shooting pancakes by bike light

SHOOTING PANCAKES BY BIKE LIGHT


As a few of you might have noticed, we just had a public shooting here in Nevada. That might not even have made the news had it happened in Las Vegas which is the states actual toxic waste dump, not the Yucca Mountain site which you have been led to believe. Yes, Vegas, better known as Los Angeles East. I’m all for giving that corner back to Arizona. After all, aren’t they practiced in a running drug war already? But evidently Vegas is too much of a craphole even for them. The unfortunate part is that having all the population, Vegas runs the rest of the state as their own private colony. GOD!!! Why did you have to get me started? Anyway, this happened in Carson City. As it featured an AK-47, National Guardsmen victims and even perhaps a Mexican national, it was bound to be huge news. You will hear all kinds of caterwauling over evil assault rifles all over again. Of course, if the Army allowed its soldiers to stay armed, instead of being treated as incompetent children incapable of handling a firearm, this would not have been a Fort Hood repeat. What a bunch of politically correct jag bags. But even worse than the tragedy of civilians being needlessly slain ( going back to the need to get expensive official permission to carry concealed ), was the fact that our shooter was totally incompetent.

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If you give the average intelligent adult an AK-47 with a full clip, let him loose in a parking lot full of unarmed sheeple, how can he do worse than only killing four people? What is the range? Thirty yards? Then, after firing up a bunch of asphalt, the guy goes into the pancake house. Range about ten yards. And doesn’t do too great of a job of killing everybody there also. He then goes out to his vehicle and shoots himself in the head. And survives!! Oh, he dies several hours later, but he can’t even shoot himself point blank range. What a friggin bozo! It almost seems that you want a shooter to have an assault rifle, since he can’t hit crap. Thank goodness the doctrine of spray and pray has penetrated even to the shallow depths of a crackhead. They think just waving the thing about makes them Rambo. This isn’t a celebration of needless deaths. I don’t let it bother me, since we are surrounded by it daily, but I don’t root for it either. It just amazes me how incompetence, even under perfectly favorable conditions, is so pervasive.

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Well, it tis the season. The daylight hours are shrinking and it is time to put the lights back on the bicycles. I used to have a front and back bike light on year round and just changed the batteries as needed, but I had to remove the rear light to mount my bike rack. Plus, the front light is usually mounted behind all the crap piled in the front basket. Ah, the trials and tribulations of bike cargo carrying. I was trying to figure out how to get both bikes lighted up. Since the seat post is no longer accessible, and the handlebars are blocked, I had to get creative. I didn’t want to spend a buttload of money. Your normal bike light is made for a thick bar as a mount. To mount it on my slender back fork I would have to have bought a specialty light for $35. I thought about buying a one foot long piece of one inch PVC pipe ( they sell them for those projects needing less than the standard ten foot or whatever it is ). I could have zip tied that to the rear milk crate then put the bike light on that. I could have mounted the front light closer to the brake handle so you could view it even if the basket was overloaded. But then a better idea came to mind. Instead of mounting all those lights to both bikes, I’ll just wear the lights. Even if you don’t have two bikes you ride alternately, this is still a better idea.

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Back in the day that the dollar store carried the blinking red LED bike lights for a mere buck, I stocked up on them. The next cheapest price I had seen was $7 per light. I think that stockpile will need to last me awhile, so I don’t want to use them any faster than I have to. Instead of using two per bike, and really having no good place for them, I’ll use two total. I’m wearing one clipped to the back of my backpack. The other is on one of those foot long fabric necklaces with the clip on the end. A lanyard, I believe ( yes, I wore a lanyard in the military, I just had no idea these things had the same name ). You see people wearing them around their neck for ID badges or keys or USB drives if they are nerds. I imagine you could also clip them to a reflective safety vest, doubling up on your visibility. But I like my backpack and lanyard idea. A very real benefit is also the fact no one will steal the thing from your parked bike. Not an issue now, but it very well could be once bike use explodes amidst $200 a barrel oil. And while I’m a bit weird having two bikes when most folks have none, come the day you are stuck in the suburbs you will see the wisdom of having a backup to your primary transportation ( you have two cars now, it will soon be two bikes ). Using a common set of lights will be a great idea when lights are $50 and batteries are $5 each.

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Now do you see the benefit of sweating every single purchase, even two or three bucks? You come up with these kinds of nifty ideas. You are very welcome. Now go buy my Amazon crap. I need to buy a gallon of WD-40 ( aerosol cans are north of $3.50 now, so I’m going with bulk liquid and a toothbrush ) to keep my bike oiled.

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