.

Except You, Dick. You amuse Kelly.

Update: Wow, this rocks. To a civillian, this would be boring shit- but to a geek, a machinist, or a machinist wannabe- this is incredible. Riveting, even. Certainly a better read than I expected- and now, having read it, i’m bummed. Because not one more Lucian Cary story will ever be written.

Witness:

“A”: Where I was
“B”: Where the hildebeest was.

Less than a mile.

Sheeee-at.