Tom Thumb can now pack some heat.

Little novelty guns I first saw on Youtube (new meaning to "mini" gun) a while back. Often times they are made by European watch makers or hobbyist, guns like these fire 2mm pin fire rounds. Normally blanks, though they do make rounds with lead bullets too. So if you need to kill a cockroach with a very small gun, this would be it.

Now for those that know something about bullets, pin fire is a type of round where the hammer of the gun strikes a pin that then transfers the kinetic energy to a primer inside the casing as opposed to center fire where a firing pin on the gun strikes the primer on the back of the casing. This type of casing was popular in Europe in the mid 1800's until the advent of center fire rounds. Today pin fire is only really made for novelty guns like this that are too small for center fire and rim fire style cartridges, or hand loaded by people who have old pin fire guns from the period.

Keep your stick on the ice...

Madhat

12th Armored Division Memorial Museum

Well I decided to play with embedding videos. Here is a short one that shows a little bit of the museum I do occasional volunteer work for.

The 12th Armored Division Memorial Museum is dedicated to the men who served in the 12th Armored Division which was formed in September1942 and deactivated in December 1945.

The Division itself only saw 5 months of combat, but in that five months they fought in many battles and were greatly feared by the Germans. They were also liberators of many of the death camps such as Hurlag, Landsberg and Dachau. They are also known as the unit that captured Werner Von Braun.

There is much more to their history, which can be read http://www.12tharmoredmuseum.com/ and http://www.12tharmoreddivision.org/history.html.

As museums go, this one is small in physical size, but it is packed with displays, photos, and even a few vehicles. They have a very active living history group associated with them, which gives historical presentations on various aspects on the war.

One more short video, this one has the curator and good friend of mine William Lenches speaking a little bit about the museum, and driving his jeep.

Hope y'all enjoy. Still getting used to writing these things.

Shopping

Went shopping today. With Father's day coming and Mothers birthday, I went to Books A Million. Now my mother being a rule breaker asks for a diet book that is nigh impossible to find. Yes, a diet book, for some reason it is a hobby of hers to read all the weird diet books out there. So There I am, looking at the diet section, scouring the shelves for this phantom book. I look over to the next shelf, and it is the fiction/literature section, and I start laughing thinking how appropriate it was to stick these two sections together, as most diet books are fiction in my opinion...

Next I am looking for some Percy Jackson books for my dad. He says they are in the teen section, which I guess most people think would be weird but they are about his speed and he has not been one for in depth dramas as most books seem to be these days. (That and I bet they have large print). So I am looking in the teen section, and all I see are these vampire books. Now I have not been in a cave or anything, so I know it is the current fad, but I just started realizing there is now a generation of women who idolize fictional men who sucks the life out of them and comes out only at night, whereas it used to be exceptionally buff guys who rescued damsels in distress. In essence, I think female standards for fantasies have gone down.

Anyways, next bit of insanity I had today was at work. Apparently an employee wants one of those sanitary disposable seat covers for the bathroom. Now I understand that sometimes people make a mess, but my thing is, you take a piece of toilet paper, and you clean the seat. If that is not enough to do the job, then either go to another toilet, or get something to clean it proper. Now for those who like to go on about the germs, I would like to point out that when you flush, it sprays those same germs all over the bathroom. Yes, the same germs you were worried would be on your precious hind end is now covering you all over. Second, if you don't clean up the mess that may or may not be there, and use the princess seat cover, you are still sitting on that same filth. Do you dare risk picking up that seat cover now that it has been exposed to the seat? What I am getting at is this, for as long as toilets been around, people have sat on them. If they were soooo deadly, that sitting on them and getting a germ or two would kill you, we would not be around to worry. Also, in this case, I am not talking about a dirty omg bio-hazard toilet, I am talking about a toilet that is cleaned regularly that honestly, I never have seen so much as a dribble on it. It is just some guy who is overly worried about germs or wants to make people do something because he feels he has no control over anything else so he acts like an arse over his arse.

Now as a disclaimer, I do believe in sanitation, I do wash my hands, but there is a such thing as over kill. For example, hand sanitizers. Now they do have their place, and they are great in places where you have to wash hands frequently like doctors offices and restaurants. But in this same aforementioned bathroom, there was in addition to the two wall mounted soap dispensers, but also one wall mounted hand sanitizer gel dispenser, and two pump bottles of hand sanitizer, you know, the big 1 quart ones. Why? Antibacterial soap is not enough? What in the hell are you doing that you need wash and disinfect your hands twice? Maybe the guy that wants disposable princess seats knows something I don't...

Okay, enough observations and rants for the day...