Bullets and Barbecue

Do I need an intervention? Be honest. As long as you tell me what I already want to hear. Yesterday, I was fooling around in the workshop, and I found a thousand rounds of AK-47 ammo. It had been there for three years. I had no idea I had it.

When a thousand rounds of ammunition mean so little to you, you forget where they are, is it, maybe, time to ask yourself if you buy too much gun stuff?

NO! NO! IT ISN’T! I’M NOT THE ONE WITH THE PROBLEM! YOU’RE THE ONE WITH THE PROBLEM!

I guess I shouldn’t be afraid to take some target practice with the AK. I now have so much AK ammo, I need a handtruck to move it.

In related news, I visited the nearest long-range shooting range today. It’s down around Leesburg. Their website says they go out to 900 yards, but the lady who talked to me at the range said it was 850. Okay, whatever. It’s far enough to help me learn how to shoot.

To qualify to use the 850-yard range, I have to shoot at 400 and let them grade me. That means I have to get the Ruger Precision Rifle working. My plan is to shoot it this weekend and then go to the range when it reopens on Wednesday. Should be fun. I’m not sure why there is cow manure all over the parking lot, but you take what you can get.

The range reminds me of the pickle leftists are in if they seriously try to start an internal war. While I was there, I saw the other customers. They are not leftists, and they were happily plugging away at targets off in the distance. Ignorant urban terrorists who hold their guns sideways would do very poorly against them.

There is a hilarious Youtube channel called Tactical Rifleman, and the host is a guy named Karl Erickson. He’s a retired Green Beret. Wonderful channel. He says something really funny about pistols. He says that when you’re in a gunfight, you should bring “an adult gun.” He makes a very convincing case for semiauto rifles in home defense, which is good, because that’s my conclusion, too. Anyway, there are tens of millions of conservative men who already know how to use adult guns, and they’ll be fighting “men” who haven’t figured out how to pull their pants up.

When I got home, I went and got me a haircut at the Chamber of Excessive Testosterone, better known as the barber shop. I barely had time to get into my book on long-range marksmanship before it was my turn. When I entered, I had my Biden face diaper in place, not knowing what the current mask policy was. I saw that no one else was wearing one, so I took it off. There was a big discussion of everyone’s hatred of face diapers.

I don’t quite get the conservative hatred of masks. I hate them. Sure. But I hate them mostly because they’re uncomfortable and because people think they do things they don’t really do. I’m not that agitated about the political aspect.

Many conservatives get really mad when they have to wear them, and it seems to be because they think it’s part of a big conspiracy. There is definitely a conspiracy to exaggerate the danger of coronavirus and the effectiveness of face diapers, and it’s true that Satan is using masks to train people to serve the Antichrist, but I think my mask gives other people a small amount of protection (assuming I have the bug and don’t know it), so I am willing to wear it.

My understanding is that it does virtually nothing to protect me. If I go into a place where people aren’t wearing masks, I’m going to get their germs regardless of what I wear, but I can reduce the germs they get from me by wearing the diaper. That’s according to the last expert advice I read, which may be totally obsolete this week.

Anyway, I love the barber shop. It’s full of fishing tackle and dive paraphernalia, and the magazines are about guns and fishing. I haven’t seen a hipster beard or a fruity millennial hairstyle there yet.

I got something else done today. I have been thinking of building a steak cooker from a propane weed torch. The idea is to project an incredible amount of heat down onto the meat, giving it a somewhat blackened surface. I tried it today, holding the weed torch in my hand.

I prepared an inch-thick rib eye. It took very little time to go from raw to medium-rare. It was also nice and hot inside, in spite of not being overcooked. It had a good burnt flavor, as a steak should, and it was a little different from a fried steak’s flavor.

Still, fried steak is better. No doubt about it. I’m thinking I may continue to fry steaks while using a hand-held torch to add flavor.

I’m contemplating getting an electric smoker. I built one years ago, and it was great, but I threw it out when I left Miami. My friend Mike just got a Masterbuilt, and he sent pictures of the meat. It looked wonderful. It wasn’t black, so the smoke wasn’t full of creosote, but he said there was a deep smoke ring, so it wasn’t just roasted.

I don’t have much interest in pigging out or getting back into cooking in a serious way, but it would be nice to be able to get some decent barbecue. Yes, the barbecue around here is very good by restaurant standards, but I can beat it easily without leaving the house or putting on a face diaper. I can pretty well founder myself for 10 bucks.

I stopped typing and wandered off, but I’m back. I have a smoker on the way. I went for a nice stainless job. It’s electric. I read that electric smokers don’t give you a smoke ring, but people who judge contests claim the flavor is exactly the same, so good enough.

When it arrives, I’ll toss some ribs in it. Maybe I’ll low-carb for a blissful week. That would be nice.