10/29/11

Keep Your Hands Off My Ballot

I got an interesting text last night.  It was from Jefferson County Students First, who are kindly offering to hand deliver my ballot if it didn't make it into the mailbox.

I have a hard enough time trusting my mailman to get my ballot in to get counted, a complete stranger with and agenda not a chance.

10/25/11

Send It In

If you live in Colorado, the time to mail in your ballot is now.

I'm not going to suggest how anyone vote, but I'll give you one guess on how I voted on the tax increases in Prop. 103.  When they tell me it's for the kids, well I've heard that one before.

10/23/11

Zombie Targets

At the range today I neglected to bring targets.  My range of choice was well stocked with Birchwood Casey Zombie targets.  I figured why not and added one to the stack.  What I learned is that even knowing that it's a zombie, it may be tough to break the habit of aiming for the boilermaker.


Evil Corporations

This post by Dave Ramsey captures a lot of what I feel about the Occupy Wall Street folks (HT to the Pantsless One).  The one thing Dave doesn't really cover that has struck me as I've read various stories and laughed at some of the signs is that there seems to be a lack of understanding on what a corporation is and does.  Mostly this has been addressed with the type of sarcasm shown in the linked picture above.

What I would like to do is to discuss what a corporation is and some of my personal experiences with "evil" corporations.  A corporation is simply a legal entity that provides a group of individuals personal protection from legal and financial liability.  If a corporation goes bankrupt or is accused of a crime the individuals making up the corporation don't automatically end up bankrupt or in jail.

My younger brother is a chiropractor.  He is also the sole owner of a corporation.  His corporation of one is not uncommon.  It allows him to practice medicine with a lower financial risk.   Many of his patients have no idea he is also a corporation.  As an individual and a doctor, he treats them, but he bills them as a corporation.  Is he rich?  Far from it  Since opening his own practice he is barely breaking even, and most months puts almost all of his profit back into his business.  This is the "evil" of a corporation.  Healing people with his own two hands.

I've worked for a couple of corporations.  One was the type most folks think of when they hear corporation.  It was (and is) a multinational corporation with manufacturing in the United States, China, Italy, India, and Switzerland to name a few.  Their sales offices are all across the world.  This evil corporation payed me a good salary, trained me, and sent me to their manufacturing facilities in Switzerland and Italy for further training.  I got to ride a train through the alps thanks to an evil corporation.  I also got to become a much better engineer.  I was also personally involved in supplying parts so that a hospital, a water treatment plant, a geothermal power plant, and many other industries and facilities could either be built or continue to operate.  We made money, but I don't remember having to fulfill our evil quotient.

One of the other corporations I worked for even had the evil word in its name.  When I started there we had four full time employees and three part time employees.  This corporation gave me my first job.  The pay wasn't great, but the experience was invaluable.  Working at a corporation of 7 forced me to wear many hats, and gave me an understanding of business and engineering that many of my peers do not have because they haven't been exposed to it.

So when I see signs protesting the evils of the corporation, understand why I might have a tendency to point laugh and shake my head in disgust.  Corporations have allowed me to feed and clothe my family.  Corporations have provided me training and allowed me to grow as a professional.  Corporations have allowed me to be where and what I am today, and I'm not the only one.

10/2/11

Snipe Hunt

I went looking for ducks and ended up on an honest to goodness snipe hunt.  I brought back two Wilson's Snipe.  Just enough for lunch.


Cleaning them is accomplished much like cleaning doves.  Cooking them is fairly simple as well.  We got a box of fancy rice, situated the cleaned snipe in the rice, added water, covered, and threw in the oven for 45 minutes at 400.


The result was delicious.  If you've never had snipe (I'd never had them before today) I highly recommend it.

10/1/11

A Winner Is Me

Apparently #29 is my new lucky number and I will soon have a box of happiness heading my way.  My number was drawn for two AR-15 magazines topped off with Carteach .223.  When I sent my donation to the Wounded Warrior Project, I did it with every expectation of winning nothing more than the knowledge that the money would be put to good use.

Pictures will be posted of the aforementioned box of happiness when it arrives.  A big thanks to Carteach for running this fundraiser and opening up wallets across the country to the tune of $2300+.  I guess I can no longer say, "I never win these things."