Shaving

Is shaving cream a racket?

If it is, I've gone whole hog the other way, into hipster British shave preparations and fine badger fur shave brushes.  Ima Geo F Trumper Limes man.  More expensive than Colgate foam, but it smells so GOOD.  Sixteen bob a jar.

But I've always been a wet shave man.  Never was happy with an electric razor.  Military school frowned on them anyway.  You couldn't get a close enough shave.  I remember when Dad switched to a Trac II cartridge, so that's where I went.  When Dad did go to 2 blades instead of the safety razor he had a lot fewer little bits of bloody Kleenex dabs on his face. 

But nowadays, the quality of the blades doesn't seem as good, and they only come with that slime strip that I loathe.

So, what to do, if I couldn't find the cartridges I wanted?  Switch to those 6 bladed jobbers that cost $12 a week?  No, I stepped back.  To the safety razor!  And good blades that are yet very cheap.  This is 2 years worth of blades.  One fifth the cost.

The trick to fewer cuts is to get a decent blade holder that works for you.  I bet that was Dad's issue.  A crappy holder.

But I was always intrigued with stories of my blind grandfather, shaving in his personal darkness with a straight razor in front of a mirror he couldn't even see.  So, for one year, every Saturday or Sunday...  I finally worked up the nerve to use one of these.

Surprisingly, my trepidation was unfounded.  I only shave with the grain, and don't have the skill to get as close a shave as with a safety razor, but it feels good.  And I like mastering a new skill.

And yes it is pretentious and hipster.  Not stopping me.

Or Straight Razors

"Fountain pens, automatic watches, tube amps, revolvers, mechanical cameras..."  I am right there with you, Tam, on old style tech.  Fascinated by it.  And dabble in it to one degree or another.  

But.  I can tell you definitive experience, the technological progression of the shaving razor were all upgrades.  For a time.  (Tam doesn't argue agin this, per se, this is more a general old-style tech argument with To Whom It May Concern in the header)

I shave with a straight razor occasionally.  I am decent at it.  It is easy once you know the method and get over that first scary hurdle where you might, no shit, cut your throat unto death.  It's a skill and a luxury shave when you have time.  Like on a Saturday.

But a straight razor is slow and inefficient.  Compared to a safety razor.  You know, that double edged razor blade invented a bit over a hundred years ago.  I shave with one.  Most days.  Much faster to accomplish when you gotta get to work.  My father shaver with one, too, in the 70s.  I shave with it as a bit of a conceit to the older tech.  But.  Then...

Remember the hype of the Trac II on the TV commercials?  'The first blade cuts, the second blade gets it before it retracts into the skin.'  I'm here to tell you, on a beard only 24 hours since the last cut?  This razor is much closer, much faster, much more efficient than a safety razor.  Fewer nicks and cuts too.  A  disposable double blade would shave faster than my Olde Timey safety razor at only a bit more cost.  

Then, the razor reach exceeds the grasp.  It's harder to get under the nose with a triple blade, even harder with a quintuple blade.  The slimy lubrication strip on the cartridge just makes it harder to clean your face after.  The swivel does nothing special.  Shaving efficiency hit the wall in the 1970s, sad to say.  I use Mach 3 three-bladed cartridges when I shave my head.  For my face?  Nothing patented after 1975 is an improvement.  If Trac II cartridges without the slime strip were still available I'd still have one. 

The greater 'market' signals this, now, too.   People are hungry for alternative to unwieldy 6-bladed razors that cost $20 a cartridge and delivers extra benefits on a diminishing return for four decades.  And those markets have risen in to place to satisfy this hunger.  Cheaper, simpler, subscription services.  And retro folks like me returning to safety razor solutions (ten cents a week, after you guy a $70 handle.)   

---

(Oh, and I love fountain pens, but I get ink on my fingers and they do require regular care.  And never loan one to any one born after 1975.  They don't know how to hold it. ) 

Shave

I shave with a straight razor on weekends.  For fun.  As a treat.  I've blogged about it.

I went to one of them fancy barbers that still do the hot towels and whatnot and shave you with a straight razor.  I am an amateur.  I wanted to know how it felt when a professional does it.

MUCH faster.  And less grabby.  His strokes were much smoother than mine.  Sure of themselves.

I asked him what the most realistic representation of a straight razor shave he saw in a movie.  Right away he said Peter Pan.  Smee shaves Hook.  He has the grip right, the strokes, and even does the backhand right, he said.

Gillette is full of Lefty SJWs all of a sudden?

Naw.  They'd ALWAYS been like that.

King Camp Gillette was Utopian Socialist and wrote a book called The Human Drift, 125 years ago. 

It's about "replacing competitive corporations with a single giant publicly owned trust ("the United Company") [that] would cure virtually all social ills. One-third of the book is devoted to Gillette's plan for an immense three-level metropolis (called "Metropolis") on the site of Niagara Falls. Designed to accommodate a population of tens of millions of inhabitants, the mega-city would draw its electric power from the Falls."

About the only thing going for them is they are a slightly less murderous flavor of crank.  Sort of like Ayn Rand is a utopian capitalist, these folks like Gillette and Robert Owen. Never hear of him?  That because he didn't murder millions like welterweight socialists like Hitler or Lenin.  Or tens of million like heavyweights Stalin or Mao.

Razor technology has fascinated me for some time.  And I totally grok the evolution over the past century, through personal experience.  Safety razors require less skill to give more efficient shaves than a straight razor.  Double edge razors are better than the safety in efficiency and comfort and closeness than a safety.  Triple edge are marginally better than doubles.  Then you get into diminishing returns with your 7 blade vibrating razors with slime strip.   There is a reason to switch to new and improved through the 20th Century.  The new IS improved.  Until lately. 

I've shaved with all of them.  While I enjoy a straight razor shave, it's really not for every day.  Too slow.  Normally a safety razor is my go-to, and good replacement blades are cheap cheap compared to the more moderns.  But every now and then I shave my face with a drugstore brand plastic double edge and realize that the safety razor isn't really the most efficient.

I use the Gillette Mach 3 on my head.  I get two heads to the blade.  Expensive.

We won't get into manufacturing processes that made disposable razors possible, or the hypocrazy of a socialist in the business of planned obsolescence.  (Yes, I said hypocrazy)

---

While a straight doesn't seem to have any costs after initial investment, that's not entirely true.  And upfront costs are steep.  To get a good razor is $150 and up.   Don't drop it, you will ruin the blade beyond repair, chances are, and now you need to buy another.  Stops and badger brushes wear out.  An extrafine ceramic sharpening stone is another $100.  $100 buys a thousand weeks worth of safety razor blades.

The main reason I learned to straight razor shave is because what if I trip into a wormhole and get thrown back in time?  You need these skills.  Now I just have to get used to cellophane collars and wool in the summer

---

Update:  Stephen Green had a similar shaving journey as me.

Straight up

Been shaving with a straight razor for a while now.  Usually at least once a weekend.  So, time for a review.

The stubble from a cutthroat razor feels different.  Like each individual hair is slices off at a different pokier angle than with other types of razors. 

Using a stone may be better than strop.  I'm not so good at the strop, skillwise, maybe.  And Ultra Fine ceramic wasn't around before safety razors got popular.  I wonder if old timer 125 years ago would eschew the strop if they had access to always flat ultra fine ceramics? 

It's slower shaving this way than with the safety razor, and that is slower than a 3+ bladed disposable cartridge.  And to tell you the truth the closeness of shave matches the speed.  I shave my head with a Mach 3, and might never have done this experiment with my face if I shaved my upper lip still and had access to decent Trac II cartridges 10 years ago.  So why stick with something slower and less effective?  Good question.  It's fun, to tell you the truth.  To train myself to use old tech like a razor.  And if the balloon goes up I will be able to shave longer than folks that need blades from Peoples Drugstore.

Oh, and the worst razor burn I've ever gotten has been from electric shavers.  Second worse from cartridge razors I had to use for 2 weeks.  Then straight razor.  But a splash of Old Spice aftershave fixes it right up. 

Gear o matic

Advice I should take from Carteach. Or at least keep in the FOREFRONT of my mind. You already got pistols, plural? You’re already a gunnie? Carry what you got, practice with what you got, TRAIN with what you got. Stop looking for yet another new-gear solution to a problem.

That said…. I kinda want a spare .45 1911, and a spare .40, and a spare snubbie, and a spare .380. Cuz, you know, it’s a spare. What if I am in a snubbie carry situational day and my snubbie is broken and in the shop? Plus, more toys are fun. It’s the trap all gunnies fall into and we all need to work through it in our own way.

(Ooo! And that carbine I want! And the bolt action .308… and the scatter gun… )

~~~

It doesn’t just apply to guns. I’ve gone the same way with shaving lately. I have 4 different types of shave soap, all upgrades to the old Barbasol can I used for 20 years. I’ve tried 4 different variety of safety razor blades. And I am looking with a covetous eye at more badger brushes and even… straight razors and accouterments. Lord help me.

For those of you that want the “just get a midrange 1911 and you never need another handgun” school of thought for shaving and think my advice is worth anything. A Tweezerman badger brush and a $5 shaving bowl, a Merkur barberpole razor, Feather safety razor blades from Japan (Shark is good too), and the ladies love sandalwood so get Geo F Trumpers shave soap in that scent. You can’t do much better than that.

Skinning knives

I’m a traditionalist. If things were good enough for hundreds of years, there was a reason they were good enough.

Something new might be better, but I insist on decades of testing before I’ll relent. Then it’s not so new anymore, anyway. But if it is still around and not faded away in faddish fashion, THEN I’ll adopt it.

With firearms, I like 75 years of field testing. It’s why I prefer the Garands and 1911s and revolvers. The AR pattern is coming along, but it still too new-fangled for me. Oh I may get something newer for myself on occasion, (like a SIG,) but my heart is with the old stuff.

When it comes to knives, I need a few more decades/centuries to be happy. The ideal knife, for me is just carbon steel. None of the fancy alloys, thank you. Vanadium, chromium, and molybdenum? Might as well carry a plastic gun.

And forging? Coal, please. Coal has been around long enough that I don’t insist on charcoal forges. None of those propane forges for me. There is just something wrong about them.

Damascus steel blades warm my cockles, aesthetically. Pairing metals for the binary Damascus knife I’ll go with 1095 carbon steel as the primary, and wrought iron for the secondary. If I am feeling modern and adventurous I’ll go with L-6 steel for the secondary. It’s a nickel-steel used in bandsaw blades. It’s been around a while. And it looks handsome in a Damascus blade. It is my preference. And I know this West Virginian blacksmith with a coal forge that makes GREAT knives…

That’s for knives. For chisels of plane blade or wood-carving, the standard O-1 is fine. Damascus chisels are a bit over done. To me. And the Japanese prefer them, which is another reason to eschew Damascus chisels. Nothing personal, Japan, but you killed my grandfather at Peleliu.

No one makes plain Jane carbon steel knives anymore. That’s what Grandma had in her knife drawer and they are black with oxidation if well cared for. Brown with rust if not. The O1 steels are easy to sharpen, but they dull easy too. They take a finer edge than the stainless varieties, but that quality of edge offered by stainless might be all you need. Stainless is tougher, it’ll hold what edge it has longer, but is much harder to sharpen when you need to do that. And you will need to do that.

If you are whittling with a Swiss Army Knife, switching to carbon steel knife is often an epiphany.

There is a new steel out that the knifemakers are hot on. S30V. It’s supposed to be the ideal new cutlery steel, and it requires some fancy production techniques to make the raw blanks. FANCY. (And knifemakers are cuh-razy! Crazy in a good way. Absolutely obsessed in their pursuit of the ideal knife.) It’s stainless with some very good wear/abrasion resistance. And tough. It’s the Glock of knife steel. Perhaps a revolutionary jump forward. But, like Glocks, I’ll need a century of field testing before I get enthused enough to buy one for myself. I don’t think S30V is making much headway in the wood working tool steel world, but I also don’t think it was ever intended to. I have problems enough with HSS and W2 steels in THAT world…

(I'd dread sharpening that S30V. With wear resistance that good it will be tough to get the edge back. O1 steel, plain carbon steel, dull faster, but are easier to resharpen than stainless. And you can get a better edge with carbon steel. But this S30V stuff has a trick up it's sleeve on grain size to get a fine sharper edge than is typical, so that is good.)

And that is just a sample of steel types used for cutting tools. Oh the plethora of metal varieties and variety of fabrication techniques. The mind will boggle.

What does this mean when the rubber hits the road and I am selecting a skinning knife? Well… I can’t afford the fancies right now. I don’t hunt extensively and successfully to justify a knife much north of $100. So when I am helping MBtGE clean a deer (or cutting my thumb bad enough to need stitches) I am probably using an unknown metal-content skinning knife with a Browning label on it. It is almost certainly a stainless variety, and not expensive. I forget the exact price but I'm sure I wouldn't have popped for more than $60 or so. It’s better than the $10 made in China knife MBtGE has with a big ding in the edge, and it won’t get that ding. The Chinese cheapy had it’s place though. It is used to spit the rib cage of a deer at the sternum, and you don’t care what happens to the knife if you mess up. And if it is sharp and all your other knives are dull, you will reach for it, certainly.

If rich I’d get a Damascus skinner and might spend $300+ on it. And my amateurish hunting pursuits would mean I’d have much more knife than I’d need. I would get $300 worth of value out of it. But I’d like it! I better like it, as I’d have to care for it the day after any use of it to keep the corrosion down and to touch up the edge. I could shave with it. The guy with the S30V skinner could rinse off his blade and maybe think about sharpening it in a season or two. He might not (or he might, I’m not super familiar with the metal) be able to shave with it, but this is his skinner. He has a razor for shaving with, after all.

I did sharpen MBtGE’s knives last year for him. They needed it. He comes from a farm background and many farmers are notorious for the poor way they treat their handtools, knives included. A typical farmer doesn’t oil up his chisel and put them away in a fitted spot in a handmade wooden tool chest in a climate controlled indoors like a cabinet maker will. That chisel gets left in the barn, where it rusts. If it needs sharpening a quick touch up on the belt sander with 100 grit paper does the edge up. And that’ll work. After a fashion. The same treatment for knives.

Let’s see, what else do we use on deer cleaning duty? Little disposable utility knives, like box cutters, with a razor blade type strip of metal. It get’s the job done, but no points for style.

So my knife snobbery is not perfect, by any means. But remember, like gun snobbery, the arguments on the knife forums can be as epic as the ones on gun forums. Fun, but trying after a while. And there are MUCH better knife people out there than me. I bet Tam knows as much about knives in comparison to me as she knows about guns.

Shorn

Gave myself my first straight razor shave!

More Fantasy

Hey, speaking of being Bill Gates rich.

What would YOU do if you woke up one morning a billionaire?

I'd buy land. Mixed timber quality woods and some meadow. Place a nice house on it. Some outbuildings. Even small cabins out in the hinters of it. I'd never have to worry about getting a hunting license again because I'd have enough acreage to do my rifle shooting and not bother the neighbors. There'd be enough acreage and outbuildings that I could have a BIG blog meet and be able to put everyone up.

I'd HAVE a nice gun range on that parcel. Rifle and pistol, separate. With proper pits for the rifle targets and the ability to do IDPA without endangering anyone on the pistol range. Maybe a shoot house. What's a blogmeet at a billionaire's estate without some shoot house work?

I doubt I'd buy that big truck, bet there would be a few nice vehicles in the garage. 1965 Bonneville. 1957 Cadillac DeVille. 1952 Dodge Power Wagon. Those are just for fun. ATV's and Farm equipment for the property.

I wouldn't prolly get a big ostentatious custom pick em up truck. But you never know.

The place would be on the grid but I could disconnect if I wanted to and rely on my solar panels and other options for power.

I'd buy that OV-10 Bronco, and get a lot of hours in learning to fly. Not the Bronco, at first. That's no beginner plane. To learn I'd get a T-34. Or 2, because, hell, I'm rich.


Of course there would be some serious firearm acquisitions to add to the collection. Even a few machine guns. Just for giggles.

But that would be all I'd acquire. I'd like to set up a living history museum of my own. Make an artificial 'street' on property with simulated storefronts. I'd have these filled with early 1900's era artifacts to make it look like a 100 year old functioning central business district. The blacksmith shop would be a working one, able to shoe horse. The apothecary could make up pills using powders from old jars (fresher ingredients, natch), the barber shop could give you a proper shave with hot towels and everything. The tailor shop would have the material and sewing machines needed for a skilled tradesman to set you up with a suit of clothes. Attached millinery, and dressmaker, too. A hardware store filled with old style nails, tools, paints, &c. A biergarten in the center of 'town', with beer made on premises. Shoemaker, Cabinetmaker, Watchmaker/Jeweler, Baker, maybe a Cooper, Cobbler, Stone Cutter/Mason yard, Butcher and Grocer. Some of those can combine. Hardware store and general store with a forge out back, and attached cabinet maker shop, that sort of thing.

I'd need Bobbi to come run the vintage electronic shop. I would be too strict on the era of materials. The 1914 'town' might just happen to have a 1965 era radio shack.

Don't forget the big steam engine and fly wheel to power it all.

There. That should cut into the billion. And secure my legacy as an interesting eccentric.

Even with a billion dollars, I bet I have more 'want' than wallet.

Shave every day and you'll always be clean

I ran across this ad the a tube of shaving cream from Palmolive.

I bet there was no Palm oil or Olive oil in this tubes. 

For those too young to know, shaving cream came in what looked like tooth paste tubes back then.  You could lather it up with a shaving brush in a bowl or on your face.  Or even lather is up in your hands, no brush, and then apply it to your face.

1953.  About the time Dad would have started shaving as a teenager.  

Of course I didn't meet him until the 1970s.  He used cans of Colgate shaving cream then and a safety razor.  When cartridge of dual blade Trac II razors came out he quickly switched over and had a lot less toilet paper on his face in the mornings. 

I said all that because of this... I wonder when canned shaving cream came out, with its evolutionary leap in convenience?  Help me Internet Kenobi, you are my only hope.

Ah, it was Rise shaving cream in 1949.  I guess it took some time to convert folks over.  But feasibly Dad could have used canned shaving cream his whole life.

Training Sensei

Guarding myself against the "One True Gun Fu" and being loyal to a single Sensei, I think I will get some shooting training from the gunsmith, Sam.  He's got creds, he's got the facilities, and I like his teaching style.  Plus I know where his place is without using the GPS.

And I certainly need improvement in my shooting skill set.  Shave a couple strokes off my golf game, so to speak.



"Try to focus on the front sight, T-bolt.  I'm Mr. Meseeks look at me.  But also remember to squeeeeeeeeze the trigger."

"Well, which is it?  Focus on the sights or pull the trigger?"

"It's kinda both... but you also gotta grip it 20% tighter..."

---


I maybe a bit premature to worry about falling under an over-dogmatic Svengali sway at this early stage.  

And you can fix this 'problem' by diversifying our instructor set. 

 

Gunnie Types

I've mentioned in the past another hobby of mine. I used to be more active with it. Woodworking. Now woodworkers can be like Norm Abrams, all decked out in expensive new big machines with a HUGE 3 car garage to do their projects. Others have a few low end Craftsman tools and make beutiful pieces of art out of plywood. Others like to work with Japanese handtools only, and their shops resemble a Shinto temple, sparse, and almost alien to Western woodworkers. Others only carve little ships captains and they need only a saw, a pencil, and a knife or two. Others use antique handtools.

I use antique handtools. Mostly Muhrikin. Though there are a few Brit ones in there. Very few Continental tools, but I've always been enthralled with the idea of a French bisaigue. Need to get me one of those...

I was deep into the nitty gritty of tool types and eras and makers and when the quality sloughed off and when it got better. (Hey! I bet Roberta know the difference between and Irwin and a Jennings...)

But it was only recently that I absorbed the data about the significance of the S&W 5-screw revolvers. Until that, I had no idea. It's taking a while to absorb this minutia, and I don't know if I'll retain that. I don't know why. It took forever to figure out the difference between round butts and square butts, too. (On revolvers. I got the whole thing down on butt-shape for people.)

In the tool world, there are types. Collectors, Users, various degrees of both. Some concentrate on one of everything, some on one company like Disston or Stanley or Norris. Some on one tool type. I know of 2 anvil collectors. One had structural problems until he moved all of them from the living room to the basement. Some users will still use modern tools for some procedures. Some won't use anything that wasn't available before 1812.

And gunnie types are the same. There are 1911 collectors. Colt collectors. Smith and Wesson collectors. Some go for milsurp rifles of the US, every issued rifle from 1776 on.

Tool types have an issue with Gunnie types. Gunnie collectors of Winchester stuff put a higher premium/price on some tools because Winchester made some handtools for a while. Ruger made a pistol shaped hand drill.

And there are gun users, that use their race pistol to shave off time at competition. These types may LIKE the idea of a Garand, but don't own one. Other users shoot target 1000 yards away with a souped up bedded rifle. And don't even own a pistol.

And there are combinations of all three.

What am I? I am less a gun collector than I was a tool collector. That's a reason I don't have a handle of the fine bits and details yet. Plus, gun collecting is more expensive. I'm a bit of a user, but I've done no competition, just a bit of training, and I'm not even a weekly gun range goer. There is another gun type. Politico. I'm that, too, as most of us are. But again, I'm not a Snowflakes in Hell type, or even a SaysUncle.

But all I excel in in guntypes is thinking on what type a guntype various people are.

Shaving x2

"What about electric razors, T-Bolt?  I don't know about relative efficiency, but... Maybe try those?"

You know, I did try some electric razors back in the day.  The Norelco ones with the circular blades, the straight across old school Remington kind, the newer fangled Braun types. They didn't shave as close, I got gigged at uniform inspections because of that.  And something about them irritated my skin and sometime that irritation because a skin infection.

One of the things about wet shaving is the intense application of hot water and a soapy product and then scraping away dead skin and skin oil with the blade.  It cut down on acne as soon as a shaved that way, regular.  Plus no other infections.  

I have noticed that older men switch to electric razors a lot of times.  I don't know why.  Looser face skin?  Less steady hands?  Same reason old guys look for something single action for ease of use?  Dunno.

pic.twitter.com/5IFdnL2stN

— Silver Age Television 📺 (@SilverAgeTV) February 26, 2021

Why am I this way?

Yes, I like and have old designs like 1911s and revolvers.

But there is a working rotary phone in my house.

I own more than one manual typewriter and occasional mail off a chatty missive.

My woodworking shop in the basement has few things that plug into the wall.  It's only recently I bought a drill that takes batteries in case I need to screw something in the driveway, away from an power outlet.  And my plug-in drill is a beast.  Too much drill for, say, driving a 1 inch screw.  Like hunting squirrels with a .44.

My watch is EMP proof. 

If I had a spot of and I wanted to put a steel building on, there are PLENTY of places that will put up a sheetmetal barn for you lickety split.  But I'd jones for a quonset hut, and all it's innefficiency. 

I shave with a straight razor when I have the time.   An old skool safety razor when I'm in a hurry.

I prefer wrough iron to mild steel.  Do you know why you can't buy wrought iron at the store?  There is SO MUCH labor to it. 

Why am I stuck in the past like this? 

1911s are heavy

When you carry one all day.  You usually aren't shooting bad guys with it all day, you are carrying it.

I know.  Let's put it in the milling machine and cut away a lot of metal

Whoa whoa, not so fast.

Yes, you can cut out slots in the frame.  I've seen it.

Save some weight that way.  You can cut some slots on the slide

You can go more aggressive with the metal removal, too.   Those are relatively small holes.  Let's discount the troubles the infiltration of holster debris might cause you, for purposes of argument.  Go for big holes.  And you can 'rout' away metal in other areas.  Make sections of the metal thinner, but leaving critical areas where stress happens beefy.  Middle areas, where you can make a hole because you need SOME metal there.

Ok, now maybe start with all titanium parts!  Lighter than that scandium stuff.  The frame on that top gun may actually BE titanium.  "Wait, T-Bolt, you want me to use the mill to hog away metal on titanium parts?  Do you know how hard titanium is to machine?  You can't even file that stuff"  I know, I know bear with me!   Let's say it was managed.

Now what?

Well, now it will take a long time trying to get the recoil springs the right strength so it will run the slide.  But it also has to strip a round from the magazine, so maybe you have to tune the magazine springs.  And the slide needs enough OOMPH to overcome the hammer tension of the mainspring in the mainspring housing, so you may have to lighten that, as well.

All these changes...  You might push the gun out of a functional envelope.  If you lighten that magazine spring so the frame can strip off a round because the recoil spring is now a different tension maybe it can't present the next round for stripping in the first place.  And you are getting light strikes because the mainspring is out of spec. And the recoil spring isn't robust enough to get that round to slid up the breach face and under the extractor hook that is properly tensioned.

You have paid the price for tampering in God's domain.  Well, JMB was pretty religious, so change that to, "tampering in Gosh's domain."  Things on a 1911 are the way they are for a reason.  Deviating from spec is more complicated than a swap-out.

Which is why I love the 1911.  All the little intricacies I've been lucky enough to learn about.  Did it seem simple at first, maybe?  Not so simple, is it?

There, if I am LUCKY.

---

Where else can you shave off weight?  Balsa wood grip panels!  Flutes on the barrel!  Give the whole gun the melt treatment to round all the corners and edges, because that removes metal, too.  Have you gun where a track suit and sit in a sauna to sweat out a lotta excess water, dip so it spits a lot, and hit the head before weigh-in....  No, wait, that last part is wrestling.

Notice

"Notice anything different about me?"

"Yeah... Did you shave your mustache?"

Details

I'm not a car person.  As a kid I thought I would be, but it didn't turn out that way.  It rankles thinking about how much a new car loses in value when I drive it off the lot.  Especially when there are THOUSANDS of new cars with birthdays that will never be sold.  Not to you, not for love or money.  Would you buy a 2019 model F150 with 55 miles on the odometer?  Well there are plenty out there, but you can't.  Ford will scrap that before selling it to you at a lower price point.  It's business.  

So I buy a vehicle for transportation.  It has to fit in my driveway, and has to haul what I need hauled, and it'd be nice if it worked in the weather.  And used.  Pre-owned.  So a bit cheaper. 

So with that attitude I don't run my car through a car wash.  There is plenty of sand under my floor mats.  If I wont pop for that, I certainly won't pop for detailing.

But I am rethinking that.  In an 'you only live once and what else you gonna spend your money on?' sort way.  If I am thinking that it is getting time to get a new used car, and have a plan for a year from today, today, I am getting the car detailed.  So my last year with it it feels clean.  If the car is still re-sellable, CarMax or whoever will detail it again, but I don't care because I turned it over.  

Maybe I'll go to the barber, too, and get a straight-razor shave if that bastard can avoid cutting my joogyooler vein.

African Queen

So, I am re-watching African Queen.  Classic Bogart/Katherine Hepburn flick.   Noticed something.

Bogie shaved with a straight razor.  FAST! I've been shaving that way every weekend, but Man o' Manischewitz, not THAT fast.  Wow.  You gotta watch old movie to see people that shaved normally that way demonstrate the natural way to do it. It's a bit of a lost art. Oh sure, people are shaving that way now, but they have to relearn with few people learn from from the old days. My grandfather used an electric shave when I knew him. My father used a safety razor until Trac II's came along. Which you also can't get anymore without a slime strip. Pah!

Drat.

The blog fodder tank is low, today.  Stream of conscious blogging? Sorry.

The doc is talking surgery for my feet.  Shave off some metatarsals to let the bleeding ulcers heal.  I hate this.  I am falling apart.  3 years ago I just had a back ache.  I thought it was just a 50 year old back.  Then all... this... happened.

It's a blow to the morale of the unit, I tell ya.

And worse, it is all so BORING.  Sorry about that.

I dunno how, but my vacation time accrued to max. I gotta burn some of that, too. Sucks to put sick days on the vacation side of the ledger, but, here we are.  Better than negative house, sure.

I don't know nothing about empty shelves.  I know I used to bring you the grocery report for this region at the height of the pandemic, but I've gotten stuff delivered the last few times.  Shipt.  Seems ok   You can't say "Bring me juicing oranges, a whole mesh bag!" and expect to get what you want, tho.  It makes up for it by me not having to walk around a store. 

   

My aching dogs

"So, yer feet ulcers aren't healing.  Our next step is surgery.  We go in through the top of your foot, shave away some bone on the bottom.  It'll be great."

Sure.  They fixed my neck-bones by going in through the throat, and took out my tonsils via an endoscopy.  Fine.  FINE.

I guess it makes a lotta sense.  Wounds on the BOTTOM are not healing.

Oh, and I totally forgot about that lemon sized mass in my gut. The treatment probably shrunk it. Probably.

Anyhoo, Thursday is imaging day.  Gonna get a CT of that mass and an MRI of one foot.