Apple Pie

where evere there is White folks there is gonna be apple pie. Or some version of it. The cheese eating surrender monkeys make it. I’ve seen it in the Balkans, I’ve seen it in the Baltics. They make it in Germany, they make it in Hungary, I know some Rangers outside Ft Lewis Washington make it…… fact is people love to get drunk and have been making likker at home sense folks have had homes. There are something like 90 fucking countries that grow enough apples that the diabolical apple cartel tracks their apple production….. Everywhere you go, folks love to grow and eat apples and it’s only natural that them folks would combine apples with their hooch.

It’s pretty damn easy too.

The hard part is the hooch. I like to make my own but that shit is illegal. Not for health concerns. The government hates it when you side step them sin taxes so it’s illegal and we know from the 1860’s the yankee government will commit mass murder to keep the tax money rolling in.

Can’t make your own? Don’t fret none. You’ve got options. Option #1 is everclear. Some states ban the 190 proof version, but the 151 proof will work just fine…. calm your titts. Ain’t nothing wrong with making your apple pie out of 151 proof likker. My corn squeeezings come out around 100-120 proof, my apple pie should be around 50-60 proof. Apple pie is for Sunday mornings, old women and young kids, family reunions and what not. It ain’t there to put hair on your chest…… My beloved North Carolina gets more pussy’fied by the day…. so you have to fib to get the 190 proof. Got to pay for it in advance and say you’re using it for an industrial cleaner. You can get the 151 proof without all the hassle. Either way, run it through some coffee filters to cut down that everclear after taste. I would probably use the cheapest 100 proof vodka I could find, and also run it through some coffee filters.

Let’s do some math….. a gallon is 128 ounces….. if you have a gallon of 100 proof corn likker and you add 128 ounces of water…… how strong is that two gallons? 50 proof…… that’s easy to drink right there. Cutting 151 proof down to 75 proof would be pretty easy drinking as well but I really dislike that everclear taste. Lots of folks are good with it though. Same goes for the 190 proof

64 ounces of apple juice, 64 ounces of apple cider, into a stock pot….. and….. now shit gets tricky. And it only gets tricky becuase people like what they like. The Girls like it sweet so I generally use regular apple juice and 3 cups of brown sugar, plus 2-3 spoons of molasses. I like Apple juice with no added sugar, and half that brown sugar. I never go short on molasses. It just don’t happen.

At this point you got to ask yourself a question… self….. what do I like in my apple pie? Cinnamon? Throw in a heaping teaspoon or two. Or one teaspoon and 4 sticks…. or no teaspoon and 8 sticks? I’m a one teaspoon sort of man. Nutmeg? Hell yeah! but not to much….. 1/2 teaspoon for me. Vanilla? 2 beans split, 2 teaspoons of real extract. Or some combination like that.

Boil that shit fir round about 10 mins, stir it around on occasions. Then let it cool down to room temperature…… and by that I mean 10-20 mins because who the fuck has that kind of time?

1 cinnamon stick per mason jar, pour the apple pie into the jars, seal them up and let sit for awhile. 8 weeks or longer if you can

When I want full strength shine, I’ll set it up with fruit in the jar. My favorite is peach and pineapple. I think Cherokee peaches work best. All the other stuffx seems to need sugar added to the jar, which I don’t care for. Any rate, let it rest, a year or two if you can. That shit will crep on ja like a gator

××××× edited to add this…..by stuff I mean fruit. Folks really dig it when you put strawberries and what not in your mountain dew. All that does for me is turn my corn squeeezings funny colors. It does help take some of the raw likker burn out of it but hers the two things….. your likker shouldn’t really burn. That’s probably more about their mash and double cooking their shine to make it 140 proof or better. Alcohol will always burn a little becuase the booze molecules are basically hooks, those hooks drag on the way down and cause the pain. Aged whisky burns less because them hooks go into the wood, and wood flavors and what not go into the whisky….. also them hooks is why I told you to run that everclear through coffee filters. Any rate, fruit in the jar gives them hooks some place to go, the, hooks break up the fruit, which adds flavor and color to your likker. Moon shine will bleac them strawberries and what not in under an hour, which isn’t much aging or flavor at all. Takes a goodly while longer for the shine to eat up pineapples and peaches so they work better as an aging element, and by that I mean, remove more hooks and adds more flavor.

In the Old South, it’s traditional to give folks pineapples as house warming, thanks for having me over etc gifts. I like to Ton’er’ize that by giving folks pineapples moonshine. It’s surprisingly good stuff. Everyone seems to love it despite it sounding like a really odd combination

Got busted

Death isn’t a big deal. According to the fundamentalist faith tradtions of my hard ass forefathers death is the end of our problems. In a moment we’ll go from all the struggles, worry, pain, fatigue etc of this life, to standing before the Judge. Judgement will be terrifying as it won’t go our way until the Lamb of God steps in but then we get to rest on that high mountain.

That’s how it goes, for that future mercy we do our best to honor God and give our unending allegiance to the Almighty, the Son and the Holy Ghost. By breeding and training that is the ultimate capital T truth handanded down to me by my forefathers and that Truth has motivated me to step into some fairly stupid situations. Or caused me to get really angry with myself and step into them anyway if I ever felt afraid. Probably not the most healthy way to live but I’ve never shied from telling it or failed to admit to owning a pretty serious death wish toward the tail end of my marriage. Dying seemed like the only way of escaping the living hell of marriage and going to rest on that high mountin sounded pretty dang good pretty dang often

a lot of blues songs mention resting on that mountain but in a much more subtle way

The being dead part is nothing to worry about.

The how you get there part is powerfully worrisome.

Living hard makes it easy to rack up serious injuries and dealing with them is a goodly part of my life these days. It’s most apparent in the way I train. My training time is focused on keeping my anaerobic capacity as high as I can to offset the crushed and mostly non functioning part of my lungs and movement patterns which help restore natural lines of motion. Mechanically I’m in good shape. Shoulders are mostly pain free, my feet hurt much less, my elbows rarely hurt, my hands have more good days then bad, my right knee is pain free 8 days out of 10, my left knee is still a mother fucker but I’m not looking at a hip replacement any time soon and that’s no small thing.

That’s a reflection of 4’ish years of changed thinking, which drove a change of actions and none of the above would have occurred without my Beloveds and spare cash. We have battled some shit togther. Near on lost everything when trucking went bad, 3 year brawl with the IRS, hurricane took out our home ( churched up for dramatic effect, we didn’t loose anything but the house was shoved off its beams), and I got real close to being called home. Live hard, die fast etc etc. I would never changed my op tempo if I didnt have enough money to secure our future. I would have kept ignoring the pain and the problems, mission 1st, which reguired switching my thinking from dollar bills invested to creating a steady recurring income. And yeah there is a difference.

Getting my body back to a relatively pain free and mostly mobile condition let me focus on my fucked up Swiss cheese brain. TBI’s are a real bitch but I had to solve one problem to clear things up enough to focus on the other. My physical pain levels were high enough that I wasn’t really picking up on the other stuff unless I was having a really bad esposide. TBI’s are a bitch and they are hard to quantify because a lot of what happens to me happens to everyone. It’s a matter of scale. Folks forget the words they want to use on occasion. I’ll loose large chunks of my vocabulary. Memory/ recall can be gone for days at a time and I’ll be stuck as a low level functioning adult from time to time. We’re not talking small details lost to time. The Girls will ask me about when we lost the trucks and I won’t remember owning them let alone loosing them. I dont forget the term “grocery store”. I’ll forget what they are, where they are, how to find them or what to do if I did find one. It’s a extra large pain in the ass. Or was. Doesn’t happen as often and I’ve gotten better at dealing with it all. Less angry and more sit back and enjoy things that never seem to fade. Like riding a Harely, how to cast a line, grill a steak and so far I don’t loose track of my people. I know my kids, my Girls, my grandkids…… even when I can’t recall names I always know they’re my kin and the nature of that relationship. I never forget my parents, grandparents or my little brother, though I will forget he’s moved on. Which really sucks

I removed a few lines about all this from another post, but Ame busted me….. you bitch ;)….. I removed them because it wasn’t really relative to that post and I don’t want any bullshit sympathy. For many years the Lord let me walk across His earth like a legend but there is always a price. I was willing to pay that price. Was. In many ways this is the best my life has ever been. I’m no longer ashamed or emabrssed by having a faulty CPU. Before folks helped me figure some shit out I thought what was going on with me mentally was my own failings and short comings and nothing pisses me off more then when I drop the ball…. but my head is literally fucked up. Price to pay and all that. Like all things I should be in much worse shape then I am. Mercy great and small.

Mostly I am better because of The Girls. They roll with the punches when I’m down. They ask some questions to find out if I’ve had a brain fart or if I’ve gone full retard and either talk some shit or extend some extra grace, situation dependent. I wont get into the detials but I’ve had some bad episodes. There is no battle on the home front and that makes everything easier. Not being angry at myself, not dealing with The Girls being aggravated etc etc is the bedrock of everything else.

On my end I do some things. None of them particularly scientific. Doctor offered pills, I offered the 1 finger salute. Congative therapy was just another asshole telling me I have PTSD vs helping me thing better. So I figured shit out the help of my kin and my Beloveds. And really that’s some expert level help. Not my mother’s or Gril#1’s area of professional expertise but they both understand the the science much better then I ever could on my own.

I’m no expert. I am not recommending a dang thing. I’m my own science project, have been my own test lab since I started doing steroids but I’m not willing to lay claim to any sort of expertise…… here we go…..

I take some supplements that’s supposed to help people focus, I take some that’s supposed to help get more oxygen in the blood. Brain food and brain fuel. After that I deal with this problem like I deal with all my probelms, a fuck you attuide and work. I do some basic breathing work every day, two different types, 3 if you count breathing when I train. Regular cold exposure. Generally a bucket of water over my head. I make a point of learning at least one new song on the guitar every month. Learning a new kettebell trick is part of it. I’m relearning some Spanish. My son in law sends me stuff from his engineering school days, which I learn at a very slow pace because I’ve never been much good at book learning. And he tests me on what he sends,, $20 for every wrong answer. Was skunked the 1st 3. Retested 3 times on the 1st quiz before I got 70%

All that really sucked for about 18 months. Nothing was working and busting my ass for no ROI makes me cranky. In the middle of that I had a serious malfunction….. doctors say stress can make things worse, but once again The Girls did what they could to keep things steady. Which really means not being bitchy about me being cranky. They didn’t patronized me, no useless sympathy or platitudes. We kept rolling as best we could for as long as it took. Things started noticeably improving about 8 months back. Friday I did some 1st year mechincal engineer calculations. Correctly.

I don’t know if this will help anyone. I hope it helps men think twice about military life, especially extended combat operations military life. My head and body are all fucked up and all fucked up over dumb ass wars were defined in ways that ensure you can’t win and aginst people who were never a real threat….. no real threat if you are willing to violate the terms of political correctness……..which means we as a nation had other options, easier to implement options…..done on behalf of a nation and goverment that is 100% opposed to all the things Southern men think they are fighting for. And really I got off lucky compared to guys I know with cool new nicknames like peg leg, stumpy or legless

Take away #3 is this; There is always a cost to be paid for being the boss and mostly that cost is very well hidden because it’s much futher down the road

Edited to add this….. my theory is, for this to work, it has to be mental work you are not naturally gifted in. Music works for me becuase despite being ok with a guitar it’s never been easy for me. I’ve always struggled with English let alone a second language. Dyslexia, ADHD and my hearing makes learning/ speaking difficult…..my hearing combined with a mild speech impediment is extra fun….and while I pick up mechanica things fairly easy when working with my hands the theroy stuff and math are real mofo’s to learn. If I was good at these things I would have chosen different exercises. Expect the guitar. I think the mind/ manual dexterity thing is critical.

The most important day in history

Christ has risen!

I’ll never fully understand how the Son of God allowed himself to be beaten, mocked and crucified but thank you Lord for salvation through Your grace and mercy

How the fu……….

We were at a party, kicking it with some local friends when an older couple asked me about staying in shape. Basically wondering how a half dead mid 50’s dude remains “fit “….. I think…. I’m never really sure what folks are asking me on questions like that. Typically I have to be half drunk to talk to folks who I don’t really care about, questions like that from semi strangers almost always put someone in the don’t care pile, and partly because it’s a conversation without definition or meaning. Mostly folks mean musculairty. I think. Reality is, if your an older dude who hasn’t been pushing heavy iron for decades you’ll never hit a high level of musculairty just like I’ll never be able to learn high level math or become a concert piano’est. Some things have to start early in life. You can still develop a better body and better health but you’re never gonna look like a guy who spent 43 years or so pushing iron. #2 you probably aren’t gonna work your diet or run gear, diets suck, gear is illegal…. right now I am coasting on 20 mcgs of hgh, 1000 mgs of tes E and 400 mgs of deca to offset some serious joint pain, weekly….. decca is why I am running 250-300 mgs more tes then normal for me. A healthy middle age guy can seriously improve his physical strength, which will help you look good nekkid but have some realsitc goals on the how you’ll look. Diet is a mother fucker and you’ll have to 0 that in to maximise how you look. I go pretty low carb 5-6 days a week, and I do some version of fasting but I also rely on the hgh and tes to keep pick up my slack. Dropping 20 pounds will help most guys LGN more then weight training. Quicker results too.

Sometimes I think folks mean work capacity though they don’t know enough to get that in the proper perepctive. Anaerobic conditioning is superior to aerobic. Don’t run miles on end if you want to to be able to do physical labor around your house effectively. There isn’t much carryover with long distance running but that is something healthy middle age guys can improve. Greatly. You should be able to improve how efficiently your body mechanics work. That will help you get by in life. I helped my neighbor build a handicap ramp for his beloved. He’s a really efficient carpenter but he also moves through physical space, uses tools, lifts 4×4’s etc efficiently. 62 years old and still a machine. To get strong you want to squat, deadlift, do bent over rows, bench press and overhead press….. traps and arms for looking better….. These will also help you become mechanically more efficient….. push presses will help you learn to efficiently time your body’s interactions and so will power clean…. power cleans to push press are a must after a year or so of training …. Add to this throwing something semi weighted and in different plans of motion, some weight swinging and some jumping….. don’t start jumping for 3-6 months if you’re comeplelty new. And add some walking. It’s what your body was desgined for…. learn how to do new shit to keep your body in that striving for mechnical efficiency groove…. I worry less about that physically and more about that mentally. TBI’s are a mother fucker but I will say my CPU seems to be working better now that I am taking it serious.

Sometimes folks say that meaning healthy sex life. I have no real answers. Being stronger etc will up your testosterone which should up sex drive, running 1000 mgs of tes E will most def help but there is a lot more going on then that. Chemically I try to stay in my 20’s/ 30’s. Yay ster-roids! but The Girls are way younger then me, work at staying fit and shapely…. as in lost all the baby weight etc, almost never piss me off…… probably been more then a year since we had any cross words…. could be more like 3….. and frankly I think that counts for more then the rest of the other stuff. Most men don’t need Viagra, they need something better looking and less cranky. I can remember not wanting to bang my ex wife because she was being a cunt even when we were both young and what not. I also don’t live with them or the kids full time and that keeps things lit

There is some genetics at play. My people are high energy. None of us spend much time sitting down or screwing off and our idea of down time is usually some kind of being active. Hobby vs TV. If that makes sense to y’all and 30 years ago I remember my grandparents really being into each other. Blood line counts and I hope they are as proud of me as I am of them and their family name

But the other night we were socialising with some folks and the question was asked about working out. I told the guy, a little younger then me, that I mostly did 20-30 min workouts at home, couple times a day, even when I was flipping a house….. nothing fundamentally different then the last time I wrote about this…. and some fat chick said “that’s all you really need”

Apparently it’s impolite to say say “How the fuck would your fat ass know?”

Young men know nothing

Don’t know if “they” put something in the water or if I look like easy prey but lately young men have been challenging me left and right.

Lucky for me they don’t know a fucking thing.

It started a while back when some young millennial/ older gen Z dude wanted to play the handshake of death game. Which earned him my you’re a dumb ass look, he grinned and I put my full man strength into it.I crushed down hard enough he tried to get away. I held on until I was done.

Then some dumb ass in a new’ish naturally aspirated Charger tried his luck aginst my 71 mach 1. Spoiler alert, dodges are heavy, slow and don’t hook up well. Would have been worse for him if I was in my 04 terminator but the take away here is 2 fold…. #1) dodges suck ass #2) it takes money to go fast, old men have money. He whined like a little bitch but he did pony up the money.

I went to help a young man get his service body truck out of a ditch. He pulled over, got them right side wheels in a small but muddy as fuck ditch and all them wheels would do is spin. I asked if he needed help etc and he said yes but didn’t think my truck would pull him. Told him something like “$20 says under 20 mims”. He laughed, I shoved some 2×4’s under his wheels and they did shit. 18 mins left….. Out came the fiddle snatch blocks and a couple of his traffic cones. I walked away with $20 and new friend. He’s a goodman man. Young and somewhat dumb but a good man. 24 years old, a diesel mechanic in the national guard, went to community college for it too, and now an on the road service tech. Making good money, a good wife, a fat baby boy who makes a lot of noise. Very pleased to have him around but this weekend he wanted to test my strength at the bbq I was throwing. Once again I took his 20 bucks.

Through him I meet another young man. A guy who thought he could out fish me. On my fucking pond! $100, dawn to dusk, by total catch weight. Asked him what rules we were working with and his only stipulations were no boat, one rod. He showed up with a rod, his own gear and bait etc etc. I showed up with a trout line, 5 fishing yo-yo’s and a couple of pool noodle float rigs. He wasn’t real happy about that but young men know nothing

Across the way is two brothers living on the same plot of land. They are industrial control electricians, learned their trade on aircraft carriers , working in the same plant togther and pooling their resources to get their own horse operation going. They grew up doing team roping and want their own place to train. They are serious young men and their place is going to be legit. We got to talking about some trees they wanted removed but they didn’t have a chainsaw big enough and didn’t want spend serious cash to drop 3 trees. I told them we could pull them down with their truck. They called bullshit and they were probably right, their dodge probbaly couldnt. Any rate after about 3 mins of shit talking I was over at their place with my truck, my rigging and cellphone. Used the cellphone to FaceTime my tree guy, who talked us through the rigging and down came 2 out of the 3. I couldn’t set the rigging for the 3rd tree. We chainedsawed some of it, used a guide rope and a different kind of pulley and pulled it down. Barber chaired the shit out of it but we weren t close enough to worry about that. Haven’t figure out how to remove that stump but that’ll happen one day.

I like these young men, well not the asshole who thought he could out fish me and he don’t come around here no mo but the brothers and the diesel mechanic are are good to go.

The problem is they don’t know anything. They are smart enough dudes, and have their shit togther for young men. The mechnic is over all the time, helping me when I’m doing projects around Camp Ton, the brothers never fail to help The Girls when I’m on the road or on some other project. And they are handy young men, capable with tools, home repairs, keep their trucks on the road with their own hands etc. but folks these days don’t learn how to do things. We live in a wealthy, techincally advanced society, which is a full on blessing. These young men grew up rural/ small town america and not in the best of times economically speaking but they didn’t grow during a time where harvesting food was crucial. They arent “privileged” etc in the way my younger children and grandchildren will be but they grew up in a society where cellphones can get you a tow truck and credit means most folks can “afford” to buy speciality tools they don’t use often and can swing the very occasiaonl tow bill…… they bitch about it but most folks drive really new vehicles and don’t ever need a tow truck.

These young men aren’t lesser. What they don’t know is because older men didn’t teach them, and older men haven’t taught them because for two generations now, wealth, technology and increasingly urbanization of america means you can get by just fine without knowing these old school tricks of the trade but knowing these old school tricks of the masculine trade will earn you much status among men with useful skills and it’s tricks like that will help an older man keep his alpha cred as his body decays and technology passes him by

The Ton on why guitars are the superior instrument…

Clan Ton is a musical clan and the guitar is the instrument of choice. My mother’s people are Vrigina aristocrats and if they play an instrument it’s the piano. Which I think is less common for that social class these days but I remember by maternal grandfather and great grandfather fondly. They came from a time where men of their social class were expected to be modern day kights. Well mannered naval officers, well read in the classics, athletic after their fashion and with some appreciation for the high arts. My maternal great-grandfather play the piano but he picked up the guitar becuase there was no piano on the destroyer he commanded in the ww1. My maternal grandfather was a genius, phd in physics kind of smart but really was lacking in the athletic and artistic department. His against type play was he loved to weld and work on cars and what not but that’s a story for another day.

Most of the folks in my family are not accomplished musicians. My father is insanely good with a guitar or anything that can be played like a guitar. He’s also a fair hand with a piano. Turth be told my father is an amazingly talented man. With a rifle, with a pencil, with a guitar or a bat and ball or with a hammer and saw. One of his brothers retired and went on tour as a drummer and bass player. House bands playing in places that like classic rock and country. The other can play a mandolin. Which is what their father favored, but my uncle didn’t pick up the mandolin until after my grandfather was called home.

My cousins and what have you play as well, typically some version of a guitar. Bluegrass is the music of my people and we have more then our share of banjo pickers and mandolin players. Hell we even have a fiddler and a dude who plays the upright bass is probably gonna marrying the gal who plays the fiddle. I have one nephew who is an outstanding singer, voice lessons and all that but he went to college on a marching band scholarship….. some weird shit right there so feel free to judge. My mother’s sister is a music teacher by trade, my father’s sister plays the piano at church but by far the guitar reigns supreme.

Can’t think of anyone in the family who hasn’t picked one up on occasions but it hasn’t stuck with everyone. My daughter can pick a couple of songs, my older son knows a dozen or so more and I have been playing off and on for 40+ years. I’ve never played very well and from a longevity stand point, I have made some terrible life choices. These days my hands hurt pretty damn bad after 20 mins or so and it’s unlikely I’ll get any better but lately I have been kicking around the strangest idea ever, that being getting a music degree. Mostly to fuck with the world. And becuase I am the least educated man in my sept

Said all that to say this; I am not unfamiliar with the topic of music and I will always maintain the guitar is their superior instrument option.

Now I am not saying guitar players are the superior musician, though we are, and I am not saying guitar players are the superior man, which is also true, but I am saying the guitar is the superior instrument for adult life for a host of reasons

Price. You can pick up a decent used electric twanger for $200 or so in a pawn shop

I think guitar center frequently has cheap intro axes and amps for sale for around 200 bones. I recommend starting off with an electric guitar. They are easier on the hands to fret and finger. Which is a big advantage when you’re new and your hands are tender. The less pain, the more practice…..and training is the key to vicotry. It will give you more options when it comes to styles, licks and songs to mess around with which will make the experince more enjoyable (this is about enjoying life) and lessons are readily aviabale. The money you save by buying a used one can go to lessons. Which you’ll want for a month or three. You can pick up a lot of lessons for free on YouTube but you’ll be a head of the power curve if you get some live lessons once a week for 3 months 1st.

the 1st song I ever learned

The guitar is portable in a way other instruments are not and not all of them require electricity. This is a key point for a busy man or an outdoorsman….. and as always I have to wonder what kind of man ain’t busy and ain’t an outdoorsman…… Last week I was in Ohio. Cold as fuck, snow on the ground, shitty food Ohio. So I packed food for the week, threw 3 kettlebells in the truck tool box, wrapped my Martin up in a blanket and drove up there with her and my favorite dog. I have another acoustic I travel with a fair amount because she is cheap and a little rough but she’s been strapped to my Harely, taken on family camping trips to the beach, done a couple of off roading weekends, made Lord only knows how many trips to the deer camp and been out on the boat a fair amount to.

I’ve taken a guitar on most of my deployments. Something that was always supported by my comand even when I had no rank to speak of. Or just lost some rank.

Mobility is key to victory on the modern battlefield and guitars are mobil

Firepower is also key to victory and guitars are firepower

you can fast forward to the 1:27 mark but that kid is bad ass and starts at the 3 min mark; The Mighty Ton can not shred….. but a man who can rip up an axe like that will make every young vagina in hearing distances drip

Guitars are social in ways other instruments are not. The Girls like their movie nights. I can’t stand movies unless it’s Shrek or Kung Fu Panda but I can sit in a chair and strum my unplugged electric guitar while The Girls and my younger sons enjoy their weekly movie night. Girl#2 plays the piano some but by nature it’s not familia like a six string. As in she can”t play and be an active participant of anything else. With a little experince you can play guitar and talk some and pulling out a guitar will draw a crowd. Pull your acoustic out around a campfire and people wander your way to listen and talk story while they enjoy the music. Often they bring booze and food with them. Imagine the family bliss of all y’all sitting on your porch, smoker rolling, beer flowing, kids play, adults talking shit while a couple of y’all are picking out old school country tunes just so as to not offend your grandma

Is there a more social/ and or socially acceptable instrument? Culturally, here in the South, the guitar is king. Hell America wide really. Maybe world wide. When Hollywood needs to make someone look cooler they put them on a Harely or put a guitar in their hands. Maybe with some wrap around shades. Being good with an axe brings a man status across all SES lines. You can talked guitar with hillbillies in West Virginia, poor’ ish black folks in your neighbourhood outside the worlds largest military base, with middle class folks from coast to coast, the well heeled in rural America or anywhere in between.

It’s also and intresting way to play against type in the SMP. Everyone sort of expects the burly biker guy to shred or play Hank Williams. No one expects you to play a little Spanish guitar or some classical. Other end of that is no one expects some guy with a button down white collar gig and no tattoos to shred. That sort of shit always pays dividends in the SMP

Plus chicks think guitarists are hot

https://www.statista.com/statistics/354221/sexiest-musical-instrument/

ok……. maybe this would offend grandma

this shit will get you laid and make you look wordly and what not

nothing but fun guitar licks and lyrics right there

power house guitar intro

Takes me home

The God of Clan Ton is the God of War and Justice but He is also the God of creation and creating. To play music is to plug into that aspect of the Almighty. It’s good for a man’s soul and it’s good for the people around you and A six string let’s you do that on the go

not usually into the cute kid doing amazing things but she is damn good and it was the shortest classical guitar video I could find without sitting my whiskey class

I’ve never posted that many videos before and I’m not likely to agin but I posted those videos to prove a point….. guitars are hella versatile. Perhaps the most versatile

sorry grandma

The Ton on pigs….. I mean cops

The Ton dislikes the police. No matter how you church shit up they are armed thugs, enforcing the will of a horribly corrupt and evil goverment. That has been on full display lately when they stand down and let people burn, loot and riot in our cities all so they can keep their paycheck and pensions

I can not respect men who will arrest a jobless man for failing to pay child support or alimony. I can not respect a man who will boot old folks out of their home for failing to pay taxes. Don’t forget all the horrific shit they do like no knock raids, shooting family pets, destroying someone’s house while executing a search warrant but not being responsible for the damage they do when they come up empty handed.

And none of that includes all the day to day dick moves they pull off.

Physiologically speaking none one should support the goverment or it’s minions, but that’s a whole other thing.

The cops need to fix their shit but in certian ways they can not. Yeah they can and should change their rules of engagement. Hell they get to do shit to American citizens I couldn’t do to hajis down range and some how all cops think they are being hunted in the streets when the last I looked they weren’t even in the top 10 most deadly professions.

But at the same time a lot of their bullshit can’t be fixed until we as a society fix some things.

Folks, men in particular need decent paying jobs that bring a sense of dignity. Giving men of less then average intelligence something to do besides drugs and petty crimes wil fix some shit and has to be step #1. Cops can’t fix that shit but that shit forces the cops to have a lot of contacts with men and the more contact the more likely something will go wrong.

#2 & the most difficult, is ending single motherhood. Being a widow is one thing, being a whore or divorcing just because is another. By in large single moms produce shitty kids who end up having a lot of contact with cops. Cops can’t fix that shit but the more contact with cops the more likely something will go wrong. This is the hardest thing to fix

#3 we need to fix our shit when it comes to dealing with the mentally ill. We need to have compassion for these people and that compassion has to be the tough love kind. We have a cultural that wrecks young lives. We need to fix that shit and deal with those kids before they end up with a fucked up life that puts them on a one way trip to the wrong end of a gun. We have folks who’s heads are just fucked up. We need to care for them folks. They need to he somewhere getting treatment vs out in the streets, homeless and self medicating. And lastly often these two groups are one in the same. Cops cant fix that shit but they do make a lot of contact with these sort of fucked in the head people. Really these not so bright guys with no real ecconmic options or hope are frequently in these other groups as well

#4 we need to fight the drug war. I mean really fight it. As in our tier one guys hunt down these cartel shot callers all the time. As in we destroy their houses, take their money, shoot down their plans etc etc overseas but here state side we need to be better at those 1st 3 things

I really dislike cops. I don’t consider a one of them trustworthy or a friend. I cut contact with all my old troopers who become pigs but this bullshit isn’t all on them

The Ton and Training

I am still training to the extent my lung damage allows, mainly focused on maintaining a certain mid range level of strength and maximising my anaerobic conditioning

Which means mostly kettlebells. Kettlebells are only half a lift so they are not particularly taxing on the CNS or joints…. as long as you keep your shoulders packed/ pulled back, they do better then ok for functional strength and help maintain speed. Not to mention blow out the lungs

I am doing my best to train twice a day, 5-6 times a week, kettlebells in the morning, prehab/ rehab and certian skills I don’t want to loose.

Going to lay this out in an assbackward manner, meaning my second workout of the day 1st and in a best case scenario.

My second work out of the day is mostly sledgehammering and old tractor tire. 8lb hammer, 3 mins of work, 1 minute of rest, no more then 5 work sets. I’m going to do this at least twice a wek, maybe everyday depending on how I feel. It’s always been remarkably good for my shoulders and back, gets me breathing heavy without crushing my ablity to recover.

2nd most common second work out is… throwing a medicine ball around. I have this soft’ish 10 pound med ball. I’ll set the timer on my phone for 20 mins. I throw the ball. Walk over to it. Pick it up. Throw it again, rinse repeate. Switch out the type of throw every 10 reps. Chest pass for 10 reps. Overhead pass 10 reps. Granny throw frontwards and straight up for 10 reps, granny throw backwards and overhead for 10 reps. Really looking for height and the triple extension on them granny throws. Do this no more then twice a week.

10 rounds on the heavy bag, 60 seconds of work, 60 seconds or rest. I’m going to work the same 3 combinations for most of those rounds, all power shots, all the time. I will regularly throw single power shots for the whole round. When I do that I will be working 2’s, 3’s, short right elbow, right knee shots, strong side shin kicks. Always once a week. Can’t do that anymore then once a week.

Morning kettlebells……

Warm up is always the same, bullet proof coffee, 4 sets of 8 reps of dumbbell curls/ supper set with 4 sets of 8 reps over head tricpe extensions. My elbows are pretty mobile at this point. Sometimes I add icey hot

KB training day #1 double kettlebells, going to use 32kg/ 71’ish pounds……Dead snatches for 4 reps/ dead cleans for 4 reps/ overhead press for 4 reps. Not sure the work time but I take 2-3 mins of rest. 4-5 work sets

Kettlebell day #2 is an active rest day. Single 12kg/ 25’ish pounds. 20 swings, 30 seconds rest. Right foot forward. 20 swings, 30 seconds of rest. Left foor forward, 20 swings, 30 seconds of rest. Traditional stance, 20 swings. 60 seconds of rest. Might do this 3 times. 4 if I am feeling really good, typically going to do this twice

Day 3; double 12kg. 10 swings, 10 snatches, 5 hanging snatches, 90 seconds of rest. 10 swings, 10 swings with high pulls, 5 hanging snatches. 90 seconds of rest. Looking for 8 total sets which is about 10 mins of work time. Hardest day of the week. Lungs are screaming

Day 4, just like day 2

Day 5. Just like day 3

Day 6. Single, 24kg/ 53’ish pounds. Dead snatch for 4 reps, dead clean for 4 reps, overhead press for four reps, switch hands, repete. 60 seconds of rest. Overhead press 4 reps, one arm row for 4 reps, dead cleans for reps. 60 seconds of rest. Looking for a total of 8 sets.

Once a month I will do some strong man training. I will power clean to push press for max weight using a 2″ bar. Don’t normally go more them 265 for one rep. Takes 4-5 sets to get . Atlas stone…… 3-5 reps for 3-5 sets of the only stone I still own. Weighs about 220 pounds. Farmers walk, 110 pounds per hand. Looking to do 200 yards in total. Might be 8 trips of 25 yards, might be 2 trips of a hundred yards or 4 trips for 50 yards. No work rest cycle. I take the rest I need, probably no more then 3 mins, most likely 2. How I feel the next day will dictate the rest of the week. Might be a normal full week. Might just be active rest and sledgehammering with some boxing mid week

Diet; interemeint fasting, 12hours on, 12 hours off. I’m a low carb dude by default 5 days a week. I drink sweet tea and Cherwine on the weekends…. ain’t ever been able to stop that shit. I couldn’t do the fasting when I was more serious about training but isn’t a problem now

Drug use 100mgs of tes P every day. I’ll double that if needs be but don’t typically do more then 100mgs. 200mgs of oral primo everyday. 100 mgs of winny every other day or 50 mgs of anavar everyday. 40mgs of nolvadex everyday, 60-80mcgs of clen everyday. 5 IU’s of HgH per day.

Let’s see… I still prefer to train outdoors. I have a metal carport to train under these days. Can run fans there when its insanely hot, might enclose it for the winter. I train barefoot which has been good for my knees and feet, Med ball throws and farmers walk are always out in the weather. And I always wear shoes for those. Most weeks I am doing 4-6 rounds vs 8. I never do more then 8. Tired it, was very hard to recover from

Dialing this in has been a huge quality of life improvement. I walk around at about 230 these days. Down about 57 pounds from when I cracked 900 in the squat and 365 in the push press. Still keeping that same 14’ish % body fat because any lower and I get weak and sickly. I still have that werid power lifter belly but I can turn my head in the full range of motion, wipe my own ass, tie my own shoes and bang The Girls 2-3 times a day. Not as often as when i was doing a lot more gear but a hell of a lot more often when I was in the ICU for months at a time

The Ton on the legendary 10/22

As a select few of you may know, The Ton has a slight love affair for firearms. I grew up hunting, just like milions of kids, and I grew up doing NRA long distance shooting comepetions with my father and grandfather. I never stopped hunting and spent much of my life using a rifle to earn my daily bread. At one point, at an elite level but lately it has become a somewhat waining affiar. I still hunt but I do almost 0 tactical shooting because I am bored with it.

Mascuilne sovereignty requires proficiency with violence and firearms are one of the most important tools for a man to master. Money 1st. Guns second because gun skillz take cash to develop.  The Ton still loves to hunt and I still shoot a fair amount but my shooting these days consist of doing dumb shit with a .22LR or long distance stuff. I’m probably averaging 3k rounds of .22LR a month right now vs way less then 300 rounds of .308, .338 Luppa and .50 BMG. Probably less then 100. Partly becuase I can fire .22 where I live full time and have to travel for my long distance range.  Partly because I don’t care if I ever do another tactical anything but I have an old-school book on trick shots I am working through.

As The Ton goes, so does Clan Ton. Mostly because I’m an asshole that likes to throw money around partly becuase I am trying to establish a larger then life legend for my decendants to remember and partly because if we stay here my lineage wil be balls deep in the up coming shit storm…. Clan Ton is gunned the fuck up. I’ll be banging on about tuning  up one of my favoitre rifles,  the Ruger 10/22’s.

There are 2 reasons I customize them, and they are interdependent. Improve useability and to improve reliability. Which makes it sound like the Ruger 10/22 is unreliable. It ain’t. But .22 ammo is cheap and trying to fire large volumes of it will cause problems. You can address that with higher dollar ammo or upgrading certain aspects of the rifle. Improving the rifle is a one time fixed cost. Expensive ammo is a never ending cost.

Improving useability makes shooting more fun. Especially for chidlern and new shooters. The main focus on that is scaling the weapon to childern and reducing the decibels. Again to make it more kid friendly. Sound and kids is a werid thing. #1 They hate to wear ear protection, #2 kids are fucking weird. My 2 year old gets stoked of 12ga booms! Really dislikes rifle fire….. Fucking bastards are weird. Any rate, M4 style collapsible buttocks will reduce the effective size of the weapon. It also expand as the child grows. I also put rail systems on the rifle but don’t mount optics. That is something kids have to earn. When I do, it’s typically a small red dot. Not much recoil on a .22 so not much point in dropping a ton od money on a red dot. Scopes come later.  They need the basics down 1st. Suppressors are the only thing I have really standardised becuase I get a discount as a reliable customer. I’m not runing the most decibel reducing can around but it’s a quality product that is easy to clean. I still have the kids wear ear pro but the can makes it less critical if they are being shitheads about it. Bi-pod legz are hugely popular with the little ones. Helps them mange the size of an adult sized rifle but also dramatically improves accuracy.

An upgraded trigger will almost always improve accuracy. Ruger makes one and I like it alot. For the moeny. I don’t think kids really need the better trigger kit when they 1st start out but I want a rifle they can grow into. Physically speaking and as a shooter.

Large fingers, small mag release…. I put the extend mag release on them. For my sanity as their instructor if nothing else same for charging handle but really it seems to help kids with their small, weak hands manipulate the weapon correctly.

Last for me is tuning up the bolt. Two main issues here. #1 Is the extractor. Like I said .22 ammo is cheap ie dirty and fouls your firearm. Upgrade that extractor so it can deal with the mess and get your spent brass out of the way. .22 rim fire means the propellant is all around the rim of that fucker. Upgrade the firing pin to one that strikes the rim better…. Which will also help burn more of the propellant leaving less of a mess.

Notice I didn’t list which kits to use….. I’m not sure it matters. All of them seem to do well. And I don’t have bipod legs on my personal .22’s.

Not much else to say. They are fun to shoot, cost effective to run/ train with and they do an ok job as a farm gun out here in rural NC where we don’t have a large size predator problem

 

How many guns are enough

My son in law called me today. I don’t much speak about my family like I use to. Internet folks have made that unwise. Any rate my son in law is an ok dude. West point fucker, SF officer, combat vet, engineer, MBA,  regional manger for a huge retail outfit by profession….. all around normal, everyday, upper middle class,  BMW driving “conservative”. As in pretty fucking liberal and retarded but thinks he’s a conservative because he voted for Trump and mittens and mccain. He would die if anyone called him right wing.

Not the kind of guy you would expect to worry about the future because those sorts are idealistic beyond all reason, but he’s worried.

SIL is gunned up. Nothing I would call a majorly armed household, but surely a statistical supper gun owner… which I think means 7 guns or more. I’ve found more guns then that by accident while looking for the gun I wanted. Heck, I think I built like 7 FAL’s before I was doing a good enough job to keep them for myself vs selling them so I could build more.

Today he was almost culturally enriched driving from one buiness meeting to the next. BLM was stopping traffic and harassing passengers. When he saw what was going down, he found a gap in the peaceful protesters culturally enriching the car in front of him, filled it with his sedan and got the fuck out of there.

Which is what any smart person should do. He called 911 once he was clear, 911 told him the law was already responding, and he made his meeting on time.

Any rate, we talked. About a lot of shit. He’s still not ready to leave America. Which makes him a dumbass. He thinks he can bunker up on their  4’ish acres, surrounded by other semi rural upper middle class white folks with big yards, sport sedans and mostly soybeans for neighbours. And they can for some unknowable amount of time because trouble won’t be looking for them out there. Until it is.

SIL is a combat vet. 12A and 18A, with 3 combat tours but he’s never been through a siege and he has some idea about bunkering up in his 3200 sqf, 3 car garage mcmansion…… Most days on the job your M4, 15 mags and maybe a side arm will get you through. You are with a group of guys who are armed and trained wth back up a raido call away. You don’t have to do everything yourself and I think a lot of folks would be surprised just how little shooting and how much directing and talking squad leaders and officers do.

Down to brass tacks. He asked me how many guns should he own to be ready for what’s coming.

I had two answers.

If that is a serious question, then the correct answer is getting the fuck out of Dodge and living somewhere you don’t expect to be a combat zone.

Answer #2) there is no answer.

Because records are impossible to keep and no one really remember any way, we don’t have any idea how many shots are typically fired when civilians use fire arms to defend themselves. All the various studies have huge flaws in them but most “experts” seem to agree it’s 4-5. Experts in quotes there because it’s a topic no one can be an actual expert on. To many variables, the largest variable being people don’t ever really know. As way of example, during training missions most men couldn’t accurately say how many rounds where fired until rounds remaining were counted. Let that sink in. Trained shooters in a non life threatening situation where unable to accurately guess how many rounds they fired while practicing reglaur every day stuff like clearing a few rooms. I had 10 mags on me for my 1st fire fight. I burned through 7 but could have sworn it was 2-3. and yeah I was heavy on the trigger until I settled in to the job.

Answer #2 will always remain unknowable.

I have been through countless fire fights but only one siege. Sure I have been on camps or ECP’s and what not that have been attacked but none of those lasted very long. I’ve been places that got hit nearly every day, and operations that lasted a few days with constant resupply and contact with the enemy but I have been through one balls to the walls non stop event. And that was as a PMC in Iraq.

I have no idea how many rounds I fired. My hands were raw and what not from loading mags. I stopped using my duty rifle. It was taking to much time to break down linked 7.62×51 to keep the mags loaded and they ran out of snipers. I was a dumbs ass for sticking with that rifle for so long.   Moved to  an M4 that wasnt mine, replaced a guy on a crew serve and went back to an M4 when an rpg fucked it up. Never fired my pistol. I know I got some sleep. Cant tell you how much. They were not real serious at night but they kept pressure on us. Probably just trying tomwear us down. I ate a lot. I remember 3 semi meals. Mostly just a lot of bullshit to keep from crashing.  It lasted 72 hours, give or take a few hours…. depending on which report you read and when you think the siege started. I was in contact before most guys. Nature of the job at the time and we were trying to be discriminate initially until things got out of hand. I had ammo dropped on me twice by helicopter. Cant say how many times we were resupplied. Almost all of us were injured. Generally nothing serious. But we were all cut and what not from spall. Brused and beat up from laying on cinder blocks and what not.  Lots of sprains, busted up hands, fingers, burns, bullshit in eyes, busted up ears etc etc. A few guys were hit pretty hard but not so bad it was worth risking an evac.

Point of all that  is….. this

You and your small nuclear family won’t surrive anything like a serious attempt to take your home. You don’t have the man power or resources. Heck 20 dudes and some Molotov cocktails and you are fucked.

If you think things will get that bad your plan has to be better then some lone wolf bullshit.

The 1st thing you should work on is location. (2nd thing if you don’t have a carry gun). The absolute best thing to do with trouble is avoid it.

If you are in someplace like St Louis and that one couple you’re going to need back up. Dial 911. That’s a must and helps protect yourself legally but you’re going to need friends and a plan

1 would suggest every man own an AR-15, (100) full 30 round mags, soft body armor, plate carrier, full-size 9mm with spare mag, a pocket 9mm a helmet, decent 1st aide kit etc and a couple of flashlights.

Scale it from there. Wife? Skip the rifle and 100 mags. Unless you habe the money to spend. Get her the rest of that shit 1st. Someone has to watch your back and the overall situation. Kids? Depends on the age. Have a plan to fall back into your house. A spot to make your last stand and a plan to get in the car and haul ass.

But mostly be somewhere you don’t have to worry about your home turning into a mini Alamo