Only Took 5 Months

Not long after the covid hype started, I began searching the news to see if any major American celebrities had died. I don’t mean people like the guy who played Otis the Drunk on The Andy Griffith Show. I mean people whose names a typical American would recognize. We finally have an example. Covid has been here since last fall, and Roy Horn died on May 8. I would call him a minor major celebrity. He’s not Tom Brady or Jennifer Lopez, but people have heard his name.

It’s remarkable how long it took. I thought we would have a couple of dozen by now. It’s even more remarkable when you consider the fact that many foreigners are famous in America.

Of course, he was in very bad shape. He was 75, and he had been crippled by a tiger bite. He was also a homosexual, so he may have had other health problems from substance abuse or infectious disease.

How are things in northern Florida? Great. That’s just how it is. Sorry if you live in New York or New Orleans. I’m not trying to make you feel bad.

We’re still waiting for the meat shortage to hit. It doesn’t look like it’s coming. I went to the grocery yesterday, and the place was swimming in chicken, beef, and even pork, which has been hit hardest. Ground chuck patties were selling for $3 per pound.

I always look at the hoarder stuff when I’m there. They had a lot of Bounty paper towels (cheap brands don’t count), and they were putting toilet paper on the shelves late in the afternoon. They even had a bottle of Dawn, which I bought. I thought I needed it for the laundry room sink, but I didn’t. Sorry about that. There was still no rubbing alcohol. People are probably pouring it on their food.

The meat problem was supposed to be here by now, wasn’t it? It has been 11 days since I noticed the story, and people were talking about a two-week delayed impact. That means everything should be gone in three days. We’ll see.

After shopping, I texted my poor cousin near Chicago. She still can’t get meat. People are still insane there. Going to Costco is like trying to beat the crowds in the movie Soylent Green. Her son says it takes hours to get in the door.

This mess is not the same for liberals and conservatives. Liberals are more hysterical, their areas are suffering the most, and the vast majority of the suffering is caused by bad behavior, not covid. It appears they really do treat others much worse than conservatives. The way they clean out stores is a wonder to behold.

Shouldn’t be a surprise. Leftists are the only people who riot and lynch. Conservatives don’t know how. When you see conservatives fighting in the streets, it’s because leftists came to their events and attacked.

It’s not like goods aren’t being shipped to liberal cities. They are. Cities are very powerful, and those in power will see to it that goods come in. Obviously, the problems arise once they get there.

Cities will get goods even if rural people have to starve. There is no electoral college for food distribution. Food will go to the power centers.

People who are against God are much more afraid of death. They think this life is all there is. What a pity. This life is pretty dreary. Childhood is hard and very degrading, then you can expect to get a job you don’t like, then your body falls apart slowly, and then you die. If this is all there is, your prospects are horrible, and the threshold for choosing suicide should be very low.

If you’re afraid of death, you are capable of just about anything. Hungry human beings have been known to eat their children.

I suppose they have a better excuse than well-fed women who have abortions.

The Christian attitude is much different. Think of all the Christians who have allowed themselves to be murdered for the good of humanity.

It’s strange that San Francisco is doing so well. It makes me wonder if something much worse is in store because of their rebellion.

I should mention my friend Travis, who is still in intensive care. The nurses open up to us occasionally, so bits of information get out. The latest news is excellent as far as I’m concerned. He is no worse. That indicates they’re not talking about unplugging things. His situation is far from good, but it’s not the kind of crisis it appeared to be two days back.

If no one you know has died in a hospital after a long illness, I’ll tell you how it works in most cases. The staff will know when your loved one is very likely to die within a day. They know the signs from experience. They will tell you to get your butt to the hospital if you’re not already there. A couple of days ago, it looked like we were in that situation, but now it’s clear that we’re not. It was misinterpreted by relatives who had been ignoring Travis and were shocked to learn he was on an ECMO machine. I’m not saying a person can’t seem stable and then die suddenly, but we had one set of expectations, and now it’s clear that we are looking at a different paradigm.

I only have two medical professionals among my close friends. Both work with gravely ill and dying people. One started out as a hospice CNA, and now she manages other nurses. She has seen hundreds of people die. She is on Travis’s prayer team. She is very positive today. She said, “We’ve got a fight!” That’s correct. We weren’t told to come drive him home, but we have a fight. She also said, “He can bounce back.”

The other professional runs a hospice. His basic sentiment was that if a person isn’t declining, he can turn around.

Of course, this is just speculation in the natural. Lazarus stank from decomposition when he was healed, and Jonah, who died, was pulled back from sheol.

I have been seeing demons in my bedroom, and my belief was that they were the demons that were trying to kill Travis. Last night, I bound and muzzled them in the name of Jesus. I spoke defeat to them. I forbade them to come near me or Travis. I slept the whole night through. I was surprised when I woke up. I have been waking up before dawn, consistently.

It will be nice when we get a better report. I’m tired of feeling distressed when a text notification goes off. I’m okay, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t unpleasant.

I’m planning to make .38 Super defensive ammunition. I don’t need it, but I feel stupid owning a gun and having so little real ammunition for it. Also, it will be fun.

I did not take notes when I reloaded a decade ago. I think all of my .38 Super reloads are from that time. To get information, I had to go back through blog posts. I’m learning my lesson. I’m creating text documents with lots of facts. I even use the outline feature. It’s almost as if I used to be a scientist!

You would think a former scientist would have done it this way from the start, but I didn’t.

It looks like I had a lot of problems in the past with the Hornady Lock-n-Load AP press. I was getting a lot of unprimed cases. Because of that, powder spilled everywhere. I was using Accurate No.7, and the grains are tiny. They went right into the workings of the press and gummed it up.

I was not happy with Hornady. The press is a good product, but you can’t pop one on your bench and expect things to go perfectly. There are a lot of adjustments to be made, and there are things that are not deburred well or massaged at the factory. Hornady support has a great reputation, and that’s good, because press buyers need it. You can root around the web and read about all the problems they have.

People told me to buy a Dillon press, but if you check the web, you’ll see that Dillon owners complain just as much. Many knowledgeable people say Hornady’s products are the best. It appears that brand loyalty is the main reason people say either brand is better than the other.

Progressive presses are complicated, and they have to be set up just right. A manual isn’t enough. You have to have experience and good advice, and you have to be good with tools. That’s just how it is.

A well-adjusted Lock-n-Load will work great. Until it doesn’t. Then you will lose one or more rounds because the press has gone crazy, and you’ll have to make an adjustment. Then it will work great again.

When you get a press running, you may forget all the breakdowns and struggles you had getting it to where it actually worked. I did. New users who are frustrated aren’t whiners. They’re not imagining things.

A guy who calls himself 76Highboy has great videos on running the Hornady press. It’s great to see how well he knows the machine. There is no problem he can’t help you fix or avoid. But the fact that his videos have to exist tells you how hard it can be to make a Lock-n-Load work.

He’s a bona fide Lock-n-Load guru, and his dad was a proficient reloader, but he obviously had a lot of problems, because he had to learn to fix them.

Here’s something weird. The powder measure requires a fatter O-ring than all the other stations. Hornady will never tell you that. Also, you may have problems with metering the powder because of static electricity, so you should rub the affected parts with a dryer sheet.

My press had at least one defective primer seating punch. It has two, and I have only checked one. It was obstructing the slide that loads the primers. The manual doesn’t tell you about that. I had to grind material off the slide with a Dremel so it wouldn’t hit the punch. A punch that sits too high will prevent primers from loading, and then you fill unprimed cases with powder. The powder leaks through the primer holes, and then your press locks up or fails to register correctly.

When I switch to my other punch and slide, I’m going to grind the other slide before I even check to see if it works. The alteration won’t hurt it, and if the slide needs it, it will save me a ton of misery. I’m also going to stone the slide to get rid of burrs, as Highboy76 recommends.

Every Lock-n-Load should come with a friend who finally got his to work.

People will tell you you’re the problem when you’re really not. You can say a press operator is the problem if he wasn’t born knowing how to deal with the product’s many issues. That’s not really fair. It’s like saying you’re the problem if you don’t know exactly the right way to jiggle your defective toilet’s flush handle.

If a product you paid good money for doesn’t do exactly what it’s supposed to do when you follow the manual, the product or the manual is the problem. Don’t blame yourself.

I need to get out and shoot the .38 Super more. It’s wonderful. I’m concerned about losing casings, though. I’m thinking of using a red marker to color them and make them stand out after they land in the pasture.

Some day the Beast’s cruel, infantile children will take our guns away, and I won’t be able to shoot steel in my own yard. I need to take advantage of what I have while I still can.