Rough weather driving tips

As promised in my upcoming column, here you go with some tips from the NC DOT:

" Snow and Ice:

Snow and ice make roads very slippery, especially when the temperature is at or below freezing. Hard-packed snow increases the danger of skidding. As you drive, watch for shady spots, bridges and overpasses since these places are often the first to freeze as the temperature drops. If you must drive during a snowstorm, reduce speed, use windshield wipers and turn on the low beam headlights. It is recommended that you reduce speed by more than half for packed snow and slow to a crawl on ice. Use chains if necessary for better traction, but do not forget that even chains and snow tires can slide on ice and packed snow. You cannot start, stop or maneuver quickly in these conditions. Watch for other drivers.
When you are starting or stopping on snowy or icy roads:
increase your speed slowly;
get the "feel of the road" by testing your steering control and the braking friction;
start to move in second gear or higher and release the clutch slowly (for manual shifts);
allow at least three times the normal stopping distance as you begin to slow down;
(when you stop) keep your foot off the brake and let the engine slow the vehicle; and
maintain extra distance between yourself and the vehicle in front of you. "

http://www.ncdot.org/dmv/driver_services/drivershandbook/chapter4/
hazardousDriving.html#Hazards%20Snow%20and%20Ice

Good deeds? Faith? Watches?

Does anything say Christmas like commercials that kidnap the baby Christ and sweatshop Him into impulse buy endorsements from now through the eleventh hour of holiday spend, spend, spend?

Some Christians would say their final judgement hinges on faith. Some say good works. You say tomato, I say inquisition.

Seiko says, "It's your watch that tells most about who you are," www.seikousa.com/home2.aspx.

Now I'm not sure they meant this with the religious overtones I hijacked for my purposes, but even in the field of total vanity, the first thing I notice about aWell lets just say I don't pay too much attention to watches.

I don't even wear one. Gets in my way when I'm typing.

And the #1 reason I'm not into strict Biblical translation....

"And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake."

And that's just gonna wear you out. I mean, I ingest more than my fair share of caffeine -- just glance in The Star's aluminum can recycle bin, my Sam's Choice colas have all those other brands outnumbered, outgunned and surrounded like televangelists on a can of hair spray.

But at some point between now and His second coming I'm gonna need a nap.

This was a reading in my church this weekend. Next thing you know the folks in those churches that handle venomous snakes ("They shall take up serpents....") will be popping No-Doze.

Mark 13:33-37
33Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. 34It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home ... and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 36or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 37And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.’

Mark 16:18
They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them

Horseys...

Yay. Today I got to meet horses. Fun fun. Check out The Star tomorrow for more.

"Frankly, my dear...."

I monitor the www.cnn.com online poll with some regularity and am generally pleasantly surprised to find that I agree with 83% of respondents on whether it's unpatriotic to question the president's Iraq policy with troops in the field, 74% of folks on whether Bush & Co. manipulated the pre-war intel and 96% of pollees on whether the gov. is doing enough to reduce the nation's dependence on oil....

But sometimes they throw me for a loop.

"Were you surprised that Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey announced they had split up?
Yes
No
or View Results"

I don't care. I DON'T CARE. I've heard of one of these two people. The other I don't know from Napoleon or Pontius Pilate and in any case they both live thousands of miles away, I will never meet them, they will never have any discernible effect on my life and I just couldn't care less.

Are we as a nation suprised? Were we as a nation paying such close attention? Did we have them staked out, watching, waiting, anticipating the moment the Jacko jury foreman would come forward and say.... OJ Simpson is innocent and to prove it they've found the real killer The Juice's been looking for all these years, he was hiding with the second gunman and bigfoot in the Bermuda Triangle....

Sorry folks, I was paying attention to the war in Iraq that has my buddies on the line, havoc in the Gulf states, earthquakes, tsunamis, starvation, lions and tigers and bears and stuff that.

As interesting as it may be voyeuristically watching the lives of others, and remember I was an Anthropology major, I get to see my very own life every morning in the mirror and it gives me enough hassles I don't need to recreationally go looking for more. I've got enough challenges with my own romantic life, or lack thereof, such that I'll not waste my time on over-fluffed L.A. poodle-people.

K-pot

Alright, so I'm used to seeing civilian journalists who don't know a Mauser rifle from a javelin (Gilbert & Sullivan reference) on the news in war zones ineptly wearing kevlar helmets looking like three-year olds wearing their parent's shoes, fish riding bicycles or a DI in a tutu....

But I just saw a clip on CNN of Iraqi troops being brought up to miltary readiness...

and one of them was wearing their helmet backwards.

This is not good.

Conservation....

I like animals, and not only between slices of bread.
I mean standing at the lobster tank in a Wal-Mart, bonding with the crustaceans.
I do have hermit crabs at my apartment, you know.
There’s a great cartoon by science buff Gary Larson of “The Far Side” fame. A grotesque woman is standing over a small, innocent, harmless snake in a terrarium and exclaiming “Egad! What a hideous creature!”
I’ve never felt that common fear and hate of snakes and have usually sided with the reptiles. Maybe when I was little I went to a petting zoo or something and all the cute, fuzzy critters were already taken, but I’ve always gotten along fine with snakes, turtles, lizards…. Maybe I should be telling this to a psychiatrist.
Anyway, at my family’s house in Wake Forest we knowingly foster the presence of a few large, non-poisonous black snakes around the yard. Every year or so we’ll run into each other and symbiotically go our separate ways.
And we never have any mice.
When I was working as a courier at a law firm in downtown Raleigh, and I had a little free time, I’d walk on over to the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. I’d usually wind up at the snake exhibit with Gary Larson (in spirit, if not body), watching the fun and thinking about conservation.
I’ve read that there are a couple major groups on the side of conservation but they just don’t always work together – folks who hunt and fish and folks who really love the outdoors, but don’t really go for hunting animals.
And I’ve read that if the two sides got together they’d be quite a force.
The hunters and fisherfolk want a healthy environment in part to preserve their lifestyle, a love of the outdoors that many of them will tell you has surprisingly little to do with the actual taking of game.
When I’m fishing, the actual “catching” part usually doesn’t even happen.
The other conservationists may see the same stream in a slightly different way. They want a clean stream too, differ in opinion on the fate of a few of the fish but have to recognize the valuable work of groups like Trout Unlimited.
Both the Audubon society and Ducks Unlimited care about wetlands preservation. Imagine their combined voting power, the number of volunteers working together….
So we’ve been through leaf season. And we’re partway through deer season. Does anybody have any good photos or stories from recent outdoor trips? Any great hunting stories – that bear/deer/mime you got this season. Another conservationist with a great mountain view from the parkway, some thoughts on recycling…?
You share a love of the outdoors, how about sharing a little space on the internet.
Send me an email, john_derrick@link.freedom.com, with a digital photo or a recounting of your trip and we’ll see what we can do about getting it up on my blog, jderrickstar.blogspot.com, for all to see. We’ll try to keep editing down to a minimum but remember this is a family paper, despite what I get away with running in this column every week.
If this gets popular enough we may go for an entire separate blog or a forum or something.
For someone interested in conservation, you can’t always have that perfect “Free Willy” moment, and this sure beats flinging live lobsters across the produce isles at a Wal-Mart.

High school journalism shadows go wild....

Here we go with some Burns HS seniors who came by on Monday to see what newspaper photographers do for a living. Running a little short on the usual chaos to show them, we took a ride out to the Shelby city park for shots of kids on the playground. But lacking kids on the playground at 9 a.m., they subbed in themselves and shot photos of each other.....

So here you go.

"Study: Beer Could Be Good For What 'Ales' You"

"... the hops used to brew beer contain a compound that neutralizes free radicals -- the harmful molecules in the blood that can contribute to cancer and other diseases ...."

http://www.wral.com/food/5328869/detail.html

Flintlock video

If you wanna see how a flintlock firearm works, but don't want to wait until I'm done with mine, check out the video at:
http://memorialhall.mass.edu/activities/media.jsp?itemid=6063&img=0
There are some differences between the reenactor's musket and my rifle, but this gives you a really good idea of it without me having to do much work. So there.

"an 18th century gunsmith ...."

At some point I’ll need to finish my muzzleloading rifle kit and stop just throwing lead balls at things.
I’ve been tinkering with my Revolutionary War-style flintlock rifle kit for a couple weeks and it’s making real progress. It’s at the level of a car that’s missing a few fenders and has no paint but will run if required – some of the pretty brass hardware isn’t fitted yet and I haven’t sanded everything smooth or put finish on the barrel or stock, but it would work if I got impatient.
The most interesting bit of the saga is hunting for parts and tools. Most folks don’t know how hard it is finding a gouge in contemporary America.
Most folks don’t even know what a gouge is.
Tell you what, first person to email me the right answer (no, it’s not a type of cheese and I’m not talking about what gas companies have done to my wallet) gets one of the many small files I’ve come to own as a result of this project.
It’s been a two-week romp through four counties and half a dozen hardware stores, reaffirming my burgeoning belief that our society isn’t set up to supply an 18th century gunsmith and that internet shopping can be useful.
Some stores carry muzzleloading supplies because deer hunters using the old-fashioned weapons get longer seasons. But hunters generally use percussion rifles, with a small metal cap struck by the hammer to ignite the powder. But the Revolutionary War used even more old fashioned flint striking steel….
And because few people want to buy these things few stores waste their resources on them. I walked into a well-stocked, modern gun store, said I had a flintlock kit and they took me over to look at the percussion caps….
They’re being wise not to worry about such a small niche, but it’s no fun when you are that niche.
So I drove over to Bass Pro in Concord, a hunting and fishing mega-store, for .50 caliber lead balls, a gun case long enough to hold a Rev. War rifle (all the ones at Wal-Mart were too short)….
And they had a ramrod I needed. The one in my kit didn’t have the screw thread needed to attach cleaning tools. But rods in most stores don’t use the same threads as fit my cleaning attachments. And they’re too short to clean a 33 ½ inch barrel anyway.
When I did find the right device it cost almost $20 for a simple metal rod with a screw thread at one end.
It’s almost like the manufacturer knows that though it’s a very small market, they’ve got a monopoly.
Maybe there are gouges in contemporary America.
Ultimately, it seems I often resort to the internet – the latest incarnation of what I’ll call “distance shopping.”
I’ve heard that back on the wild frontier the Sears catalog allowed people in the middle of our nations great, western nowhere to buy stuff even when far from stores.
Now instead of using a paper catalog to save a trip into town for a plow, I’m using an online catalog to save a drive to Connecticut for a powder measure.
So I’m out on some frontier of time, culture and technology, trying to buy 1700s hardware over a 21st century medium, a ramrod with a 10/32 screw thread….
My flints arrived in the mail last week. I can assure you they make quite an impressive shower of sparks, check out my blog for a picture – jderrickstar.blogspot.com.

VEGAN FIGHT!

“Granola: made from hippies”
This is going to take some explaining.
You see, I’ve been doing a little volunteer writing and photography for the Sierra Club, getting to play out my conservationist fantasies on the side. I shot the front page photo for the most recent regional newsletter. Ooooh. Aaaaah.
A couple months back they emailed out a list of stories they wanted written and I picked one on outdoor foods.
Being a scouter, outdoor adventure columnist… I can crank this stuff out no problem.
At issue may be my sense of humor.
I was with some friends in downtown Asheville a few weeks ago, cruising the shops filled with vegetarians desperately trying to be either 1920’s Parisians or Tibetan Buddhists. Or maybe both.
I found the shops very confusing. One display said their pendulums were supposed to heal all that ails me. But the next booth says it’s crystals that cure me. So which is it? And are there negative interactions if I’m already using the medicinal tuning forks at the other end of the store? It gives me a headache. Are these polished crystal rocks quick-dissolving?
We stopped off for lunch at one point. Hey, I’m a quasi-veggie myself. I make exceptions, but aside from my Mom’s food there is no meat in my apartment.
Still, it was kinda fun watching two vegetarians nearly come to blows over the restaurant’s last veggie-hot dog.
When nature-loving vegans take to cutting, do they go for the rugged, outdoorsy Bowie knife or a less barbaric, more urbanized spork?
I’m all about different foods. And learning about different faiths. And dietary exploration of faith. At said lunch I wasn’t even eating because I was trying to fast for Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement for sins between the individual and God.
But I wasn’t getting into a fight over my culinary, religious adventures.
Just drinking beer.
So that’s my take on things. When I was listing out different trail foods I just couldn’t resist slipping in “Granola: made from hippies.”
And that list didn’t make it into the newsletter and that’s probably a good thing. But it wants to be published somewhere, so here we go….
“Getting sick of nuts and berries? Grubs getting a bit old? At the other end of the spectrum are a wealth of space-age freeze dried, dehydrated, shrunk and shriveled yummies.
Somewhere between 10,000 B.C. and 2005 A.D., you’ve got:
Crackers: oft associated with peanut butter, honey, cheese, tuna fish… remember – tins are heavy and glass is heavier. And breaks
Food bars: come in energy and candy flavors. Beware of melting chocolate
Fresh fruit: sometimes heavy, lighter when dried, one of nature’s favs
Beef jerky: not popular with vegans. Can sometimes be used to chop wood
Granola: made from hippies
Trail Mix: some hikers practically live on this mix of small candies, chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, cereal, raisins, nuts, sunflower seeds, dried fruits… whatever you want
You can buy this handy snack pre-mixed or blend up your own batch with goodies from the grocery.
Feel free to try new things in novel combinations, but whatever you munch on, bear bag it when necessary, keep it from spoiling and be sure to use water that has been purified for mixing and washing it down.”
And one I left out: bagels. They last forever, don’t crush, are cheap and go with everything.

On assignment at the Ivester's house... just happen to have a windmill....

You see, folks in my family are often afraid of heights. It's not so much a fear that the ground or building will collapse from under us as an anxiety that in a moment of irrationality we'll flip out and jump.

I was on a Blackhawk ride with some Army ROTC buddies a while back. After dismounting from the helicopter they started talking about how much fun it would have been to jump!

Then I realized that we're not suicidal -- we're Airborne. And that's not bad.