In reference to my title on this one, if you haven’t seen Oh, Brother Where Art Thou, get thee to the movie kiosk or the Netflix stream, or whatever flavor of movie rental you prefer!

I believe it was the first Christmas Jenni and I were together. We were recently married and had not known each other for very long in the grand scheme of things. Many people were betting against our success, and it was hard to blame them. In the first year of our marriage, we bought a house, had a kid, and our net income put us comfortably in the poverty bracket. I wouldn’t trade that year for anything.

I’ve got sensitive facial skin. Gillette ought to run the census, because their demographic intel is incredible! When I got to about shaving age in my teens, I started getting Mach 5’s in the mail. They were useless to me. None of those multi-blade monstrosities have been any good on my face, but lead to endless razor burn and breakouts. I found that Grandpa’s old safety razor made for a beautifully close shave without side-effects, but I was not comfortable using it. Teenage boys are not well-known for their minute dexterity, and it took me half and hour and several cuts to get a shave with the thing. So, I went electric. In my adolescence, I had an electric shaver that served me well, even if it didn’t ever shave very close.

Then, on that first Christmas of my marriage, my new wife gave me a really nice Panasonic wet/dry electric shaver. I might add that she doesn’t particularly like me to wear facial hair. Now, that would make the little shaver 11.5 years old. It has served me well for over a decade. But, in the last few months, its performance has suffered. The battery would need to be charged more often, and the blades were showing clearer signs of their age. A couple of weeks ago, it finally deteriorated to the point of uselessness.

I was shaving one morning, and the old motor was giving its hum, albeit a few steps lower in pitch than when it was younger. When I got to the tougher whiskers on my chin, rather than being cut, they got jammed between the blades and the screen, and pulled hard. No amount of turning the switch off would make the shaver release its death grip on my facial hair. I wound up gritting my teeth and yanking the wayward device from my face. That was the final straw.

The Panasonic has gotten to the age that blades and batteries are no longer readily available, and would likely require a seal kit to install. I don’t even want to think about trying to obtain that! A new shaver would probably be a better option. It appears that this early gift from my young bride deserves a Viking funeral at long last. As Murphy’s Law would have it, a new shaver has exactly zero priority in my life right now, as we are pinching pennies in every conceivable way, with the start of the business and all. So, I took up Grandpa’s safety razor again.

I have a few blades for the antique razor, and when they run out, replacements are cheap. I didn’t realize exactly how dilapidated the Panasonic’s blades had gotten until using a real blade again. Where I was shaving every morning with the wet/dry, I can achieve similar results with three mornings a week using the safety razor. With the repetitive use, in my adult life, I’ve gotten a lot more efficient using the blade. What took thirty minutes as a goofy teen takes five now – and that’s with a whole lot more facial hair. I’m starting to think that I won’t own another electric, even when I am not feeling so thrifty again.

Over the last week or so, I’ve been a bit of a slug on grooming. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still showering and using deodorant. I just haven’t bothered to shave. Over the last couple of days, I was noticing that my head was getting a little fuzzier than I like it as well. So, this morning I decided to fix it. I got out the Wahl clippers and the #1 guard and went to town. I don’t often cut my own hair since it’s difficult to see whether I got it even in the back, but I thought that it would be far more likely to get done if I only had to ask Jenni to even up the back when she gets home from work.

Once I got all trimmed up, I looked really funny (to me anyway) as the hair on my head was roughly the same length as my stubble. So, out came Grandpa’s safety razor and I took care of that as well. Now, I look more like a respectable business man than an insane bum – always a good thing. Funny enough, I have not cut myself once in this round of using the old single blade. I’ve often mused about going to a straight razor, and I think I’d like to try that one day. The problem is that you don’t just need the razor, but all the peripheral stuff as well – the strop, stone, brush, cup, soap, etc. The initial investment is significant but well pays for itself in savings on supplies. There’s simply no cheaper way to shave in the long run. Until I do make such a jump, it appears that I’ll be using the old safety razor.

Alright. So, I haven’t been great about keeping this thing moving. I’m feeling like kind of a slug about it at the moment. I don’t really have much to say right now… Not much at all…

We had a nice Independence Day weekend, for what that’s worth. Cat O’ Nine Tales drove in to our neck of the woods for the weekend. So, that was nice. Everything just kind of worked out great all weekend. We got to the parade later than we wanted, but we still got the best parking space in town. And, when we went to set up our chairs, we found a great place to park our butts too! The weather was cool and it started to sprinkle at the end of the parade. The go-cart drivers in the Shriners were in the finest form I’ve ever seen them. They must have a practice track somewhere, because I didn’t think it was possible to drive those little suckers that hard!

We had the same story when we went to the University to see the fireworks show. Got there late, still found a great spot. It was nice. Sunday afternoon we went to the range and converted money into noise and jubilation. I made some decent groups, but my lack of practice is starting to show. That kind of sucks.

On the business front, the sales are starting to roll in slowly. I’m seeing a very slow and steady increase in interest and in actual sales. This is a good thing. It tells me that it is actually working. I’m going to wager a guess and say that what I’m seeing right now is typical of a year in. If I’m right on that, I deserve a pat on the back or something. Maybe I’m just being optimistic. At any rate, I’m about to announce a great event over at The Holster Site. I’ve got to keep that pretty secretive for the moment, but I’m getting really excited about that!

Anyway, I’ve got some other stuff to finish up in the next couple hours, and that’s about all I’ve got for now.

DISCLAIMER: I do not condone nor endorse installing parts or accessories on a firearm that were not specifically designed for it. If and when I do so, it is at my own risk. If you make a decision to do something similar, it is similarly at your own risk and has nothing to do with me.

The local gun range was clearancing out a bunch of their wares because apparently they had to make some extra space so they can do some construction. We’ve been taking The Kiddo up there on Monday evenings for air rifle training. Since we were there, we decided to check out what they had on clearance. The big clearance shin-dig happened last week sometime, and we deliberately didn’t go.

As both of you probably know, money has been tight recently. Sales on The Holster Site have been slow, which is normal for a brand-new business. Still, the rationalization of the facts unfortunately does not pay the bills. We didn’t really want to get tempted to blow our grocery money on the great deals, so we avoided the main sale event.

They had the dregs of the clearance items in one corner of the facility when we were there yesterday. Since this is like the ‘third-day-garage-sale’ stuff, we decided to give it a quick look. We probably shouldn’t have, but SCORE!!!!

Tritium pistol sights! We had been wanting to get some night sights for our S&W M&P’s! They didn’t have any to fit the M&P, but they had them to fit some of the older Smith pistols. I thought to myself (or possibly out loud – sometimes I get confused), “How many different dovetails could Smith & Wesson possibly cut into their slides?” I unloaded my M&P45c to compare. At a precursory glance, it looked darned close! It might be worth the gamble to get a couple sets! How much of a gamble though?

Not the $115.00 original price, not the $20.00 marked down price, but a mere $5.00! Worth the gamble? Oh hell yeah. Does it hurt the budget? Only nominally. So, we got the stuff home and I went about seeing if everything would fit right. Here’s what came in the kit:

The front sight is actually marked with the Trijicon logo and has the white ring around the tritium tube. The rear sight has the v-shaped sight groove highlighted with a trijicon ‘I’ to dot with the front sight. (I haven’t been crazy about the three-dot stock sights on my M&P anyway.) You can see the kit also came with an allen wrench to stake the rear down, some generic thread locker, and a plastic drift that feels and smells like Delrin. I know it’s weird to describe a polymer by its smell, but there you have it.

The front sight was slightly taller than the stock blade, but would slide into the end of the dovetail securely. Since it was taller though, if I tried to use it with my stock rear, it would make my POI low. We can’t have that! So, I decided the only rational thing to do was to pull my factory rear and see if I could get the XS on there. The M&P series pistols have a strange little block mechanism in the slide that is spring-loaded against the rear sight. So unless you are careful, it will come apart like a Chinese watch. The guy in this video shows us all about it except how to get the thing back together:

I didn’t need help taking it apart though! Once I had the stock sight removed, I compared the two. The one on the right with the one set screw is the stock sight. The one on the left with two set screws is the tritium.

Looks close enough to me! So I hammered the replacement sight into place and cranked down on the set screws. Then I proceeded to remove the front sight.

They look pretty close too!

This actually gave me more problems than I like to admit. It wanted to catch towards the middle of the dovetail slot on the slide. So, I’d have it almost tapped into the center and it would pop across to the other side. It was horribly frustrating. Eventually, after cussing and tossing my hammer and some deep breathing, it centered for me.

I went to reinstall the slide on the frame only to find that the little block dealy from the video that sits under the rear sight would not compress and allow the slide to clear. Apparently, the spring was bound up inside the hole. So, I pulled the rear sight back off, shot the spring into a mystery location until Jenni helped me find it, let her wrestle with the spring for a while and eventually put everything down. I was pretty well resolved that it wasn’t going to go together that evening. That’s okay.

Then we had to give it one more try. I pushed up on the thingie from the underside of the slide and used my finger to compress the spring completely into the hole. I then slid the disk over it, keeping pressure on the underside to hold the two pieces flush with the spring compressed. That allowed me to get the rear sight slid far enough on that I could let go and tap it into place. Then the slide went on and the pistol functioned almost normally. Almost.

Remember how the original rear sight had one set screw in the middle and the replacement has two? One of those set screws strikes the little disk that holds the little spring. With the set screw torqued down it was pushing the disk and distorting the spring so that the slide and trigger didn’t want to play nice with each other. But, I was undeterred for two reasons. 1 – The replacement was actually a far tighter fit than the original. 2 – The original only had one screw holding it down – I’m sure this one will be fine with just one screw too. I simply backed off the offending screw and checked everything else for tightness.

And, the results? Voila!

I wouldn’t believe they weren’t intended for that gun if I had to take someone else’s word for it.

Now, these had been sitting on a shelf for quite some time. So, a very valid question is do they still work? Let’s see that last sight picture with the lights off.

That ought to make it easier to sight the gun in near-dark conditions! We got two sets of these, one for Jenni and one for me. When I finally got the set installed on my pistol, it was far to late to think about doing the same thing to Jenni’s. Maybe I’ll install hers this evening.

DISCLAIMER REPRISE: Don’t try this at home! Just because I did it does not make it advisable or a good idea.

I just posted a new entry on The Holster Site concerning feedback from the people that wear my holsters. Although I’ve been making holsters for a few years, right now sales are slow. I’m trying to remain realistic about it though. In any practical sense, I’ve only been in business for about five weeks. The fact that I’ve made any money at all is pretty fantastic, actually. But, it can be pretty easy to temporarily lose perspective and freak out.

I find it to be much like the attitude it takes to quit smoking. When someone is puffing away on a cancer stick, it’s really easy for them to say that they will quit. They can envision it – putting the pack down and never picking it up again. Sure, they would miss it, but it seems like it should be so easy when they are actually in the act of smoking. But, when they get an hour or two after when they normally would have had that last cigarette, the heart rate increases and they feel nervous. Ask them about quitting at that point and you may induce a full-on panic attack! When Jenni and I decided that I should pursue my own business full-time, we very realistically acknowledged that things could be tight for the first couple of years, and that we were willing to work through that. But, five weeks into that decision and I find it really easy to get twisted over the lack of sales.

Attempting to branch out into other products is starting to look like a successful endeavor. I am about to nail this handbag deal – I’ve actually come up with a couple of viable prototypes! I’m currently wearing my Surefire G2 in a leather belt holster that I made for it. I’ll be posting pics of that before long. the coolest part is that it would be incredibly easy to alter the design to carry a can of OC spray. I’m thinking of maybe setting up a rig that has two holes in it – one for your light and the other for your pepper. I’ve also been carrying one of my new carbon/Kevlar wallets and have been taking notes on making it a real full-production item. I’m figuring out where it wears and where it doesn’t. Where it does wear needs to be fixed before I can offer it.

As of yet, the carbon fiber and carbon Kevlar have far exceeded my expectations of their performance. For that matter, all of the new materials that I’ve been experimenting with have been fantastic! You have to have special cutting tools for some of the stronger composites, as if that’s any surprise. The surprising part is that it’s not necessarily what you would think. In anticipation of the cutting challenge presented by Kevlar cloth, I purchased Gingher’s G12 industrial Shears. Although they work really well on the carbon fiber cloth, they won’t cut the Kevlar. For the carbon Kevlar cloth, the two tools that I’ve discovered work are Ginger’s 4-inch embroidery scissors and an Olfa rotary cutter. So, the industrial shears wouldn’t cut the industrial material, but embroidery scissors and quilting cutters will. I need to look at more crafter’s tools. Apparently, they’re a lot tougher than I have given them credit for.

I still need to set up the website for the bags and stuff, but I’m having a hard enough time keeping up with my posting here and at The Holster Site. I’m going to need to really set up a hard schedule if I’m going to keep track of three websites! Besides that, I’ve got to make sure that I’ve got product to put on the website!

On a household note, the car needs tires and an exhaust and a little body work, and we’re still paying on it for another year. That’s got me a little freaked right now. We are long overdue for a range session but it’s really hard to justify the expense of the ammo and stuff at the moment. We’re also long overdue for a vacation, but without a decent laptop, we can’t even consider the old road-trip-to-family-in-the-next-state budget vacation. There are lots of things that I would like to be able to afford right now, but there’s just no way. I guess I should write down a list for when things aren’t so tight. This can’t last forever afterall.

I know that with one big break, things could radically change for the better. If I could outsource production and basically just be a designer, that would be wonderful! At that point in time, I imagine that I would think back on the present with fond nostalgia. Well, wish me luck and keep praying for me.

To both my readers – I’m sorry. I haven’t been a very good blogger lately. If you have been following my rants, you both probably know that I haven’t been very good at keeping up with my online presence. You probably also know that I’ve been working – A LOT!!!!! If you haven’t, you can pretty much catch up on the antics here or here. If you haven’t already, GO, READ!

As you can already tell from the preceding, I’ve been worked really hard over the course of the last month’s time. I’ve been on my feet on a shop floor for a good ten hours a day. This is no excuse for my absence in my blogging, but I hope that you will forgive me and understand that there has been some other pressure.

I learned a lot at Appleseed when we went, but it was a real disaster to me in the present state of things. It was a real lifter to Jenni, and you can read about it here. Once again, I learned A LOT. If I skip the part about my failure (or my lack of mastery) can I skip on to the part about bad equipment without guilt? Frankly, I feel like the equipment challenges forced me to learn a whole lot more than the other students of the workshop. This won’t be my last Appleseed, as I WANT THAT PATCH!!!!!!!!

Jenni and I are still in the one-income mindset for some reason. This means that we’ve been living on the cheap (a.k.a. like poor people), and I’ve been working a lot of hours, and dragging the cash home. So, we found ourselves with a household export deficiency.

When Christmas was coming around, we had this grand idea that we were going to have a gunny Christmas. The fat man was going to come down our non-existent chimney with a bag full of shooty goodness, and he was going to leave a precision air rifle for the kiddo, a DAO Beretta PX4 Storm .45 for Jenni, and a Saiga 12 for Your’s Truly. But, that didn’t happen. Life got in the way, and we took care of life instead. We made it right for the kiddo, but we vowed that we’d take care of each other later.

Valentine’s Day came and went. I was unemployed. This weekend, we found ourselves together with a little excess cash. So, we took care of each other. We found a great Nikon camera that Jenni couldn’t go on without, and we made our way to the range to return some loaner gear to my friend, Will.

While we were at the range, I looked over that 12-gauge AK that I’ve been imagining owning. They didn’t have the exact model that I’d like to own, the price was a little higher than I remembered, and I was thinking of all the mods I’d have to do to it before I loved it. So, after much deliberation I didn’t go that route. Instead, I bought a brand new Smith & Wesson M&P45c.

“Why that particular gun?” you might ask. Well, I’ve been a fan of Smith & Wesson since I’ve been even fascinated by guns. They haven’t let me down yet. Jenni has the 9mm equivalent of this gun, and although I was thinking about getting a nine, it made more sense for me to get a different caliber if I was getting the same model – and I don’t believe in .40 or .357 Sig. Bang for the buck, it’s really hard to argue with S&W’s M&P guns. They’re really fantastic firearms for the green they command.

While at the range, I rented a S&W M&P45 full-sized model, just to get the feel for the thing. The rental gun was well-abused, with many thousands of careless rounds put through it. And, its countenance showed it. The sucker was visibly mal-handled as a lifestyle. The polymer frame was warped away from the muzzle, and everything in it that could rattle was. And yet, it returned fuzzy hole after fuzzy hole in the way of groups. The gun felt remarkably solid in the hand and all actions were consistent – safety, slide, trigger, etc.

Smith & Wesson is currently offering a $50 or two-free mags mail-in rebate on this line of guns, so the economics made perfect sense. I went to the young man who had showed me the Saiga and broke the news that I would not be buying that shotgun – but asked him if he would sell me a pistol instead.

Over the weekend, Jenni and I took the little big bore to the range. She performed perfectly over the course of 200-rounds. I resisted the urge to be horribly stingy, and let Jenni shoot her a few times. Although the users weren’t perfect, the equipment itself performed flawlessly. There were fuzzy groups returned when we shot our wellest, and adequate-to-kill-teh-BG for our worstest of shooting.

This evening, when Jenni was out to church choir, I walked down to the range at the corner and picked up some defensive .45. It’s the Bonded PDX – or whatever bullet, as loaded by Winchester. Now, I need to work myself into my holster-making schedule. My real customers come first, but this girl will have a name and be riding in good leather in no time flat!

Jenni has taken some very impressive pictures with her new camera, and the new pistol shoots wonderfully. So, for a VERY late Christmas present, Jenni took some nice shots at my new pistol. I very wisely did not reciprocate. There are pics of the new gun which will come out shortly, but you aren’t missing anything as it looks like a very generic, polymer, striker-fired auto-chucker.

So, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Happy St. Patrick’s Day and Merry Christmas to both my readers!

To both my faithful readers: I give my sincerest apologies for not writing a blog entry for over two weeks. These are the actions of a n00b, and I hope you can forgive me. Now, please allow me to explain myself. Right now, I’m receiving my 100-proof therapy after my fifteenth consecutive day of work at the new place. I’m not much worried about getting Dooced right now, as I don’t think anybody there has any time to find my blog, much less read it. Week one wound up around fifty-two hours of labor. Last week tallied in at a little over sixty. Fortunately, I will not be working this weekend. I’ve made comment and had coworkers say that they thought ‘we’ would be working. I’ve explained that I have scheduled the time off, and will be taking it, as I have already purchased my tickets to the Appleseed shoot that I’ve been wanting to go to for two years now! I’m friggin’ excited and dead tired all at the same time. The weather looks like it will be great (although I don’t put any faith in a forecast beyond 72-hours).

The wife, child, and I will be well-overdue for some challenging rifle action. I hope to learn some tricks that will make my shooting go from adequate to astounding. From what I’ve heard and read from other Appleseed attendees, this is exactly what I should expect. It was about two years ago that there was an event near my home, and that’s where we are going next weekend. I inquired, and there were no assurances that there would be another event at said location in the foreseeable future. So, we ponied up, paid the admission, called in some favors to complete our gear, and we will be storming our stores for the remainder of what it will take to go to this magnificent event. With our awesome .22lr’s in hand, we will drive to the gun range where the three of us will learn to reliably hit a man-sized target at 500-meters with a rifle equipped with iron sights. Yeah. I’m psyched! The range also has an area reserved for some real-life, 600-yard shooting, so I imagine that we’ll also drag our AR’s along for the ride. We’re going to have a really nice, soopah awsom, rifley weekend!

Besides the obvious complaint about the hours, I REALLY like the new job. I thought that I was working with an outstanding group of people at my last job. But, this company is 10x bigger than the last, and I can’t find anybody that I have had any significant head-butting with. Having crammed three weeks worth of work into two, that’s really saying something! As far as the hours are concerned, my one saving grace is that it is temporary. The factory is:
1 – Moving from one computer system to a distinctly different one.
2 – Changing warehouse and manufacturing locations to streamline production.
3 – Going through a meticulous inventory of like a quarter million distinct part numbers (I may be exaggerating a little there).
and:
4 – Implementing a massive overhaul of the part numbering system.
The bottom line is that they need all the help they can get. My position is the obvious help there. Salaried employees put in free overtime, and they perform accordingly. Hourly employees must legally get paid time-and-a-half for their overtime. Consultants (a. k. a. ‘contract labor’), such as I, may be paid straight, hourly pay for any and all time over the Federally allotted, forty per week. Therefore, they will make their hardest attempt to work the snot out of me for the duration for the ninety-day contract. I must say that I don’t mind the extra pay, even if I do mind the extra hours. I am rapidly wearing thin, but I don’t think that it will be a problem to deliver at least their money’s worth through the end of the week. I have even managed to get a little of my holster work in on the side! Granted, I have not completed a huge amount of that work, but it has been progress… As far as more traditional work is concerned, I like them a lot, and they seem to like me as well. The people at the new company express in many ways that they are really impressed and appreciative of my presence there. Apparently, I have not offered disappointment since my interview. I don’t plan on offering any.

On the holster end of things, I’m just about to unveil my first exotic-skinned holster as well as the much-requested, much awaited, pocket/IWB convertible. And, I’ve got a few tricks in store there! I’ve also freshened up my belt-optional IWB holsters and added a matching magazine carrier for the weak side. True to my previous promises, I’m about to show off some beautiful new products! For a teaser, please look at what Caleb has to say about his new Red Racer! I’m trying my hardest to make the best holster you can get, regardless of price – and a .2-second drop in draw speed over kydex for a Bianchi Cup competing IDPA shooter is nothing to scoff at!

Yes, friends. I’m very tired. But, the ride has been a good one. I’m looking forward to some much earned R&R, but for now, I believe I’ve got enough fuel left to get through the demanding part. Once again, I’ll try my hardest to not let it get to two weeks before my next post. Thanks for reading. Regards,

ERM

If you have been reading my blog, you know that I was excused from my job on January 15, due to no fault of my own, but because of a massive slow down in sales. As a side note, why is it that when sales slow, the company never takes it out on the sales department? I really should have seen it coming. Sales slowed and plateaued towards the end of 2007. It was uncomfortable, but manageable. Due to much effort, mine in particular, we were able to control inventory levels and thus reduce overhead to the point that we could continue business as usual otherwise. It took A LOT of work to control inventory to the just-in-time level. My biggest shortcoming is that I didn’t let anyone know exactly how hard I was working to keep it there, and what a delicate balance it was to not have stuff on the shelf until it was needed for manufacture. Then, about half-way through 2009, sales largely flat-lined. They took another deep dip, and the necessary, bold, creative efforts required to increase the market share were not considered, much less implemented. The word we were given is that if things did not improve, we would each take a 20% cut in pay and work one day less per week on a rotating basis, so that we could still stay open five days a week. This did not occur. Instead, twenty-five percent of the staff were excused and the remaining seventy-five percent took a 15% cut in pay, working the same hours. I don’t know who was involved in the decision to let me go, but I can’t help but feel offended at the obvious lack of appreciation. I certainly wasn’t part of that discussion. My selection in the lay-off group tells me that I was viewed as of lesser-value than my co-workers, and I object to that. I don’t know why the owners made the decision they did, but I’m sure they had their good reasons. I honestly do hope that things work out for them and they are able to get back on track from this awful recession. But, if they call to see if I want to come back, I’m not sure that I can. I’m afraid that in the back of my mind, I’ll always be wondering if I’m the second-class, ‘expendable’ employee. I deserve much better and owe myself better than that.

Anyway, if you have been reading my blog, you also know that Jenni and I have made a hard push on the custom holster business. I had been making custom holsters on the side for well over a year, but decided to attempt to push it into being a full-time business in lieu of outside employment. Deep, heart-felt thanks to great people like The Tam, SayUncle, Stranger – who shall henceforth be known as “Friend”, “Zack” James Zachary, and Caleb, just to name a few – using their mad linkiness, and honoring me as the guest on Gun Nuts Radio, pimping my leather (that doesn’t sound right does it); and, most importantly, thanks to my wonderful wife who had the crazy, mad idea to email some of these people asking for the help in the first place; the holster push was an unprecedented success, even if not unprecedented enough to actually pay the bills, and I was able to write this increcibly long sentence, which may actually be the longest to date on my personal blog.

It is by no means to say that I have any intention of throwing in the towel on The Holster Site, but neither should it be a secret that I have been seeking more traditional employment as well. The fact of the matter is that in the last three weeks, I’ve sold as many holsters as I did in my first year in holsters as a hobby. That is nothing less than incredible. Still, in order to think about making it a living, I’d need the volume to be four to five times that level – minimum. I know that posted pricing and an embedded payment method on the site would help immensely towards this. That is still part of my plan with The Holster Site.

I have applied for multiple jobs, fought with the unemployment office’s website, gave a few interviews, negotiated pay scales, saw a couple of jobs dead-end after all that, and just this morning reported for a second interview at a well-established company. I was given an attractive offer in this second interview. As of Monday, I will be starting my 90-day consultation with this company. My commute will be less than two miles, as opposed to over twenty. My responsibility will be to aid in designing a position to aid in operations planning as the company launches a program to grow and expand. At the end of the consultation, we will have a meeting and make a mutual decision on whether I will fill that position or move on. I like this idea! It sounds like an exciting project that may lead to a great job, or allow me an out if it’s not really what I want to do.

The bottom line is this – The Holster Site isn’t going anywhere. My most exciting, most beautiful designs are yet to be conceived, and I have plans to use materials that I’ve never used before – some that to my knowledge have never before been utilized in the holster industry. Every week, I will be working on holsters, expanding on some of my already great designs, and drawing new ideas. There will be more race holsters as well as all-new pocket holsters and shoulder rigs. I will start working with exotic leathers such as kangaroo, snake, eel, stingray, ostrich, and frog. I will work with new guns, branching out into the minuscule .380’s and the big, S&W X-frame revolvers. I will feel the waters of full-custom, cowboy action rigs. There will be reload carriers for magazines, speed loaders, moon clips, and speed strips. I am developing a design for a multi-purpose belt that will be like nothing you have seen before. Prepare yourself to see some wickedsickawesome designs, because they are coming. I will also continue to push the envelope on color combinations, and will always seek to make the holsters more rugged, more durable, and more usable. My ultimate goal is for my holster to be the most beautiful, most elegant, and yet the toughest holsters that money can buy.

If at the end of the 90-day project which starts Monday, the holster sales have not significantly increased, and I can reach a mutually satisfactory arrangement with the company, I’ll go full time with them, and continue to make holsters in my off-time, but in a much greater volume than I have in the past. However, if at that point the holster gig has turned into a demand that I can’t give divided attention to, I’ll fulfill my three-month contract and excuse myself to honest self-employment. Frankly, I think it sounds like fun either way.

So, thank all of you for your prayers and support. Thank you for keeping my family in your thoughts. Thank you for ordering holsters. Please wish me luck as I start this next chapter, this next adventure in life’s journey. I’m sure I’ll have more to report soon. Needless to say, this weekend the family and I will be doing some celebratory shooting!

I know I’ve mentioned on an occasion or two that my sis in law is working at the gun range. At this particular range, the employees are encouraged to open carry while on the premises. She’s got her CCW license, and a couple of handguns, but she hasn’t really had a holster that’s suitable for the job. I have on my to-do list a couple of CCW holsters for both my brother and his wife (as well as another few for Jenni), but I’ve really been focusing on getting my SIL into a holster that she can OC on the clock.

Incidentally, I’m about to debut my new holster page which will supersede my current holster page. I’ve been working on a few, pretty radical designs to debut the new site with. So, I took the opportunity to stretch myself a little and cobbled together something quite unique for my bro’s bride. I’m probably not going to post this one on my current gunleather page, but rather save it for the debut of the new site. However, for both of my loyal readers, I thought I’d throw in a sneak peek.

Being girl-to-the-core, my sister in law loves her pinks and purples, and if it sparkles, even better. The gun in question is a S&W 686 SSR from the Pro Series. It’s got some beautiful model stamping and etching on the side of the frame and a slab-sided barrel that I wanted to leave visible while holstered, but I still wanted to fully enclose the trigger guard and provide enough retention that it wouldn’t fall out if she ran or jumped while wearing the thing.

After scribbling on graph paper for quite some time, I decided to go with a rig not unlike some of the competitive holsters that I’ve seen used by the likes of Jerry Miculek. I also wanted to give it flash. I’d been dying to try out a solid color with a thin, decorative panel in a complimentary color overlayed, in much the way of a toe-cap on a pair of wingtip shoes. so, this is what I came up with:

There’s just enough retention between the muzzle, trigger guard, and body side of the cylinder that the gun sticks nicely in the holster. since it rides right under the arm, it’s quite defensible. I wouldn’t recommend anyone wear a contraption like this in the general public, but I’m quite pleased with how it turned out for its purpose. Upon reholstering, it latches into place with a satisfying ’snap’. At that point, the gun won’t fall out even when inverted and shaken.

To draw, it takes a rock forward…

…and then a slight lift for the muzzle to clear the bottom of the holster.

Do you feel lucky?

The gun even rides surprisingly close to the body!

The next time I build a holster in this style, there are things that I’ll do differently. Most of that has to do with the way I layer the leather, and what weights of hide I use where. I feared that with the spartan openness of the design, I’d have to err on the heavier, thicker side. As it turns out, that may have been a pretty major detriment to the molding process, and I’m not convinced that it evenly traded out for rigidity – which was the original objective. The stitching hurt. Period. I had to do all my stitching in several phases, as my hands kept cramping up.

Even still, there are a couple concepts that I was testing out with the construction of this particular piece: I wanted to see if I could successfully do the wingtip-style overlay, and I wanted to see if I could successfully build a functional holster that was radically different from my standard pancakes. Mission accomplished on both fronts! I will be testing some other concepts with some of the ‘family’ holsters that I’ve got coming up. For instance, I’m going to try my own, unique concept of the ‘tuckable’ IWB. I’m also going to be experimenting with some new, exotic materials that are certainly not widely-used in the holster market. Once I go live with the new website, I hope to have several new show pieces to provide some eye-candy for the debut. Wish me luck!

Here we are, at the beginning of the final year of the first decade of the millennium. This was the iciest New Year that I can remember. I have several thoughts about the change this year.

Two years ago, on January 1, I became a gunny. Never having owned a gun before, I felt highly compelled to buy a Smith & Wesson Model 29, and learn to shoot it effectively. So, Jenni and I went to H&H Gun Range and rented a couple guns and a lane. She rented a S&W M&P9, and I rented a 6-inch M629. Really, I just wanted to make sure I could shoot the thing before making the investment. We were hooked!

At this point, my M29 is my range queen baby, and Jenni carries a M&P9c every day, in combination with her M640. As a side note, we would have gotten her this one instead, had it been available. As it is, we’ll eventually have hers cut for moon clips, and it will essentially be a Pro Series clone. We are both CCW permitted, daily carrying, NRA certified Range Safety Officers, proficient with various action types, avid shotgunners, and accomplished rifle marksmen (in the general sense, not the gender-specific sense).

Our son has gotten in on the action as well. He loves to shoot rifles and handguns chambered in .22lr and .22 short, as well as 9mm, .38Spl, and .410 shotgun. He has tried the 20-gauge on a couple of occasions, and has become a spectacular shot with a sporter-style air rifle with competition sights. He does want to continue to work with the 20-gauge and become proficient with it. My brother and sister-in-law have both gotten their CCW permits, and she actually works at H&H full-time now! I have been making custom, made-to-order, leather holsters, and Jenni has been involved with classes, assisting with teaching women the basics of self-defense and the use of defensive firearms. We’ve done a little basic gunsmithing and have enjoyed every step of the process to get where we are today.

This year, I want to start hand loading. That’s no resolution, per se, so much as it is a loose goal. If I am to resolve to do anything, it is to start hunting. The three of us will take our hunter safety education class together, and we will go shoot some tasty animals this year. My grandpa used to keep his freezer completely filled with game of various sorts. I’ve never been hunting. It’s not as though there weren’t guns in the house as I was growing up, so much as my parents didn’t enjoy shooting nearly as much as I do. Jenni’s upbringing was a different story, as her mother was frightened of firearms, and would not permit them in the house – even though http://injennifershead.com/’s maternal grandfather was an avid rifleman, and sharp-shooter for the U. S. Army. It is tragically unfortunate that the two of us never had the benefit of the rich gun heritage that could have come from each of our families, but it has been a wonderful journey that we have enjoyed together, and teach our son along the way, giving him the benefit that we never had.

On New Year’s Eve, we ate lamb, and drank Bogle Zinfandel and Coppola Sophia with an intimate group of friends and family, who promptly went home shortly after toasting in the new year, as we do when we get a little older. We partied like it was 1999, two-thousand zero zero, party’s over (whoops) out of time. It seems strange that I can remember ten years ago so clearly. Everyone was all freaked out about the nonexistant “Y2K” scenario, much like everyone is currently all freaked out about the nonexistant “global warming” scare. I was working a crappy job and had a headfull of hair. Now, I’ve got a real job and thinned hair (hence the hats). Ten years ago, millions of people were ignorantly celebrating the new millenium, which incidentally wasn’t going to happen for another year, because they apparently never learned to start counting from the number one. It was a time of excitement. Now, people are freaked out not only by global warming, but also by the state of the economy. If you ask around, people will nearly universally tell you that 2009 was a terrible year in all aspects. I will be one that will claim 2009 as a great year. It wasn’t easy, but it was good. Jenni and I have both faced issues that have subconsciously been clawing away at our confidence and ability to live our fullest. That is the best thing that happened all year. What we share in common with all those that claimed 2009 as a terrible year, is that we are optimistic – and yes – excited to see what 2010 holds for us! This very well may be the best year that we’ve ever had. To that end, I resolve to no longer let the past define me, but to make my own future (I really hope I can keep that). In many ways, the two of us have grown closer and closer in the time we’ve been together, but in other ways it feels like we’ve been wandering in the desert. I refuse to believe that’s the best we can hope for. I believe that we are finally equipped to attempt to grab life by the horns and make it work for us. Whether or not we accomplish anything in the process is another story altogether, but the very attempt sound worth the effort.

I’ve got a good kid, whom I’ve become a lot closer to in the last year. I come from a line of men that have a difficult time getting close to their children. This in turn, produces men who have a hard time getting close to their children. My son has started interacting with us in a far more mature way than ever before. I’ve said and written on multiple occasions that he is quickly ceasing to be a little boy and is turning into a great man. He is making more responsible decisions, he sees the value in intangible concepts that boys have no concept of, and he’s a fun person to be around. I resolve to continue to get closer to my son, and break the cycle that has plagued generations of men in my family. I think I’m on the right track to make that happen. We enjoy doing things together, and he and I have appropriate, mutual respect. How can I expect him to have respect for me if I have none for him?

So, there you have it. Three resolutions for 2010 based on the happenings of this last year, the last several years, and the last ten plus:

1. Get legal and shoot animals.
2. Move forward with Jenni into what can only be an amazing chapter in life.
3. Continue to become closer to my son.

I hope I’ve illustrated above how closely these three things really are, in the context of my life. That’s all for now.

Jenni pointed me to this rant by Stingray at Atomic Nerds about the commercialization of Christmas. It seems that at about this point, nearly every year, I find myself making an empty vow that I will never participate in commercial Christmas again. I pretty much hate trying like mad to find that special something for each and every person on my list. Most of the time I’ll find an item here or there that’s a no-brainer for someone in particular, and then when we’re getting down to the line, I’ll desperately throw my hard-earned money at some other stuff that will do so no one will feel left out. It’s psychotic! And yet, I know that I’m not alone. Lots and lots of people do the very same thing. Year after year, I claim to myself that I will never do it again, and year after year, I do the very same thing all over again. Our household is basically on a spending freeze until after the first of the year. What was supposed to be a really cool gunnie Christmas has turned into a frantic run to empty assets as quickly as possible.

After reading the above mentioned rant, I found my friend, Wai’s words in the comment section:

I don’t care what you say, Stingray, I still believe in God, Christmas and the Christmas Spirit. I feel the same way you do about the commercialization of Christmas, which is why I don’t buy into any of it. I went to Catholic school and became so disillusioned by all the hypocrisy that I became, not only an atheist, but an anti-God bonehead. Throughout the years of personal strife, I came to let God back into my heart and at once, I felt inner peace that I had never felt before. I don’t believe in organized religion by any means, but God is always and forever and will always be my saviour.

And, that’s one of the many things I like about him. I’ve tried on several occasions to bully him into starting up his own blog, but he apparently is not to be bullied into such things. He makes so many excellent points in his comment that I can’t really touch on all of them. for one, I’m not about to get started on my atheist rant right now. But, words like these convict me that I have lost sight of what the celebration is really about. It’s not about getting a shiny new gun, or fancy electronics, or boots or hats, or a tacky tie. It’s not about spending my hard-earned cash on some piece of crap that the receiver won’t even like, nor is it about finding that perfect present that a loved one will cherish forever. At the risk of sounding like a Hallmark special, what is Christmas really about?

Most biblical scholars agree that Christ was not, in fact born on December 25. In Rome, December 25 was the pagan celebration of the Winter solstice, a time of wild partying, since the sun was not in fact going to disappear forever, yet again for another year. Early Christians adopted this date, as the ambient celebration would mask their risky, religious holiday. Christians were not well-liked at the time, and open celebration could get them thrown to the lions. Ironically, many historians agree that Jesus was born on September 11, 3 B.C.

The ‘wise men’ or ‘magi’ traveled from the far East to see the King of Kings who had be prophesied. These magicians were astronomers and astrologers. Something was lost in the English translations, referring to the star that they followed, as the original text refers to a cosmic event of some sort. We make a distinctions between different bodies in the heavens, and events in the sky. The textual reference to the star that they followed may have been more general than our language can allow, and actually referred to a conjunction between the moon and the constellation Virgo, in a form that has only ever happened once. It was a symbolic conjunction that told these ‘wise men’ that a virgin was giving birth to the Savior. They were able to calculate when the conjunction would occur and where it would be most visible from on the globe. This told them exactly where Christ was born. If this is true, the same conjunction is described in the book of Revelation.

These visitors from the East bought three symbolic treasures with them. Gold represented the wealth of royalty and showed respect to Jesus as being the one true king. Frankincense represented the priesthood of Christ, as it was used in ceremony by the priestly class. Myrrh symbolized the fact that the child was born to die. Myrrh was used as a fragrant embalming agent, and is a resin, harvested by gashing the commiphora tree. It bleeds out of the gashes and is collected after it hardens. So, the magi from the orient knew exactly who they were coming to see – probably on a far deeper level than Mary and Joseph.

Three hundred some-odd years later, a boy named Nicholas was born in the Greek city of Patara on the southern coast of Turkey. He was orphaned while relatively young, and his parents left him a fortune. As he grew, his religious convictions led him to use his wealth to the benefit of others. There are legends about his generosity of Robin Hood proportions. Multiple stories tell of him throwing bags of gold through the open windows of the needy, landing in the shoes which were left by the fireplace to dry (hence stockings for gifts). Nicholas became Bishop of Myra and was known as the patron and protector of children. St. Nicholas spent time in prison because of his faith, and the anniversary of his death was celebrated for centuries on December 6. I’m not really sure how St. Nicholas got inducted into the whole Christmas celebration beyond the closeness of the dates of December 6 and 25.

Fast forward a thousand years, give or take, and filter the holiday and traditions through Norse religion. Santa took on Thor characteristics and gained a ‘helper’ based on Thor’s greatest enemy, Loki. Thus was born a demon-like creature, Krampus, which means ‘claw’ in old German. So the lore went: The list was kept and checked twice. The nice children got treats from Santa. The naughty children got beaten and whipped by ‘Claws’, and were left with lumps of coal and switches. In Austria and other parts of Europe today, Krampus is highly celebrated in a tradition that’s like our Halloween – but for grown-ups to scare little kids – and with booze instead of candy – and everybody gets schnockered.

Somehow, Krampus got left off the boat when Christmas came to the New World. Santa kept the ‘Claus’, but only in name. We grew up hearing about the jolly old elf who shook like a bowl full of jelly, who magically comes down the chimney perhaps due to Clement Clarke Moore or Henry Livingston… Then, Christmas became commercialized. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman inexplicably entered the holiday in the mid-century. Christmas was taken over by industry and hard sales. Even the Oklahoma City Zoo got in on the action to wheedle themselves into a hippopotamus.

Now, so-called ‘Black Friday’ Christmas sales make up 20% of annual retail sales. Some say the Saturday before Christmas is even busier. This is not to mention Cyber Monday or the stragglers that run amok on Christmas Eve. The sheer amount of money that changes hands due to this holiday is mind-boggling.

Public schools can no longer promote ‘Christmas,’ as it may offend those of other faiths. My child’s school has no ‘Christmas’ programs, but instead has ‘Seasonal’ programs where the kids will sing about snow (which doesn’t even happen often in this part of the country). The lights and signs in people’s lawns say ’season’s greetings’ or ‘happy holidays’ instead of ‘merry Christmas. The poison known as political correctness has all but completely driven the reason out of the season. Christmas is regrettably no longer a Christian holiday. It has returned to the pagans in the worship of money and wordly goods, and the celebration of nothing more than going into debt.

So, what is the true meaning of Christmas? Can we go all the way back and celebrate it as an unprecedented event that took place on the most significant 9/11 in the history of the Universe – that was even worth designing the history of the sky around? Is it about throwing sacks of gold through people’s windows, hoping you can score in a sock or a shoe? Is it about scaring the living crap out of little kids so they’ll do what their parents tell them to? Is it about spending every last penny you have, and then going into debt to benefit no other than industry in a gambling-addict-like craze?

Or, can it be as simple as my friend, Wai put it? I would like to think so. Jenni and I were able to purchase some nice gifts for a few people. We don’t presume that it’s the reason for the holiday. We will spend time with friends and family, and we will remember God’s love and His gift to us. I believe that’s the reason for the season. If you are reading this, I hope you can see through the lights, plastic, and glaze and feel His love as well. Merry Christmas, everyone!