Hi, everyone. Happy Black Friday. So far my only major purchase today is a food dehydrator, because I’ll probably use one $50 worth, but not $90 worth. At this time, Texas has not managed to turn the Kansas game into a nail-biter got soft, but lived through terrible special teams to survive. There’s the Texas Longhorn football team I love and hate. Rematch with Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship game? Can we say “OU Sucks!” if UT wins twice in one season?
I think I’ve been outspoken about my belief that oil would be more likely to hit $50 than $150. Just read an article where independents are drilling and capping wells in the Permian Basin that can be profitable at $35/bbl. They’re waiting for logistics issues to resolve (which are clearing up ahead of schedule. Its crazy how fast you can build pipeline when you’re willing to pay extra to go to the front of the line for supplies and labor.)
Nice response by the Birmingham, AL cops. It seems as if the “engage active shooters” doctrine is taking hold.
We’ve done a fair bit of talking about guns in these Friday sessions. While we all love fine guns (well, most of us do) and the activities in which fine guns are used, there is always a need for fine cutlery as well. If you hunt, then knives are important for a variety of things, especially after you’ve fired the final shot; that’s when the fun ends and the work begins and a good knife with a good edge will make that work go a lot more smoothly.
But there are many more uses for a good knife, whether your outdoor activities include hunting, fishing, camping, hiking or just lounging around in the outdoors. So, let’s talk about a variety of cutlery for a variety of purposes. Qualifier: This is about knives for hunting, fishing, camping and general outdoor choring; I won’t discuss fighting knives, throwing knives or any other such special-use stuff. At least not in this article.
Sheathe Knives
Two words: Full tang.
Western W36
My Grandpa had a great example of a handmade knife some years back. A local guy who Grandpa had done some carpentry work for during the Depression had no cash but was handy with steel. He had a bar of razor steel and offered to make Grandpa a knife out of that. Grandpa agreed, and the result was a wonder, a full tang (meaning the steel of the blade extends fully into the full profile of the handle, with grip panels on either side) knife with walnut grips. That knife would take an edge like… well, a razor, and would hold it. I remember watching Grandpa hone it, wipe it on his old razor strop, then proceed to slice paper by dropping it on the blade. Sadly, when Grandpa died that knife disappeared along with all his fishing gear and his old Fox double.
About the time Grandpa left us, my folks gave me a Western sheath knife, the old W36 Bowie type blade. That knife not only takes a good edge but (as I know from experience) will hold it through two deer or a cow elk, including not only field-dressing but skinning and quartering. A good solid full-tang sheathe knife like that will do you through almost any outdoor choring you’re liable to run across.
If you’re dealing with either small game or fish, there’s one sheath knife that really stands out; it’s flexible, holds an edge well, it’s lightweight, and it’s not even very expensive; that would be the fine old Rapala fillet knife. Its fine, tapered blade is delicate enough to take thin fillets off small fish and to deal handily with rabbits, squirrels and birds. With the 6” version you can easily field-dress a deer, so long as you have a hatchet or saw to cut sternum and pelvis. But the Rapala isn’t really a big game knife; it’s with small game and fish that the Rapala shines.
Some things to look for in a fixed blade sheath knife: A full tang, a stout blade (it shouldn’t be thin or whippy, unless it’s a fillet knife, when a thin blade is needed) and a good hilt to keep your hand from sliding up onto the edge.
Rapala Knife
Folding Knives
Two words: Buck 110.
Buck 110
There are many folding hunters by many manufacturers (Schrade in particular makes a very good one that is a doppelganger of the Buck 110) but the Buck 110 Folding Hunter is the gold standard by which all such folding hunting knives are measured. It has a fine stainless blade that will take and hold a good edge while literally (as Buck commercials used to show) being tough enough to survive being hammered through a nail. I have one that I have carried since I was about sixteen; I’ve dressed deer, antelope and javelina with it, along with all manner of smaller critters. It rode my belt through my Army service and saw duty there for everything from opening MRE packs to (closed) rapping on the crew doors of armored vehicles to get someone’s attention.
Buck, Schrade, Case and a number of other manufacturers make good solid folding hunters. I suppose there may be some off-brand blades that are of acceptable quality, but I have yet to see one. I have a small 3” folding knife that carries the Winchester name and according to the blade was made in China (what the hell isn’t?) and it’s of pretty good quality. I was given that knife as a gift back when Winchester was still Winchester; I can’t speak for the quality of any such knives now, if indeed such a thing is still available.
Some things to look for in a folding knife: A solid riveted hinge, a secure lock, and good brass or steel on each end of the knife. A quick-opening feature can be handy but isn’t essential, but a good lock is – you don’t want the knife folding up on you when you’re elbow-deep in elk guts.
Pocketknives
Two words: Swiss Army.
Sometimes I think there are many variations on the Victorinox Swiss Army Knife as there are stars in the sky. You can get a cheap little inch-and a half version with a tiny blade, a file and a toothpick, you can get a massive version with screwdrivers, a corkscrew and a magnifying glass, and everything in between. One thing you can count on; if it says Victorinox on the knife, it will be a good buy.
When I was a kid the Barlow was something of a standard among the farm kids, hicks, rednecks and roustabouts I grew up with. They were good for whittling, cleaning fish and small game, or any of the other thousand and one tasks for which we needed a cutting instrument. Those knives are now made by Schrade and are still a good handy pocket knife.
Some things to look for in a pocket knife: Light weight, portability, a good stainless blade (440 is the best) and a handle big enough to make for a good safe grip. Multiple blades are handy but not essential.
Oddballs and misfits
I can’t summarize this in two words.
Herter’s “Bowie.”
Those of us old enough to remember the old Herter’s catalog (the real Herter’s, not the purveyors of junk that have somehow acquired the name now) will remember that old George Leonard Herter had some very distinct ideas about outdoor equipment, and knives were no exception. I have one of what old George called the Herter’s Bowie knife, which isn’t at all like Jim Bowie’s classic design but instead looks more like a steak knife. But looks aside, the old Herter’s sheath knife has a stout, thick stainless-steel blade of good quality steel that holds an edge well; its lack of a guard makes some caution in handling necessary but it’s a good solid outdoor knife. Mine has been used to dress out few eastern whitetails back when I lived in Iowa, and always performed well.
The Wyoming Knife is another oddball, this one a specialty device meant for one purpose: Field-dressing and caping big game animals. It’s a funny-looking thing. While I’ve never used one, I have used knives with a back-hook meant for field dressing, and it’s handy to be able to quickly and smoothly unzip a deer, elk or antelope. It makes for a nice clean process, or at least as clean as field-dressing can be. Now that I think on it, I may have to try a Wyoming knife next season.
And don’t overlook such multifunction tools as the famous Leatherman. Plenty of military folks carried one when I was in back in the Cold War Army, Mrs. Animal among them. While it’s not really a “knife,” they do have knife blades along with all the other various and sundry tools found in the device. It’s a handy thing to have around and while I don’t carry one on my person as a rule, one does live in the tool box in my truck.
Wyoming Knife
And so…
And, finally, some unsolicited advice. For those who frequent gun shows or any other kind of outdoors trade venue, or even if you look in the glass cases in many gas stations and truck stops, you’ll see a wide variety of knives for sale at some incredibly low prices. Believe me when I tell you, they aren’t worth even the few dollars they charge for them. They might make decent paperweights, but as practical cutting instruments they aren’t much good.
Most of them are made from Chinese, Pakistani or Indian steel that is unevenly tempered and full of cinders. If you can manage to get one to take an edge, it won’t hold. Don’t bother. Pay some more, get a good quality knife from a reputable maker, and you’ll never regret it.
There’s an exception: If you know a knife is going to be abused, don’t spend a lot of money. My Dad kept several cheap pocketknives in a drawer, rarely having paid more than a couple of bucks for them. He used them for scraping paint, for prying, for digging, whatever his choring around the place required, and when one broke – they inevitably did – he would toss it in the creek, go in the house and grab another. While there’s an exception for every rule, that’s the only one I can think of in this case.
A knife is (or should be) a serious tool for serious business. You don’t have to go broke buying one, but neither should you cut corners. Pick carefully and you’ll have a good solid piece of cutlery that should last a lifetime.
STEVE SMITH HAPPY TO SEE YOU, AND HAVE TURKEY IN POCKET! HIM FIND TURKEY IN CAMPGROUND AFTER PAYING VISIT. BY PAY VISIT, MEAN RAPE CAMPERS. NOT SURE IF SMOKE TURKEY, FRY TURKEY, OR RAPE TURKEY. MAYBE ALL 3? STEVE SMITH HAVE GOOD DIET. HIM GET ALL 4 FOOD GROUPS – SCAVENGED FOOD, FOOD FROM CAMPER AND HIKER, CARRION AND RAPED FOOD.
BUT YOU NO CARE ABOUT STEVE SMITH CUISINE CHOICES…YOU WANT LINKS. HERE ARE LINKS!
Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Gathering for the day with my large extended family at my paternal grandparents’ home was always one of the best days of the year for me while growing up. And I wish it were still possible.
I realize that I–unlike many–won the parent and family lottery. There was, and is, no acrimony in my family, no factions setting up against each other. No history of abuse or addiction. I had adult role models that I grew to respect and love even more as I matured. I know this is all too rare, and I am filled with gratitude that I had such a happy and solid start in life.
Because of this, holidays without my grandparents and my Mom are always bittersweet. Today, while my heart aches for my departed loved ones and for those among the living with whom I can’t spend the day, I feel immensely grateful to have had so many people in my life worth missing.
Nobody can replace those I cherish who have moved on in one way or another, but I’m thankful for the new friends I’ve found here among the Founders and the Glibertariat.
Now, enjoy yourselves (yes, I am the boss of you!) in this Thanksgiving Night Open Post.
Happy Thanksgiving, American Glibs. Happy 4th Thursday of November, International Glibs. I’m getting onto a well-oiled family gathering on my mother’s birthday. I’m not gathering with her. She and my father took in the Taj Mahal for her birthday. So I’m happy she’s doing something for herself. We’re gathering with my mother-in-law and some cousins.
The balloons made it out at the Macy’s Parade today. (t/w autoplay) For some reason this last classic example of department store demand-driving advertisement still seems like classic Thanksgiving for me.
I gotta get busy cooking, so these will be brief. And I figure that y’all are too busy to do a lot of commenting anyway, but still. It will be a noisy day here, since it’s just SP, Wonder Dog, and me.
On our menu, besides obligatory football:
Arugula salad with red wine vinaigrette, tomato coulis, and bocconcini
Celeriac gratin (see the recipe post from this past weekend), with Champagne (Cedric Bouchard Inflorescence)
Roasted balsamic-glazed Brussels sprouts with pecans
Porcini and white mushrooms in a red wine gravy en croute, with Hermitage (1990 Jaboulet La Chapelle)
Apple-cranberry crisp with Swiss Servator’s Glogg
Love to know what the rest of the Glibertariat is doing…
It started so….simply. The CDC said to stay away from Romaine lettuce, until they figured out why it was giving the bloody flux, dropsy, the grippe or whatnot. I shrugged and headed off to work… just a couple of hours, and then I would have a nice 4 day weekend for Thanksgiving.
On the way home, I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a couple of last items for Thanksgiving. “Huh, looks like all the romaine is gone.”
Then I noticed it. The mood was…ugly. The shoppers were already blasting adrenaline, and in a surly disposition. This didn’t help. In fact, it pushed them over the edge…
This ain’t Black Friday, son…it is worse!
I was surprised at the lack of response at the store. Bust a shoplifter, and usually there were three squad cars roaring in for the kill (hoping it was a hot 17 or 18 year old perp). Now…nothing. I fled the store, and that is when I found out how bad it was. The cops didn’t come, because this scene was playing out everywhere. And not just the grocery stores. Riots at various and sundry sandwich places….rioting vegetarians and vegans at salad bars. I even saw a burning Sweet Tomatoes restaurant as I tried to make my way home.
“Go for the Arugula!”
Never got there… had to go by too many Panera Bread locations. The primal fury of the quasi-hipster mobs was something to see. How those skinny jeaned, bearded, Planet Fitness members managed to flip over the fire truck, and tear the crew apart…. no, I don’t want to know. I cannot erase the images from my already shaky mind.
The few of us that managed to make it to the farm (corn and soybeans, thank God it wasn’t a lettuce farm) tried to piece it all together. The cops were overwhelmed right away, and the states were collapsing before they could even think about calling out the National Guard. And what were they going to do, with their mess sections already in mutiny. Communications went next…everyone frantically checking their devices for the store that would let them get crazy Aunt Sophie’s @#$%ing salad mix. The net and the cell towers never stood a chance. Transport was impossible, as the roads became a single, extended road-rage episode. Hell, even domestic rabbits and chinchillas went straight at their owner’s throats.
“Fluffy…I am sorry. We, we…are out of lettuce.”
In the quieter moments, when we are not trying to scratch in the soil – hoping for one last head of butter lettuce – I marvel at how fragile our society was. A wanderer did come by and mention that he had heard a few hydroponics outfits in rural Canada may have survived. Come Spring, we may send a scout up that way….but I hold out little hope.
Not sure why I am penning this, in the last pages of a scavenged spiral bound notebook. Vanity, I suppose. Maybe I just hope it will serve as a warning, should the survivors rebuild a civilization someday.
The madness is about to begin. All the food stocks have been laid in, bottles of wine are standing up, Champagne is chilling, and the TV is programmed for SP and me to have a Norman Rockwell-style traditional Thanksgiving on the couch, yelling at 22 guys on a grass field pounding the shit out of one another. Life is close to perfect, and (not to be smarmy) we are super thankful for all the wonderful friends from here and the old Reason days whom we’ve gotten to spend time with, both virtual and face-to-face.
Enough being sincere, time to light the Snark Signal.
Nothing lasts forever — and a German teenager has learned that lesson the hard way, by losing his driving license just 49 minutes after passing his test. The 18-year-old, who was apparently celebrating his achievement by driving four of his friends around, was clocked traveling at almost twice the speed limit less than an hour after his test, police said. They also speculated that the driver was trying to impress his fellow passengers.
Huh, you have to admire fine detective work like that.
Time after time, I run into scientists who claim, almost in the same breath, that they are committed to improving the lives of others but that they have no interest in listening to these people they are supposedly committing themselves to. This was brought home to me some years ago, when I was advising the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology on the safe and beneficial development of nanotechnology.
I might nominate that one, wondering, “Who advises the advisers?”
As I read this sludge, I wondered, “Is this someone who has even the slightest notion of how product development works, as opposed to tech research?” Then I found (unsurprisingly) that not only has he never worked outside of academia, he runs a FUD Ranch, raking in money from grant agencies, book sales, foundations, and companies in CYA mode. And I note that in the movie he uses as his frightening example (a great film, by the way, though the comedy escapes him), no one is actually harmed except the dignity of the inventor. Oh, wait, there’s the Milton Friedman spoon fallacy:
In Stratton’s scientist brain, his breakthrough is going to transform the world. He assumes that people are sick of washing, mending, and replacing their clothes, and that his invention will liberate them. He dreams of a future where you only need to buy one set of clothes—ever. In Stratton’s head, what’s good for him is also good for everyone, and a world without the messiness of buying, washing,and looking after clothes is definitely one that he’s excited about. But there’s a problem—several, as it turns out. And one of the biggest is that Sidney never thought to ask anyone else what they wanted or needed.
After he cracks the secret of his new fabric, word of the discovery leaks out, and everything begins to fall apart. Those in the textile industry realize that this is not going to end well: They need their products to wear out and need replacing if they’re to stay in business, and the very last thing they need is clothes that last forever. Mill owners and their investors aren’t the only ones who stand to lose from Sidney’s invention. If the industry collapsed because of his new textile, the workforce would be out on the streets. And so, in a Luddite-like wave of self-interest, they all set about challenging Sidney, not because they are anti-science, but because they are pro–having jobs that pay the bills. Even Sidney’s landlady plaintively asks, “Why can’t you scientists leave things alone? What about my bit of washing, when there’s no washing to do?”
The UA-led team found that by the year 2100, sea level could rise as much as 10 inches more than the previous estimate of approximately 30 inches by 2100. To figure out whether the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet would affect global climate, the research team modified one of the most current climate computer models to include the ice melt.
Adding the melted ice into the team’s model indicated that the global temperature would increase by 2 degrees C (3.6 F) by the year 2065, rather than the year 2053, the team writes.
“Hey, that’s still plenty of grant time before our prediction is falsified!” GodDAMN, I love academic science.
High-priced San Francisco is known for launching trends, however, feces-laced graffiti may be the most peculiar and disgusting one yet.
While surveying parts of downtown San Francisco, the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit discovered graffiti that appeared to look as if it were made from feces. The markings were found along sidewalks on two different blocks: 700 block of Ellis Street, between Polk and Larkin Streets, and the 500 block of Larkin Street, between Eddy and Turk Streets. Piles of excrement were also found near each of the markings. However, NBC Bay Area did not test the graffiti to confirm the presence of feces.
Don’t worry, the mayor is on it!
In comparing [Mayor London] Breed’s first three months in office with the three months prior, San Francisco 311 data reflects an 8 percent increase in complaints regarding used needles, 3 percent increase concerning trash, and 30 percent increase regarding human feces. “I don’t think it’s because the city is actually dirtier,” Breed said. “I think it’s because more people are reporting the challenges that exist.”
While Breed acknowledges “there is still work to be done” in cleaning up San Francisco, she no longer appears willing to attach any type of time table to future progress. When asked when stepping over feces will no longer be the norm in San Francisco, she quipped, “soon rather than later.” When pressed for more specifics, Breed, with a smile, repeated herself, “sooner rather than later.”
If Sloopy or Banjos are looking in, you may want to check your kids’ whereabouts.
Old Guy Music! And this is short and fun, just like SP.
Congratulations!! We have made it through another session of glibfit!! I hope you achieved your goals, or at least learned something!
If anybody is interested in taking the reins for the next round of GlibFit, let me or SP or somebody know. I’m thinking that late March or early April is a good starting point for the next GlibFit, but I don’t really want to lead the next one. Frankly, I’m running out of material.
Happy Thanksgiving and happy GlibFitting from me and Mrs. trshmnstr!!
