Randomness with Richard Bleil
Today is kind of a blue day. I’m sitting at my keyboard, and no real thoughts are coming to my mind. So, no blog today. Sorry. I’m not going to write one.
In my writing class in high school, we did this “free writing” exercise. The idea was to sit with a piece of paper and just write every random thought that crosses our mind. I’m not going to do this.
Bought a pack of underwear a few weeks ago. It came as a six-pack. Now when I do my laundry I just kind of hang loose around the house.
It’s amazing how well cats can communicate without knowing English. She tells me when she wants lovings, and I understand her. I wonder if she understands me when I speak. I wonder if she cares.
Playing with my Eddington 1917 rifle today. Not shooting it, just playing with the bolt action, leaving her empty. Some are hard to read, but I look at the stamps in her as well. I can’t help but wonder how many soldiers have carried her, and how many battles she’s seen. In the gun shop, they have the Russian version of her available for sale. A tiger pattern has been burned into her wood; she’s a gorgeous gun, built in 1911 as I understand it. It reminds me of the Ukraine. In the Eastern regions, there are separatists that have been wanting to split away from the Ukraine to gain their independence, or to rejoin Russia. I don’t know how many of these are true separatists, and how many are simply Russian operatives. Recently I read an article that said that the separatists have been armed by Russia, and the arms they have been provided are these 1911 model rifles. It’s not surprising. My Eddington may not be able to spray a pattern of bullets, but a .30-06 caliber rifle is still a formidable weapon.
A friend of mine was recently telling me about the new M-16s, the military version of my AR-15. It would be illegal for me to own an M-16 because it has been modified specifically for military purposes, but those modifications have been, well, modified. According to my friend, current M-16s are not fully automatic per se. They can be set to fire one, two, or up to three bullets in rapid succession, but no more. In Vietnam, apparently, when armed with the fully automatic version, soldiers weren’t really looking at where they were aiming. They simply put the rifle over a berm and opened it up. The US military thought this was a waste of ammo since they usually hit nothing, but I thought that was the point of an automatic rifle. You don’t really aim at individuals, but rather you sweep the area infiltrated with enemy soldiers to hit them all. None the less, this practice apparently caused the rifles to overheat as well, so now, just three shots is all they can fire.
My friend bought a couple of calves a few days ago. One died today, and the other looks like it won’t make it. She’s beating herself up over it, as if it is her fault. I’m trying to comfort her, but to no avail. I feel bad for her, but it’s really not her fault. Not this quickly. But it’s times like these that one realizes just how weak the English language is, with a lack of words to comfort others in a time of loss. She said she should have stuck with chickens.
My wife, when I was married, had a chicken. We had a little cage for it under the front deck. She would go out to feed and play with it every day, until one night an animal got into it. A human’s pet is a predator’s easy meal, I guess. My sister had a pet chicken, too. Well, chick, I guess. It was a school project to incubate an egg, and she got to bring it home. It was kept in the outdoor garage where dad had made an enclosure for it. It was still a chick when mom gave it to the milkman, so long ago that there were still milkmen. That night, teenagers were playing with it and over handled it. They meant no harm, I’m told, but it died. As it turns out, birds have very weak hearts, so maybe it was frightened to death.
So I’m sorry there’s no blog today. I’m just too depressed to write anything. I hope this doesn’t affect your day too adversely.
Bleil's Banter 