Explore Posterous

Twitter, Facebook draws social media users for Downtown Turkey Throwdown meal in Grand Rapids

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (5) »

using flickr urls to show pics

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (0) »

Straight outta Milford: NYT tests the Volt.

via nytimes.com

The New York Times has a writeup of a recent test drive of a Chevy Volt at GM's Proving Grounds in Milford. I don't know if this car or others like it will succeed, but the technology sounds really cool. Don't know how long before the Volt and its offspring will become affordable, but this is exactly what I would want in a small around-town car.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/automobiles/autoreviews/22-chevy-volt.html?_r=1&hp#

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (0) »

Monday Links: Drunk Girl In a Tub, Ferrari vs. Bulldozer, Link Love, Bruce Springsteen Slip-Up in Michigan, Poodles at Firefest, Nina Mercedes, Jamie Graham, Ann Angel

Shake off that Monday morning hangover and wake up the drunk woman in the bathtub

Don't worry. Just get her home before her husband wakes up and then you can do it again next weekend...have an affair. Live it up a little!

THAT's TERRIBLE:

Saaay, that's a nice Ferrari, isn't it?

Keep watching. It doesn't stay very nice for very long.

Veronika is Very Innocent...until she takes off her shorts (z0d)

TV Power Rankings: Winter Edition (Bullz-Eye)

Uma Stone is ... is... oooh my Goodness. (Daily Niner)

PENTHOUSE Pet Andi Sue Irwin is Awesome...and Naked. (Freakshow Planet)

Budget Garage Door Opener Spoof (DJMICK)

Vintage Video of Shaq in High School (BallHype)

101 Signs You Might Be Evil (FunnyCrave)

10 female celebs who should be seen and not heard (Guyism)

5 Reasons Jon Gosselin Deserves His Own Reality Show (Top Cultured)

'Dancing With the Stars' Just Got A Lot Better (Warming Glow)

Cormac McCarthy Still a Fountain Of Wisdom (FilmDrunk)

Finally, a handy tool for popping out baby eyeballs [WTF]

'Twilight' STD Spoof (Comedy)

I'M SORRY:
(Sorry that you don't have anything other than laundry to cling to. Chop Chop, pool boy!)

Sexy Latina Nina Mercedez is taking her top off and whoa boy...

and umm... we're totally derailed now. go watch Nina's hardcore footage too.

Keeping with the bosoms, let's take a look-see at PLAYBOY Cyber Girl Jamie Graham:

She's young, possibly-dumb, and full of... um, bosom. Goddamn, we got nothing. Just look at her.

From nipple-slips to on-stage slip-ups, how could we NOT point out Bruce Springsteen's slip up at the Palace at Auburn Hills:

Good evening, Ohio! Err, Detroit. Fuck.

Turning to the slightly-obscure, check out Swedish Melodic rockers The POODLES:

That's "Caroline" LIVE at Firefest 6 in the UK. Why? Because we CAN.

aaaand Back to Boobies with Ann Angel and her great tan lines...

Nina's dancing alone in her room... and lotioning up her boobies. she's doing other stuff too... naughty stuff.

Once again, we turn our attention to Gisele, who you all have seen in numerous FOUNDRY CAMS VIDEOS:

We gave her a Grr Shirt. The guys in SLAUGHTERHOUSE and Koch Records gave us "The One".

GISELE's SHIRT DOESN'T STAY ON FOR LONG... CLICK IT!!!

(and now to recap... for the folks with really low IQ's - us included)

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (0) »

Tunnel Vision Can Ruin A Deer Hunt

Tunnel vision occurs when a person is in a high-stress situation. It can happen often while deer hunting.

A big buck is seen approaching, and ever so slowly it moves closer, and after watching it for moments, the hunter decides he want to shoot that deer. There is a very strong desire to take that animal, and tie his license tag on its antlers. It's the great American deer hunting dream.

The deer  stops, rubs a tree briefly, stands back to admire his handiwork, hits another lick on the bark, checks it out again, and then continues toward you. He stops, and can't smell the sportsman downwind of him or any danger, but he is in no hurry. He is being very cautious.

Anxiety can be your downfall. Fight it.

The anxiety level builds in the hunter after the third or fourth stop for the deer to putter around doing big-buck things, and then he moves forward again. He is now 50 yards away and will soon have his date with destiny if he stays the course. Your breath is labored and ragged, and you feel a bit light headed from anticipation, adrenalin shock and stress.

His antlers are big, possibly the largest whitetail buck the sportsman has ever seen in the wild. He stands, out of bow range, and surveys the area ahead. He doesn't smell or see any danger, but he didn't grow a rack with 10 good long points and a 20-inch inside spread by being stupid.

He stands, motionless, head up and looking around. He's not overly spooky, just being very careful.

Satisfied, he moves to within 40 yards. The rack seems to grow even larger the closer he gets. The hunter is sucking air, and begging silently for a 20-yard shot. The thought of shooting this buck makes him dizzy with excitement, and his heart is racing, beating like a trip-hammer.

Adrenalin rushes cause problems.

A full load of adrenalin is streaming through his system, and as the buck closes to 35 yards and then to 30, he stands behind a thin screen of brush. Jolt after jolt of adrenalin has the hunter as wired as a person drinking 10 cans of Ya-Hoo.

He offers a brief 25-yard shot but your eyes are riveted on that rack, and you don't want to make a mistake. He's coming, just let him move into the 20-yard range and wait for a broadside or quartering-away shot at this huge buck.

Finally, he steps into range, turns to offer a quartering-away shot at 20 yards. The buck stares off toward other deer 100 yards away in the field, and you slowly raise your bow, stare at the antlers again, come to full draw, aim carefully and turn loose an arrow.

The moment of truth.

There is a tremendous "twhack", and the buck races off while the arrow and broadhead sail off into the brush. Excited, feeling you made a killing shot, you climb down and follow the Game Tracker string to the arrow. There isn't a drop of blood on the arrow.

Tunnel vision had set in and when the hunter aimed and shot, he aimed at the major focal point on that buck -- the antlers. He forgot to force himself to pick a spot behind the front shoulder. His continuous focus on the buck and his majestic rack was his undoing, and that is where he aimed, nullifying any chance of killing that deer.

Total concentration is paramount during the aiming process. Once I know a buck has antlers, and decide to shoot, I never look at the antlers again. I focus on the heart-lung area, shoot and the deer dies.

A buddy of mine went on a wild boar hunt to Tennessee with me many years ago, and I warned him against studying the length of the boar's tushes. These big curved teeth are fascinating, and my friend looked at the teeth, aimed and hit the boar in the top of the head. It wasn't an immediate killing shot, and I hollered to him to "shoot for the heart-lung area." He did, and the boar died a quick death.

Tunnel vision doesn't just happen to police officers in a fire-fight with the bad guys. It happens to hunters all the time, and most often to sportsmen with very little hunting experience. Believe it or not, it can happen with firearm hunters during the upcoming Nov. 15-30 season.

It can ruin a bow or firearm hunt, but there is no reason for that to happen. The trick is to determine whether it has antlers, and if so, is it what you want? Once that has been confirmed, forget about the head gear, and intently focus on the vital area.

Don't let tunnel vision ruin your shot.

Once you draw back an arrow and aim, or look through a firearm's scope or iron signts, do not look at the antlers again. Pick a tiny spot behind the front shoulder, concentrate on that spot, make a smooth release or trigger squeeze, and do not drop your bow or rifle hand until the arrow or bullet makes contact with the deer.

Big bucks come often to the television hunters, who never seem to miss, but for most bow or firearm hunters like you and me, it can be a once-in-a-lifetime situation. The timing is too important to waste by missing an easy shot. Deep concentration, and not tunnel vision, is the key to hunting success.

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (0) »

Some Firearm Season Things To Avoid

Nov. 15 is something very special to Michigan deer hunters. It's the only day of the year when you can hear the sun rise.

Rifle shots, shotgun blasts and occasionally even the flat crack of a handgun going off is an audible clue that the annual firearm deer season is underway. However, all things are subject to change as we edge closer to that magic date.

So, this begs the obvious question: Will the firearm opener a week from tomorrow be a noisy affair with many shots at dawn or just  another quiet day? Sunday openers are usually good, and rank high but perhaps just one notch behind a Friday opener which gives hunters a three-day weekend.

High, low or average expectations?

So what can hunters expect from the firearm opener? I'm not a prophet, and never did well at guessing, but I expect a slower than normal opener. Fewer hunters, perhaps a few more deer, and not enough people moving around to keep the deer moving. A heavy snowstorm like last year could keep many sportsmen indoors. It will be a one-day hunt for most people.

However, there are several things to avoid and perhaps these tips may turn the hunt around for you.

Here are some things to avoid.

*Don't wait until you get into camp to sight in your rifle. It should have been sighted in at a target range a month ago.

Shooting a box or two of cartridges just before the deer opener does two things. It helps the hunter get ol' Betsie shooting straight but it also scares the bejeebers out of deer. Gun shots  send deer diving for thick cover, and from that day on the animals will move only after dark, and it may be another long year without venison.

Blinds should have been built long before now. If the weather is mild, set out in a tree stand or find a toppled tree downwind of an active trail and sit with your back to the root wad. It breaks up your silhouette, and anything placed in front of you should be sparse. If it's too thick, it becomes difficult to shoot through and requires too much movement.

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (0) »

Great quote from an article “All off to college, and first year free!”

"The reason we picked this school-college-career path is simple," he said. "You make more money and you live longer. A high school degree means an extra $250,000 in your pocket. A college degree means an extra million. Most drug dealers in our neighborhood have big bankroll in their pockets, but they live with their moms and grandmoms. They flash, but they ain't rich. The big money comes from owning your business or getting into a profession like law or medicine or engineering. They all require college degrees.

http://freep.com/article/20091107/COL10/911070361/1318/All-off-to-college-and-first-year-free

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (0) »

Untitled

Kisses to ♥ Hamburg Herford Hannover Bremen California Georgia Michigan Alabama New York Florida Barueri Marseille Paris :-)

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (0) »

Lumbering in Michigan

I enjoy reading about Michigan's timber industry in the 1800 and 1900s. When I visit a place like Hartwick Pines, a preserve of virgin white pine near Grayling or the Valley of the Giants (virgin cedar trees) on South Manitou Island, I stand in awe of the massive trees and imagine what it must have been like when virgin forests covered much of the state.  Except for a few places like Hartwick Pines and South Manitou, the virgin forests are gone.  Today I came across this film from the 1950s with vintage images of lumbering in Michigan as the industry moved into the modern age.

Timber Harvest from Seeking Michigan on Vimeo.

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (0) »

The Challenge Of Handgun Deer Hunting

The mood crept up on me like a thief in the night. All of a sudden, there it was. A new and different way to hunt deer, and admittedly, I'd fallen into the rut of just bow, muzzleloading or rifle hunting for deer. I needed a change of pace, a break for a year from these more traditional hunting methods.

Handgunning for whitetails isn't all that different except a hunter  must be, within reason, close enough to kill the animal with a bullet large enough to effectively do the job.

At the time I had three handguns that would do the job nicely. One was a Thompson/Center Contender with two different barrels that offered me a choice. One barrel was a .30-30 and the other was a .44 Magnum.

Making a choice between handguns

I also had a .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver, and I was a pretty good shot with it. I thought about putting a scope on it, and decided I'd rather use iron sights and keep any shots within 50 yards.

The T/C Contender was a single-shot pistol. The hammer had to be manually cocked, and it's true I could have used a scope on it but doing so didn't make me feel quite right. I had time to practice shooting at 50 yards but chose not to put a scope on either handgun.

A .44 Magnum is a powerful handgun, and with a 240-grain hollow-point bullet, it would do the job. The recoil when shooting this revolver is substantial but I'd had it ported by Mag-na-Port of Mt. Clemens, Michigan, and that tamed it down considerably.

I could shoot a dozen rounds a day, and eventually got to where I could put five rounds into a two-inch circle with iron sights. It was plenty good enough if I had time to cock the hammer, aim and squeeze off a controlled shot.

The .30-30 was a different story. Shooting it was a far sight different than shooting the .44 Magnum revolver. The revolver had also been ported, which helped reduce felt recoil and eliminate some of the muzzle jump.

Getting used to heavy recoil

The .30-30 was another story. The recoil from this cartridge came back more into the palm of my hand rather than back and up, and 10 shots of practice each day was all I wanted to handle. In fact, it was more recoil than I was comfortable with.

I found myself much more accurate with the .30-30 at 50 yards although the felt recoil seemed much more punishing. It took several weeks to get used to it. A pair of thin leather gloves helped ease the felt recoil.

The practice continued through the summer, and the more I shot, the better I became. My eyes were good back in those days, and if I could spot a buck at 50 yards, I knew that killing the animal would be easy.

Shooting the T/C Contender for three months enabled me to condition myself to the felt recoil of the 30-30, which still seemed to be much more than with the .44 Magnum. The Nov. 15 firearm opener should be a snap if everything went as planned.

Opening day came that year with some snow on the ground and partly cloudy skies. My stand was well positioned 40 yards downwind of where three active deer trails came through a tag alder swale, spread out, and gradually came back together to neck down into a funnel between two heavy patches of thick cover.

It was a coin flip as to which handgun I'd use, and finally settled on the T/C Contender with the .30-30 barrel for the opening day. I had two extra cartridges in my pocket, but a single-shot handgun doesn't offer fast reloading. One shot means taking enough time to get the right shot and then nailing it.

I'd been setting on stand for two hours. It wasn't a cold day, and dozens of does had trickled past but I wanted a buck with the handgun. It didn't have to be a wall-hanger because the area I was hunting didn't produce many big deer.

Here comes my buck

Soon a young buck was seen easing through the cover. He came down one of the deer trails, and it gradually merged with the other two at 40 yards. The buck stopped where all three deer trails came together, turned broadside and looked back over his off-side shoulder at some other deer.

Satisfied, he turned and took one step. The sight picture looked perfect, and I took up the last ounce or two of trigger slackl with the sights behind his front shoulder and shot.

The shot seemed excessively loud that morning but my eyes continued to track the animal. I could see the red stain behind his front shoulder, and after 50 yards he crashed to the ground.

Later,  I shot another buck with the .44 magnum revolver, and also shot a wild boar with the T/C and the .30-30 barrel, and a javelina with a 9 mm pistol. I once shot a black bear with the .44 Magnum revolve. It's not that I don't enjoy hunting with a handgun, but now I basically just shoot paper holes to maintain some form of consistent practice.

Can handgun hunting be a challenge for you? Of course it can, and I know a number of people who hunt all the time with a handgun. Who knows, I may go back to it again one of these years. If Michigan hunters plan to hunt deer with a handgun this season, they had better start  practising.

But, for me, I'm still locked into hunting with a bow, centerfire rifle or muzzleloader during those respective seasons. And, although handguns are fully capable of killing game far beyond my 50-yard capabilities, long-range handgun shooting is not for me.

It may be your cup of tea, and if so, I know why you enjoy it. But after a lifetime of bow hunting, it still gives me a big kick to have game within 20 yards when a shot is taken. Up close and personal is what bow hunting has always meant to me.

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (0) »