Outdoor Gear You'll Like

Occasionally, I have the opportunity to get my hands on outdoor gear for testing. Here are a few of the winners I've seen recently:
SHOOTING SPORTS...Most people rave about the new firearms - with good reason. There are great firearms 'aplenty out there these days. But it's not so often we find information about good support equipment for our shooting enhancement. Here are two....First, the Walker's Digital Duo Shooting Muffs. These boys rock! Imagine shooting with the knowledge that you're protecting your hearing with +50db of sound reduction while you're simultaneously able to hear conversations and movement all around you. This company also makes the Walker's Digital Game Ears which are the coolest products to hit the woods ever if you're one of those auditorially challenged individuals like me. They enable you to hear the subtle sounds of the woods - the ones that may or may not be the difference in success and failure when hunting. The digital muffs are designed for shooting practice, with very comfortable, yet firm-fitting muffs that are very adjustable and still give you great sound discernment while protecting your hearing. They're not cheap (about $200 per pair), but they're durable and covered by a terrific Walker's unconditional warranty.
The second product isn't really strictly for shooting, but it's one of the most amazing lubricant products I've ever used. It's called, appropriately enough,Gun Butter. Like butter, this stuff, even in the teeny recommended quantities, makes all your mechanical shooting parts move smooth as, well, butter.
It comes in one-ounce bottles with a long nozzle for dispensing exactly on the precise spot you need to "slick up" to make your firearm run better. Unlike other lubricants, Gun Butter absolutely will not run after it's applied. I don't know the science or technology behind this, but I know that we put drops on slides, bolts, triggers and breech assemblies, shot long target relays and realized smoother operations and still found the lubricant right where we'd put it. And..unlike petroleum-based products, this stuff does NOT cook off in the high temperatures associated with firearms.
AND...if you're a biker, this stuff also comes labeled as "Bike Butter" - you'll be glad you used it when you get into situations with mountain bikes where you're in water, dirt and general gunge...this stuff doesn't wash off, either!
Not inexpensive, but the sub-$20 per bottle cost is more than offset with the obvious benefits.
To learn more, check out www.gunbutter.com - I don't know any retailers where it's currently available.
FINALLY, if your a Presbyopic like me, you'll want to check out Ono's Trading Company on the web (www.onotradingcompany.com). When you do, you'll find some very stylish eyewear that's designed to help folks like me see up close and at a distance when wearing sunglasses. Ono's five different models feature magnification areas just below your normal eyeline (actually, they say it's 8mm below eye-line, but I don't do metric) ranging from 1.25 to 2.50 magnifications. I'm wearing mine whenever I'm outside, and they're terrific. In addition to giving me eye protection (100% UVA/UVB), polycarbonate lenses that are both tougher and clearer than glass, they're also not butt-ugly like clip-ons, wear-overs or flip-downs. In other words, if you don't tell someone you're wearing bifocals, they probably won't ever know.
That's it for today...more later.

Hurricanes + Politicians = Refugees

Hurricanes, refugees and politicians...
....three words that should never be used in the same sentence. Having spent more than a week trying to help Gulf coast residents, I'm certain that I'll never want to see those three words in conjunction again. The symbiotic relationships are frightening.
All along the Gulf Coast, the devastation's absolutely beyond belief. However....since the race card doesn't play well when it's primarily middle-class white people whose homes have been wiped off the face of the earth, my colleagues in the media have chosen to focus on the urban blight previously called New Orleans.
Don't get me wrong, for a long weekend with three expense account dinners, New Orleans was fine.
After that, it was hard to overlook the seedy characters, grimy landscape and stench that is part of the inescapable fact this place knows it belongs on the bottom of a lake. And that sensation many people mistake for "excitement" in New Orleans is really the human body's innate "danger reaction" but they're either too-drunk or too-tourist stupid to realize that the "colorful folk" of New Orleans look at the tourist the same way wolves look at the sheep.
But that's another rant for another time.
Over the past week, I've reached another depressing conclusion: the average "media type" of today weighs something on the order of 74 pounds (female) - 180 pounds (male), has perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect skin (with cosmetic assistance of course), stands something in the range of 4'10" - 6'3", and collectively - intellectually, is less than a half-inch deep. They're universally lacking any historical perspective, sociological background - and, most definitely lack the ability to speak at length about - anything. The possible exception to "anything" however, might be the "well-known and apparently accepted media presumption" that George Bush controls weather, local politicians and thugs worldwide. In other words, if it's bad, Bush did it.
Their "storm coverage" is so amazingly shallow as to make a child's wading pool look like the Mariannas Trench. They have stood in the same shady spots for days as assorted rabble-rousers marched by their cameras, protesting their having been "forgotten" by the federal government. All the while, these journalists have mugged for the camera (as directed through their IFBs) like children amazed that moths come to lights - or that protesters only protested where they could be on television. It's a corollary they've yet to connect in their collective synapse (I know synapse is singular, and I stand by the observation).
Here's a bit of television producer "insider" knowledge: at network television sporting events crowd cameras are occasionally referred to as "asshole magnets" and the "anchors" as "talking dogs" or "meat puppets". Now YOU understand why.
Most amazingly, the now-geriatric Geraldo Rivera has produced more excitement than his 3,427 fellow "correspondents" in New Orleans - collectively.
Journalism HAS hit an absolute new low.
Geraldo was always been considered the limbo bar of taste, but today, he shines when surrounded by a fleet of idiot anchors from the various cable news services. Sorry, Greta (Fox), breathlessly-nasal Rita (PMSNBC), and Nancy "but for the Grace of God you're nowhere near real people" (CNN), your efforts to be controversial and confrontational just don't cut it when faced with a professional mis-reporter of the facts with Geraldo's spin experience. Hell, even his makeup looks better...
Here's a suggestion from Geraldo's own career...find a Vonnegut descendant to marry (then ditch when you milk their connections dry), change your Jewish name in order to gain admission into a 6-week "instant journalist" program for minorities at Columbia, then spend three decades tossing facts and fairness to the wind to create a name for yourself. At that point, you, too, may have a Grecian-formula moustache, windswept hair and a luxury yacht from which to champion the downtrodden you've ridden like mules along the road to success. Adam Clayton Powell would be proud.
But I was talking about the fabled Crescent City, wasn't I?
I watched first-hand as Miami survived Hurricane Andrew. A city blessed with thousands of illegal aliens, thugs and Colombian and Haitian"gangs" Miami managed to avoid the carnage visited on New Orleans by their own, apparently legal residents.
At New Orleans it was suddenly Mardi Gras with plasma-screen beads...an "instant credit hurricane-sale".
For God's sake, how stupid do you have to be to steal electronic equipment in a town without electricity?
Never mind, we've answered that question for the ages, haven't we?
Hell yes, "let the good times roll!"
And the really excellent mayor was right there on the job. The con job, that is. Sitting in his hotel room, whining that, once again, "the man was holding down the poor."
What is that expression, you insufferable dumbass, er, Mr. Mayor? Oh yea, "you da man!"
You, Mr. Mayor, are "Da man" who managed to make the mandatory non-compulsory; turn evacuation into "never-mind" and then has the stones to blame George Bush for not flying down to New Orleans to personally drive the 75 buses you've left to flood in the lowest parking lot around the Superdome (oops, silly mayor).
If stupid was painful, New Orleans' mayor should be in agony.
And the governor - who can forget her? She wants to "slap" the President for his lack of action. If declaring a disaster area two-days before the fact is inaction, she should be bitch-slapped by the President - and every resident of New Orleans - for failing to call in enough Louisiana National Guardsmen BEFORE the storm hit and I-10 was wiped out, her general failure to agree to the issuance of a "no-shit, run for the hills warning" to her citizenry - despite the urging of the President, and the total arrogance as be unreachable for federal authorities seeking to warn here - AGAIN - by phone BEFORE the crap went solidly into New Orleans' ventilator.
The collective stupidity of the politicians hurt their core constituents. Not to mention the ill and ignorant who they abandoned to the good offices of the criminal element that stuck around for the easy pickings after Katrina.
If you think I'm exaggerating the criminal element, go check the freezer-full of corpses from the Superdome. There's a seven-year old kid in there with a throat slit ear-to-ear who gives mute testimony to the kind of unsupervised animals you left behind when you, Mr. Mayor and Ms. Governor, left them to go play partisan politics.
The poor of New Orleans were once again screwed, then abandoned - by the same crooked political types who have screwed them time and again.
New Orleans IS founded on the "bigger thief" theory - and cream isn't the only thing that floats- or rises to the top. In Louisiana political circles, crap does float.
Can you name one other state that boasted about a political campaign where one candidate's bumper sticker bragged: "Hold your nose and vote for me"?
Didn't think so.
In Louisiana, he won - two terms. The second AFTER being convicted of a felony.
In New Orleans, it's better the devil you know, you know?
When the rest of the world looks at New Orleans, they think they're seeing how the "two Americas" they want to believe exist. That polarized America where the wealthy pole has abandoned the poor one.
But, they're mistaken.
They're not seeing America in New Orleans....
They're seeing what life's like six feet below sea level in a swamp.

Cool new undertaking

It's not even the 20th of January and already my 2005 resolution is out the window. This year, I was going to focus on my existing businesses and not waste time on starting new things. Since that foolish attempt to deny my nature, I've agreed to help start yet another film and video business. Actually, it's not a new business, it's an idea I'd gone so far as to register as a website nearly two years ago. Now, however, technology will make it not only a realistic business, but a viable one.
It's all about high-tech camera equipment (HD or film), two-way communications (Digital encrypted, no less), foolproof confidence recording and all the things that make the video and film business, well, sexy to people who haven't been in it for nearly 30 years.
Hell, it's even interesting to me, so....we're underway.
Right now, I'm having specifications drawn up on a 52-foot custom van that will serve as the traveling studios, crew quarters, VIP area, production suite and general fortress of production when we're on the road. Hopefully, we'll be logging some serious miles in the vehicle. It's also a chance to get back to golf production and other areas where I've enjoyed some moderate success- at least if you consider making other people boat loads of money being a success.
So...we'll be making some announcements SOON on the business venture...and have already located two capital investors. That's one thing I've learned in 30 years - use someone else's money if you can. The fact I don't have any money is immaterial - it's the fact I know how to tie the strings together that will make it sexy. And this project WILL be sexy.
When we factor in several other areas where it's applicable, it's a cool idea and its time has come.
Besides, having only two businesses isn't a big deal - especially when one drives the work at the other - they're really only collaborative parts of the same projects.
Incidentally, after watching eBAY, I've been considering putting The Outdoor Wire up for sale there - after all, what would a business with no debt, a proven delivery record, immaculate journalistic credentials - and nearly 58,000 daily readers be worth? In cable, it would be $125 per sub - unfortunately, this isn't cable. But I'm certain there are folks out there who would love to own a service that's come to be among the most influential outlets of news in the entire outdoor category.
I know I would - if I didn't already own it.
Ha!

A fave Blogger

Just finished reading a post from Michael Bane. If you don't know Bane, you're not in to firearms. He's a terrific writer, insightful observer of people, and generally about as close to blunt-object trauma in print as you'd care to get. He's also host of a great show on The Outdoor Channel (I can't get it either, don't whine) called "Shooting Gallery" and produces a show called "Cowboys", also on TOC. Both are very good. So good, in fact, that the "gun magazine" TV shows (yawn) are getting completely pissy about how his show buries theirs.
Good reasons- he's funny, opinionated, and doesn't tell you everything ever manufactured is worth having. There are, despite what most outdoor publications write, some real pieces of crap out there in the marketplace. Believe it or not, not every product offered for sale is really worth a crap. Many, in fact, are just that: crap.
Anyway, Bane's blog is one you really ought to visit. Heck, he's the only strict vegan firearms guy I've ever known - and if that's not enough to make him interesting, he loves macaws and exotic goldfish. Guess the old joke's true. You know, what do you call a Biafran with a pet dog? Vegetarian. A Biafran with 4 dogs? Caterer (ouch).
JS

Clients: Love'em/Leave'em

The business of wooing a client is a lot like trying to corner a grizzly bear. The bear will only be cornered when it's darned good and ready to be cornered, and only stay cornered as long as he pleases. At that point, you realize there are another pair of walls in the meeting - and your back's up against them.
Today, I'm recipient of the good news that my most difficult - and frugal - client is coming on Thursday to "direct a little recut" on his hour long-television program. First of all, there's never been a "little recut" on a hour-long broadcast. Once a client starts cutting, you're no longer in an edit suite, you're in a butcher shop. And when he's done as a butcher, you're supposed to put the corpse back together and re-animate it...giving him total credit, of course.
That news comes right on the heels of my best client calling to thank me for saving him $3,000 + on his newest project.
I treat both these guys exactly the same; yet one feels obligated to beat me like the proverbial "rented mule." The other treats me exactly as he likes to be treated.
Is this unique? Nah, it's the creative business. Of course "creative business" are two words that do not belong anywhere in close proximity of each other. One is mutually exclusive of the other - yet we keep trying to make a "business" out of being "creative."
Some clients will gladly pay top-dollar for a magazine, video, or a book, but they scream like forcibly deflowered virgins when they're asked to pay for creative work on their behalf.
Others actually thank you for the work - and mean it. That "thank you" doesn't mean they're going to pay more than they're billed, but that sort of conduct DOES mean they're usually the recipients of more work than they're getting invoiced. It's a pleasure to do business with them. Consequently, it's no bother to give them what the Creoles call "lagniappe" - Cajun slang for " jus'a little bitta extra."
The other type client would be charged for "atmospheric usage" if I could figure how to charge it.
Recently, one of my "problem clients" was bitching (not a gender-slant, I consider high-volume whining "bitching") that he'd "rather go have a root canal" than come to edit sessions. Without thinking, his editor turned around and snapped "if I thought you'd stop coming to these sessions, I'd pull my own teeth."
The client went completely pale - like he'd been slapped or seen a ghost. Then, in a hurt voice, he asked "am I really that unpleasant to be around?" The chorus of "yes" he received sounded like a responsive reading in a holiness tent revival.
Then he colored up and asked "what ever happened to the customer's always right?" The editor's response: "if you were always right, you wouldn't be in here floundering around with your commercials - you'd know your product, your service, and your customers, but you don't. You're too-busy trying to impress everyone with your own importance. But you know what? When you leave here - finally - there will be another guy in that seat within 15 minutes. If he's only nominally civilized, he's going to get far more work from me than you - not for any reason other than he's not you."
The moral of this rant:
Even if you're paying someone for their work, you'll get more work from them if you're civil toward them. You don't have to be Pollyanna or Mary Poppins, if you disagree, there's a way to disagree without making anyone feel inferior, stupid or inept. After all, you've come to them for their expertise. We've all come to the point where civility has become synonymous with weakness - it's actually just the opposite.

New Years - AGAIN?

It's only the third day of 2005 and I'm already getting the impression it's going to be "more of the same...". Whilst I was away (working), the County Commission has initiated another 1 percent sales tax on goods and services.
If Will Rogers was right when he said American politicians were "the best money could buy", inflation truly is out of control. This group of politicians couldn't lead a group of Girl Scouts through an ice cream store without taking casualties. They're also living proof that, at least in Birmingham, Alabama, we're still paying a pretty stiff price for slavery. To say the council's biased is the 2005 equivalent of saying Bull Connor was "extreme" in his reactions to peaceful protests. Having already run competent officeholders - and most businesses - out of Birmingham's city limits, they're now determined that "white flight" won't be over until Jefferson County, Alabama has a racial balance equal to that of Soweto.
Today, what used to be a bustling downtown is home to a "diverse" but miniscule loft/condo conversion community and the assorted lawyers and bankers who were exempted from paying taxes as an incentive to get them to remain in their high-rise office buildings. None of the lawyers, bankers and "professionals" incidentally, would dream of "living" in Birmingham - most commute to homes in Shelby County - the area known as "over the mountain" or the "tiny kingdom" of Mountain Brook. Mountain Brook, incidentally, is where there are plenty of South Americans and "people of color" - until 5PM when most of them leave their jobs as gardeners and servants. Like the rest of the U-S, our liberal intelligencia follows the old Adam Clayton Powell adage "do as I SAY, not as I DO."
Of course, that's local politics and not interesting to anyone outside Birmingham.
Unless, of course, you want to see what happens when progressive leadership is used as a synonym for payback. Birmingham's trying is darndest to become the next Detroit, Michigan. Actually, it would aspire to be Marion Barry's Washington, D.C., but Birmingham - like the rest of Alabama - has an inflated view of itself psychologists usually trace to a deep-seated inferiority complex.
Of course, if you'd passed on the airport that turned Atlanta into a mega-city, and virtually every other opportunity since 1950, you'd feel a little sheepish yourself.
Several years ago, one of the local "insiders" asked me what I felt it would take to bring Birmingham to her rightful place in the new south.
I stand by my answers:
1) Several key indictments of our "opinion makers" and politicians along with several "old line" funerals
2) Constitutional reform
3) Term limits for all politicians, judges and "civil servants"

Happy New Year, Birmingham.