Here is some good stuff for you to ponder over and then go research for yourself.  Some, if not all of you know there is an internet system called “FireFox”, Mozilla Firefox to be exact and you can download it and use it to do all the internet stuff you need.  It’s like Microsofts “Internet Explorer” or the Google one called “Google Chrome”, I’m sure there are many others, but these are the ones I know about.  The purpose of this writing is about Firefox.

This great Mozilla Firefox thing is wonderful in todays world and I use it pretty much exclusively over the other choices.  It seems to be pretty quick to respond and I normally don’t have much problems with it.  (Now watch…all heck will break loose with it).

So, let me tell you about another Firefox that started a whole long time ago, long before the internet was even thought up.  And maybe, just maybe Mozilla Firefox has taken their name based on some of what you are about to read about…I don’t know.

It was 1966 and a newly graduated teacher got his first assignment in a school in Georgia.  A teacher with aspirations to become the best teacher in all the land…very motivated and intelligent.  He had a Masters degree and at the time, that was just one notch below a doctor!  (Now for my spin), this guy was pretty much like all the other teachers.  Engrained to make sure the students learned and could recite all the “important” dates and names that all the other teachers for decades before had done.  After all that was the way he learned all the good stuff and why would he change it?  He has a boss and if the boss says do things this way or that, well you best be doing it or go looking for another job!  Right?

So here he is with a group of typical 9th and 10th grade High School students, doing exactly what High School students their age do…stuff!  Stuff that isn’t quite right in the world of “listen to me” and “do as I say”…He had a burn in his podium from one of the students trying to light it on fire, during class!  A half a pocket knife blade sticking up out of the floor of the class room from one of the “little Johnnies” playing mummbly peg with his new Barlow knife, his chalk was missing from the box where he kept it and the tacks had been removed that held up his “world globe map”…irritation was not the word for him at this point!  A class room full of problem kids! (OCDC in todays world, not normal).

This guy was supposed to be teaching these kids about English, Geography and several other courses that other teachers had given up on.  He wanted to do a good job, but was at his wits end and wanted to show these kids just who was the boss.

Of course all of us know that when the kids don’t do what we want, we strike out with a vengeance and cause them grief and discontent!  Forcing them to do the unthinkable…learn something….Learn something that we want them to learn even if it is of no value other than teach them discipline!  What happened in 1492 and who was involved?  A big event happened in 1776, what was it and who did what to whom?  Who was the third President of the United States?  Who wrote the Star Spangled Banner?  What did Helen Keller do that was so important?  What was the “shot heard round the world”?  That sort of stuff.  What good is it?  Sure, I can write stuff in this story, but do any of you know the answers to any of it?  Probably not, but you now have Google to look it up!

There are lots more important things to learn than that stuff.  Math is a much more important subject…at least you can use it in your everyday things.  Geology too…Hey Ed…What kind of rock is this?   And of course Ed’s answer is “Leaverite”!  (Leave ‘er right where you found it).  While driving down the freeway you can look across the valley and see the fanning shape of the terrain as it comes out at the bottom of a deep canyon…what’s that called?  An alluvial fan!  Everyone knows that.  And to me that is much more important than knowing that Betsy Ross made the first Official American Flag.  Good for Betsy.

So, here he is, teaching the stuff that the kids will remember (maybe) just long enough to pass the test with a D minus and then forget it all before the end of the next recess.  Why waste his time.

So, being the very brilliant man he was, he decided to get the class members to make up their own curriculum, sort of.  You see he was new to the area of Georgia he found himself teaching in and they had their quirky ways in them parts.  They had sayings that most other people in the U.S. wouldn’t know what they meant.  They planted crops by the sign of the moon.  They hunted and fished and made stuff by hand and ate weird things (pickled pigs feet come to mind).  So, in order to get his kids involved and still learn how “English” was to be properly used and how sentences were to be constructed and what an adverb was and how it differed from a adjective etc. he made them assignments to go home and interview their parents, neighbors or friends about the different things that made their people who they were.  What defined them in their individual characters and on and on.

He involved the kids in making up a list of what was unique about the area and then made the assignments accordingly.  As it turned out, nearly all (not all) but nearly all the students took a big interest in the project and in the end, (six years later), they compiled a book and called it “Firefox”!  And then they had it printed and sold it!  Not only did they sell it locally, but it became a best seller!

It didn’t take long before this old boy teacher became the favorite of all the students and everyone wanted to be in his class.  They ended up printing the original Firefox book and 11 more just like it with different stories and things that were a part of the history and living style of the local area!  They even went on to create a local museum and history building!

A true story folks!

A Google search will fill your screen up with nothing but Mozilla Firefox things, but keep scrolling down and changing pages and pretty soon you will find “Firefox Magazine” (maybe start your search with that)!

Do you want to know something about Church Ministers?  Snake Handling?  Foot washing?  Fiddle making?  Horse trading? Or about Sassafras Tea?  These are your books!

Bears Butt

Oct. 26, 2013

2013 Baseballs world series begins tonight!  YAYEEEEE!  I guess.

I’ve never been into baseball, basketball, football or for that matter any of the big time sports stuff.  Little League…you bet…especially when the kids were playing and it doesn’t look like the grandkids are into that, so my little league days are over.  I never was coordinated enough to play little league, even though I did don my uniform religiously and went to the practices and games, but in my 3 year career I can only remember hitting the ball one time and made one terrible play at second base…all the other memories of playing are gone.  I was on a team called the “DZ’s”…it really doesn’t even sound like a good team does it?  Disease.   It didn’t stand for that word, it actually stood for the two coaches, Dick and Zundel and they were great coaches, they just couldn’t get me to be able to hit the ball or play the infield very good.  I gave them 3 years and tried really hard, it just didn’t happen.

What about basketball?  Too short and uncoordinated, my layups all came off the wrong foot and I could not get that habit out of my head…so I just cheered the team on.

Golf?  I did get pretty good at that silly game.  Once I was taught how to control where the ball was going to go, I went from scores in the 80’s (nine holes), to the 40’s and even into the mid 30’s before I hung up the clubs.  The secret was two fold:  Keep your head down was a biggie, but the best lesson I learned besides that was to take hold of the club handle correctly.

I’m right handed and so I would lean my club handle against my right leg, the ball on the ground was just inside my left foot and of course out away from my body a foot or so.  I’d lean over and grasp the club with my right hand and slightly turn the club, so the face of it was almost invisible from my prospective, then I would take hold with my left hand making sure not to change the angle of the club face.  Then keeping my head down and eye focused on the back of the ball, the back swing and follow through would send that ball way down the middle of the fairway.

Now if the fairway curved to the right, I would not change the face of the club at all from what it was as it rested on the ground and the handle leaning against my leg.  That way the club face would come in contact with the back of the ball and sort of  “slice” it as it lifted the ball.  It would actually give the ball a spinning motion in a left to right (clockwise) direction and the ball would sail down range and start to turn to the right as it went.  It was actually cool to watch it all play out, following the lay of the land and giving me much needed distance and still maintaining the ball in the playing field and not out into the rough.

If the fairway curved to the left, I would bury the face of the club to a point I could not see any of the face at all.  Again when the club came in contact with the ball it would cut across it and give it a right to left (counter clockwise) spin.  Flying down range it would then curve its flight path to the left, following the contour of the range.

I practiced that a lot at the practice range until I had it mastered.  Of course the real golf guys have a lot more tricks up their pant legs than I did.  But once I started consistently hitting near par, I lost interest in the game all together…too easy I suppose.

So, tonight starts the World Series games, best 4 out of 7 team wins all the marbles.  This year it’s the Saint Louis Cardinals against the Boston Red Socks.  Both teams sporting red in their uniforms!  I don’t much care as to which team wins because my interest in the game is only on the final scores!  Vegas has my money baby!  Well, close to Vegas anyway and as long as the scores land on my number I’ll be a happy guy!  No cheating fellas!  And no paying off the umps either!  Professional ball players, team owners and mafia types are like that you know!

There are a couple of other reasons besides my numbers that makes the games interesting to watch.  The commercials and the sports announcers “stats”!  I’m not sure which is the most interesting, but I can tell you the “stats” are a statisticians night mare.  They have stats on top of stats for each player, coach and probably even the bat boy/girl (girls are getting into the game too).

When was the last time you heard of a team winning a series after loosing the first 3 games?  Or hitting a grand slam after falling behind in the pitch 2 and 0 after 2 pitches?  What about sliding into home base with one shoe coming off as he rounded 3rd?  Getting hit in the head with a pitch his first 3 times at bat in one game?  Grounding to short stop and still making it all around the bases to home on errors?

They have stats for all of it.  Do yourself a favor in the game tonight and don’t get up between innings to get another beer, just once sit there and watch the commercials and listen to the announcers spew their stuff.  It’s comical!

Oh and by the way 15 more days until we head off to the elk hunt! There are my stats on that!

Bears Butt

Oct. 23, 2013

My mind is totally on the upcoming elk hunt.  I have been Google Earthing the area until I think I’ve worn all the brush and timber off the mountain.  I have all the water holes memorized and even though I have never been on that mountain, I feel like I own it.  Videos of elk hunting the area have all been watched at least twice and some of them 10 times.  I’ve talked to locals about the place, got my exercise routine down so I can pretty much maintain a 5% slope at 7 mph for up to 3 minutes and finally been studying how to field judge bull elk antlers.  Why?  Heck if I really know, because I’ve never even shot at a bull elk and so any I get will be a trophy no matter if it only has one horn sticking out of its head.

With all of this “elk this and elk that” and a gang of guys going down to help out, I feel a need to give them all a little something as a memoir.  I have looked on line for little elk heads and such and when I was able to find something close, it was about $25 and that is way too expensive, even for my good family who are going down hunting with me.  You know that $25 equates to almost 4 12 packs of beer.  Sorry guys.

So, I had a dream the other morning and came up with a way to give them a token of my appreciation and something that they can keep forever.  Now I’d like to show you how to make them!

We are going to make some wire elk antlers!  How about that!  No, they aren’t going to be so big as to put them out in the front yard as decorations, but you could if you wanted to I suppose.  No these little guys will be dangles for perhaps a beaver sharn, or from your rear view mirror.  Let’s get started!

Here are the things you are going to need.

Some 20 guage craft wire, Artificial sinew or nylon string, scissors, Super Glue, Small pliers, Small piece of leather or cloth and in my case a small permanent marker pen.  Now to look at all of this and imagine seeing a set of wire elk antlers at the same time, just doesn’t make a lot of sense does it?

I’ll try and make this simple for all you “think inside the box” folks.  This idea just came to me suddenly and so here you go!

Pull out some of the wire from the roll and grab onto it with the pliers about 1/2 inch from the end

A 5 to 7 year old bull elk usually has 6 points on each side, give or take and once the animal is mature, each consecutive year they are alive, the antlers just seem to get thicker or bigger around and a little longer.  The number of points is usually genetic more so than anything else.  So, we are going to make a 6 point bull elk antler set.

For point number one, referred to in “the book” as the G-1 point, bend the wire up toward you, then move the pliers to where you think the point is going to be its longest and bend it back down.

Nice looking G-1 if you ask me!

Take the pliers and move it down to a point straight across from the point of beginning.

bend it up and then back down…G-2!  G-1’s and G-2 points are somewhat similar in length on a real animal, but God made things so that every animal is different in one way or another and so should your wire antler.  No two will be identical.  Let’s get after the G-3 point.  It is usually a bit longer than the other two.

Notice I’m not going overboard with length differences with my set of antlers, but you can do whatever you want to do, they are your antlers and you can make them however you want them to look…pretend YOU are GOD!  Now for the G-4.  On a real animal the G-4 is usually the longest on a side.  Some field judges say you can tell a truly remarkable bull, if the G-4 is long enough, that if you could lay it down toward the back end of the antler (to the tip) and it was  that long you had best be shooting and counting total points once it’s on the ground.  I can’t say one way or the other, but it sounds like a pretty good theory.  G-4!

Nice!

Well, our goal here is to have a six point antler and so I must say that in real life, again, the G-5 point is usually the shortest out of the G-1 through G-5…so let’s bend ours to be a short one and then extend our wire out to where we think the tip of the antler should be and bend it back toward our point of beginning.

So here we have our six potential antler points.

At this point I like to take my pliers and squeeze down the ends of the points so they aren’t so wide at the tip.

And then we will wind the wire over the lower curves and continue to wind that wire until we get back to the beginning of this antler.

Continue to wrap this wire until you reach the beginning point.

Ok, that is all the wire we will be needing for this side of the antler and so we will snip it off just long enough that we can wrap it around the beginning straight section a couple of times.

At this point it looks like it could be the dorsal fin of a perch.

Well, we really should know at this point just what a typical elk antler looks like and so here is a picture of a real elk.  I borrowed this off a “free download” website.  Whoever took the picture did a great job!  Thank you!

Notice how the G-1, G-2 and G-3 points curve up.  My dream of shooting a bull of this caliber is very high!  Further study of this particular elk shows it’s G-3 is actually longer than the G-4, on the one side…God interfered again and that is ok.

Let’s bend our “antler tips” to sort of match this real elks antlers.

So, now we have one half of the antler set.  Go ahead and repeat the steps again for the other half.  Remember that when you are bending the other side, it should  “mirror” this first side.  Ideally a real elk will have exactly matching sides.  Each of the “G” points will mirror the corresponding “G” point on each antler, be the same length, the same curvature and the same thickness.  Antlers like what I have described really add up points in “the book”.  You will want to make sure yours are pretty close to the same.

Once we tie these two sets together in the middle, we can straighten up the points and get down to the artistic side of making them match as closely as we can.

Put them together and get to wrapping them tightly.

You know, these don’t look too bad do they?

So, in real life, if you had a nice set of elk antlers like this you would want to display it on the barn wall, or in your home or somewhere.  The part you just wound together would actually be the crown portion of the elk’s skull and you could (in reality) leave it bleached white or you could cover it with something to cover it up.  Since these are wire, we will want to cover them with something to hide the twists.  I like to use scraps of deer leather, but cloth would work just as well.

Cut the leather just slightly larger than the wrapped wire portion and super glue it in place, making sure the connecting point is going to be hidden “behind” the antler.

Now wrap the leather and trim it off.

Look’in Good!

Well, you are so close to being done it’s amazing.  Aren’t you proud of yourself ?  You should be!  You did a very good job and it almost looks like real elk antlers…well, wire ones at least.  It’s time to tie on the sinew or nylon string.  In my experience, I found that tying the string through the openings on the G-5 points make the antlers hang more normal.  Make sure you get the “square knot” good and secure so it doesn’t fall off.

There you go!  All done and ready to hang.

I also did some experimenting with some old wood and tacked some on it.  They turned out pretty cool too.

And so there you have it.  Easy to make, fun to do and will be the envy of all your friends!  They will be asking you to make them one.  Just turn them onto this web site and have them make their own!  Bears Butt Dot Com.

Hey!  That’s me!

Bears Butt

Oct. 21, 2013

I don’t have a lot of time right now, so I’ll just post up the Monticello weather for today:

Plenty of sunshine, high 54 degrees, light breezes throughout the day, low expected to be 31.

It actually sounds like a very nice fall day!

Bears Butt

Oct. 21, 2013