The past year summed up.

     Holy hell it's been over a year since I last posted anything here. Wow, time flies when you're not constantly pissed. So, I guess I'll catch you all up, who ever the hell it is that reads this. It's been a pretty interesting past year for me and things have gotten a lot better for me.
     So about this time last year I had reached the point of burn out at the ER  I was working in and put out a call on social media to see if anyone knew of job openings. I didn't really care what it was as long as it payed decent and got me the hell out of that hospital. A friend got me in touch with my current boss and three days later I accepted a new position and quit my old one. I entered into the world of confined space and high angle rescue. And sweet shit it is night and day, no more whiny bullshit and woe is me crap from fuckers with a slight head cold, or just in search of drugs. Remember that I had no problem when we had actual sick people or actual medical emergencies but those were becoming more and more rare. Now the only people I really deal with are union workers, pipe fitters, carpenters, boilermakers and the like. And they are so much better to work with, hard working and fun to chit chat with, just as foul mouth as me. Plus a substantial bump in pay, and truth be told in the year I've been doing this I've become one of the top 5 rescue techs that work there. I also get to travel a little, two weeks ago I was in Michigan, and am currently writing this from Iowa. It's a hell of a good job and I couldn't be much happier with it.
     And if that weren't enough a couple months ago I happened to get in touch with an old friend, one of my best friends growing up since around 4th grade, hell we ended up going to prom together. And now a few months later I couldn't be more in love. Now this is where I get a bit gushy. I honestly had written off the whole relationship thing, that it wasn't something that was for me. And then she pops back into my life out of the blue and, wow. Now, I was married years ago and thought I was in love then, but now, this is a completely different animal. I don't know what that was before but it's a mere shadow of what is going on now. She came along and woke up things in me that I thought were long dead and didn't plan on feeling again. And for that I will be forever grateful and spend the rest of my life, or however long she'll put up with me, trying to repay her.
      Wow, after this post I may just have to change my pen name.....nah, I'll keep it for now.

Mr. Angry Beard.

Random thoughts: Aliens

     I was recently listening to an episode of "Skeptics Guide to the Universe" and the topic of aliens came up. I believe it was concerning a way to hide the signature of Earth from aliens that would be using the same methods we currently do to find extra solar planets. And they went on to discuss the need to do so. According to Stephen Hawking, we should at all costs avoid making contact with any extraterrestrial civilization, as it would most likely spell doom for the human race.
     I disagree with Dr. Hawking on this whole heartedly, not that I think that I'm smarter than him but, logically it doesn't seem likely it would be a bad thing. The way I see it, a civilization capable of making the journey between stars, and also having the resources to take over a planet from a species that is capable of resisting could just as easily harvest whatever raw resources  they needed from asteroids or uninhabited planets.  It would make no sense to try to get those things from Earth when they are available with much less effort and in greater quantities elsewhere. The only real reason an extraterrestrial civilization would come to Earth, that makes sense, is to explore and make peaceful contact with another civilization.

First Podcast?

     So, I have a vacation week coming up and would like to record my first podcast and get it out into the internets. I'm writing this here as Twitter's character limit is a bit of a pain. I'm looking for guests for a kind of interview/discussion on a variety of topics. I haven't decided on a length for the podcast but would just like it to be however long it takes. So I would like to formally reach out to some podcasters and youtubers that I listen to regularly and respect for this inaugural episode.  I'll also be contacting these folks through other means but would like to put a little explanation here. If anyone does feel like it contact me on twitter @Mr_Angry_Beard, Facebook  here or Google+ here.

So for Noah Lugeons, Heath Enwright, Eli Bosnik, Barnacules, JayzTwoCents, and Tom and Cecil from Cognitive Dissonance, if you are interested let me know.

Another Rant.

    So as some of you know, I work in an ER and I deal with a lot of patients from the simple toe pain that thinks that they are on the verge of death and, the truly sick and in need of help.
Although last night was one of the clinchers, I watched and help treat a baby that died. This child could not have done something that could have possibly angered any so called all loving  God. And to those that say that he needed another angel, Fuck You, with every inch of my being, with seven plus billion people you chose this small innocent child and ruthlessly ripped  them from their family. To stand there and watch a mothers heart shatter with pure grief and disbelief as this child laid dead, Fuck You.  The elderly and long time infirm I have generally have no issue with when they die. But this, this is unconscionable. All those that question why I deny a god, explain to me why things like this happen. Take a tour of an pediatric oncology ward and explain how this is just and moral.
        I'm going to stop here before  I become too angry to continue.


Mr. Angry Beard

The Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting, and my thoughts.

     So I held off speaking about the Paris attack last month, because I didn't want to be another person commenting and throwing in my two cents on such a tragedy. There were plenty of people doing that, both horribly, and blaming the victims (see Christian pastor Kevin Swanson), and those that come from a place of reason and compassion, assigning the blame where it belongs (Noah Lugeon's diatribe on episode 144 of "The Scathing Atheist"). And it was a subject that was being beat into the ground, and as stated by Noah in his diatribe, "I don't want to be yet another voice standing atop 129 corpses to say 'Hey, you know that thing I'm ideologically committed to, that thing I've been saying for years? That's the real issue behind these Paris attacks'." It's been done and better than I probably would have.
    That brings us to the recent shooting at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The shooter, as described by his own ex-wife is a conservative, anti-abortion, Christian. And already we have fucktards like Glenn Beck rushing in to shout down the fact that he's Christian with the old rhetoric of that's not a thing that "real" Christians do. Immediately attempting to separate his religion from his actions, where, if he were a Muslim, Beck and his ilk would have no problem embracing that fact and shining a giant fucking spotlight on it.
     This was an act of violence was at the very least had some basis on his religious beliefs, if not the sole factor. To divorce this attack from the Christian religion would be the same as removing the Muslim influence from the Paris attack. To do so, to me, marks you as someone that lives in state of delusion and ignorance that makes me wonder how you are able to function at all. And I've noticed that when it comes to the Colorado shooting, the media is being amazingly quiet about his faith.

Amateur Gunsmithing II: 1911 complete

    So a while ago I wrote about amateur gunsmithing and mentioned a 1911 build. Whelp, I finished it recently and took it out for a test fire. And I still have all my fingers, so it didn't blow up on me which is nice.  So that being the result I'll go a little in depth about the process of completing a build like this. Again as with my AR-15 build I garnered everything I needed to know from the internet, Youtube videos, and various forums online were overflowing with knowledge.
     To start it wasn't that difficult, just a few places that took some patience and a little elbow grease.
I began with a stripped Rock Island Armory frame and Para Ordnance P14.45 slide from Sarco, both at a respectable price of about $120 each.

     These are the two main pieces of the build which house all the moving and make go bang parts. The frame, according to the BATFE, being the actual firearm I had shipped to a local FFL dealer so all the legal paper work could be done and have it registered to me. The slide itself, as well as all the other parts, were able to be shipped straight to the house. The slide to frame fit was a bit too tight for my liking so with a little bit of fine grain sanding on the top of the frame rails I was able to obtain a nice smooth, yet still tight fit with no wobble. This consisted of a few strokes on the sandpaper, brush off the dust, and test fit over and over again until I got it to where I wanted it. 

     Then came the frame internals, sear, trigger, disconnector, mainspring hammer safety and all the associated springs and pins. Some of these parts required minor fitting, a little light filing or sanding here and there but it all worked smooth like butter. I unfortunately didn't take pictures of this process as I was to engrossed in the process and lazy. I really need to get better at documenting these things as I go along, but it's hard to break concentration once I get going. 

     Still missing at this point are the grips, plunger tube, slide release, barrel, grip safety, and the rest of the slide internals. After receiving these parts it was probably the easiest part of the build as I've played with 1911's a little in the past and was familiar with how to take them apart. the barrel link pin needed a bit of fitting as well, and a little light hammering to get it in place but it fit nice and tight and pivots without any binding. The same can be said for the barrel bushing which I admit that I may have over done a little as it fits and functions just fine but a little looser than you would expect on a new 1911, more like one with a few hundred rounds through it. And at this point I'm pretty much done, aside from the rear sight, which being a Para Ordnance slide (the dovetail cut they use is a bit different from other slides) can be a bit difficult to source, and or pricey.  So this is what I ended up with. and I love it. It's mine, I made this to my liking and I probably have a much better appreciation for it than I would having gotten one off the shelf. 

     So, there you are, a second entry into amateur gunsmithing. With hopefully more to come. Still in the works is a .300 AAC Blackout upper for my AR-15, which admittedly won't be difficult at all but still fun. Again for those of you out there that are looking to get a 1911 at some point I would highly recommend doing a build, the outcome is very satisfying. 

                   Mr. Angry Beard

The issue with education in this country

     Today's education system in the US seems to be a bit lacking. From some brief research I was able to learn the we are pretty low on the totem pole when it comes to overall education when compared to the rest of the developed world. I'm sure partially due to the fact that while other nations have increased their spending on education the US has actually cut spending. This aspect alone could prompt a long diatribe on the national budget and federal spending in general, but I won't go down that path today. I'm more focused on the 'how' of the current system. The methods of teaching and the stick and carrot methods used to encourage better results.
     It seems today, and even when I was in school it was already headed this way, that students are being taught to the test. Which is an absolute horrible way to teach. In effect giving the students only the instruction that will be covered in the test, and drilled in memorizing dates and snippets of facts. And in the science based classes memorizing formulas and not really worrying about the actual application of them, just enough to figure out the correct answer. In an age now, when all these things are available to damn near anyone on a whim, wouldn't it be more prudent to not have students memorizing? But show them how to apply these things and stimulate critical thinking and problem solving. The availability of knowledge is only gong to become more and more easy to come by as time goes on. Hell, at this point I'm pretty certain that you could gain a decent grasp of  advanced math, world history, and even electrical engineering from Youtube.  

     The point is that we're stuck in a mode of instruction that severely limits the potential of today's youth. And the current model of schools being rewarded or punished financially based on standardized testing. Leading to students being taught only what is on the test to try to bring those scores up. That's not saying that there are not teachers out there that try to go beyond and actually instruct students on the how and why of their specific subjects, but those teachers are few and far between. 

     Do I have the answers on how to shift things to provide a better education to the students of today? No. But I'm sure that there are people out there who have put the relative thought into it and have some damn good plans on how to implement it.