Atomic Nerds

For the fans of Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International series, the MHI RPG & Employee Handbook is available to all. I highly recommend it.

Those of you who already have a copy and may not be familiar with why this increasingly dust-covered little website is listed in the thanks, I believe the tale you’re looking for is here. Thanks for dropping by! As soon as we get this chupacabra infestation taken care of we might even manage to post something interesting again.

White Rock, the detached suburb of Los Alamos we call home, is not what one could call “traffic dense.” In fact, there wasn’t a single other car on the road as I approached the intersection.

…which was why I was somewhat surprised when the pedestrian walking in the street shrilly screeched “NO TURN SIGNAL!” at me as I made a right. She looked like I took a shit in her official Busybody Bonnet when I replied “USE THE SIDEWALK AND WE’LL TALK.” Seriously, traffic nanny, I called the leg store and they said they didn’t have a single one for you to stand on with a perfectly cromulent pedestrian-specific lane right there.

(And if you liked this, please consider donating to the Prostate Cancer Foundation so men like me can live longer lives to piss off meddling busybodies of all stripes longer)

Seen in banner format above the main Los Alamos National Laboratory sign at the Otowi complex:

LANL Quality Assurance: Let’s all do it right the first time.

I see. That is exactly what I want to see as the quality control initiative of a high-powered science laboratory whose main mission is creating and implementing advanced weapons technology. It’s so comforting I could just wet myself.

1. When I am supreme ruler of all, near the top of the changes to implement immediately will be severe corporal punishment for people who confuse the terms “perfume” and “marinade.” Seriously lady, that cloud is dense enough it’s starting to bend light, and every fly it draws in drops dead within seconds. Nobody in the pet store cares that it took your husband applying the cluebat directly to your forehead for several hours for you to get the point about your new cat, GTFO so the rest of us can fucking breathe.

2. Restaurants: If you have successfully made your establishment feel cramped even when it is mostly empty, you’re doin’ it wrong. Claustrophobic != Trendy. And you want how much for a half sandwich and a handful of raw broccoli and carrots? For that scratch, the burrito stand across the street will feed me so much I won’t be able to walk for an hour.

3. Good news: We have found a local source for the most amazing goat cheese ever. Bad news: This source is the local hippy-store, some sort of co-op that advertises “locally grown” food, provided you define “locally” as “within this time zone,” and is full to the brim of the sort of vacant, earnest-faced trimmed-beard-sporting birkenstock-stock who are very eager to use words like “sustainable” or “environmentally responsible” whether you want them to or not. From perusing the shelves, I have come to the conclusion that “organic” is a Native American word for “costs four bucks more, sucker.” On leaving, I was overwhelmed with the urge to pour paint and motor oil down a storm drain, light up the foulest cigar I could find, and dangle a porterhouse from my rearview mirror as an air freshener. Luckily, the metal station was playing Slayer. Of the dozens of bumper stickers festooning the seven cars in the parking lot, the only one that didn’t make me want to key paint or slash tires was “Beer is my spirit animal.” I may now have a reason to take advantage of New Mexico’s permissive open carry laws.

4. Personal record on today’s deadlift. You don’t care, but damn did it tickle me. So now you know.

5. Tank isn’t sure about this new collar thing.

That is all, carry on.

- Apparently, all I need to do to get the cat to lie down and chill or go to sleep over the course of a long-distance car trip, in lieu of screaming until his lungs and my ears bleed, is to play death metal very loudly. Given that the original ideal was simply to drown him out, a very acceptable outcome.

- The National Guard has sworn to ensure that no looting happens in Los Alamos during the fire the way it did in New Orleans during Katrina. If they claim credit for this failing to happen, it will be only somewhat less audacious than the Army Corps of Engineers claiming credit for Los Alamos also having failed to flood.

- Painted on the White Rock white rock, unofficial community graffiti post: “We <3 LAFD”

- Town meeting #1. State of emergency, among those present are the state governor, fire chief and assorted senior regional wildfire officers. Tensions and stakes are high. First question from the floor, from a worried community:

“How can I donate to the Red Cross?”

- A compressor bearing in one of our two vehicles is on the verge of blowing, therefore I dared not run the air conditioning. As a result I have a rather distinctive left-sided sunburn.

- Town meeting #2, same cast of characters. Middle of question and answer time. Upon explanation that regardless of how bad the smoke down in White Rock is (at the moment, not that bad), it is five times worse in Los Alamos, questioner refuses to stand down until he receives an answer to “How smoky?” stated in parts per million.

- The cool, wild, vegetal smell of a thunderstorm in the high desert is such a relief from hot, heavy smoke that it is worth keeping the windows down as you drive along even if you are getting wet. At least until the apocalyptic hailstorm starts.

- Seen somewhere along the highway in southern CO: roadkilled but very intact dead badger. Request to pull over and harvest the skull and hide submitted and denied due to being too bloated.

- Seen directly next to a dirt road near $landing zone: four mule bucks in velvet ranging from “spike” to “monster with a chandelier on its head”. Rocks thrown, bucks reluctantly mosey away. Odds all four will develop advanced ninjitsu skills and possibly Army Ranger-level technology and tactics by November first: one.

- Leaving guardian-breed dogs locked in a mudroom with a window to the outside when four seasonally stupid bucks are in the area is a bad idea. Let the guard dogs be with the family and everything will be much more peaceful. Aside: Home Depot is surprisingly unfriendly to carrying replacement parts for modular homes these days.

- Seen somewhere along the highway near the CO-NM border: freshly roadkilled, not bloated, bear. Request to harvest the skull and hide denied due to lack of winch or come-along on the truck, plus traffic.

- Whiz-bang smartphone with reasonable plan purchased with an eye to coordination in just such events: obtained and running before evac. Whiz-bang smartphone: signal-less and dead by 100 miles outside of $landing zone due to phone plan’s assumption of urban-ish and relatively mountain-free residence. New nickname for phone: Fucking Useless Toy, or FUT.

We aten’t dead.

Immediate danger has not passed, but has been mitigated. Latest report says the crews got a good backburn in between the fire and the town that seems to be holding, and that the main danger is on the west side of the burn, which is the side not containing us. It’s by no means a sure thing, but the fire chief seemed reasonably optimistic, with the caveat that the wind can still kick us in the nuts.

Bugout lines have been drawn, and we’re packed to within a 20 minute launch capability, and we’ve got a target to land at with all critters and vitals.

Reports that I intend to deal with this situation by climbing on the roof with a bottle of whiskey, a garden hose, and hurling profanity at the fire until it goes away are mildly exaggerated, but not ruled out as a plan.

Update: Evac on. Play nice while we’re gone.

Today I received a letter from Los Alamos National Lab’s HR division, informing me that I had not been selected for a job I applied for with them.

A job I applied for a full year ago.

Thanks, guys, but I kinda guessed.

Your friendly nuclear weapons lab wishes to remind you today that bombing Pearl Harbor may result in adverse side effects, such as excessive rubble, lingering sickness, and a national simultaneous expression of “Holy shit, what the hell was that?”

Please remember, for your safety and ours, do not bomb Pearl Harbor.

Hugs, kisses, and fallout,
Los Alamos

…free state style. Last week I finally broke down and got a flashlight holder for my belt. Yada yada, sometimes bad guys are in the dark, etc. Mostly I just finally realized hey, if I have a light with me I won’t be squinting and trying to figure WTF I’m looking at in less than brilliant direct sunlight. So far I’ve already been reaching for my flashlight as much if not more than my multitool (though still nowhere near as much as just for a pocketknife). Not only is it useful as hell, but it brings a nice balance to the weight distribution. It does, however, take a bit of getting used to in some respects.

Since weekends are homeowner chore marathon days, I of course had some errands to run around town. And since Los Alamos didn’t get the memo that it’s supposedly the coldest winter since Gramps was killed by exploding trees walking uphill both ways, even wearing a hooded sweatshirt out was pushing the borders of overkill. With that in mind, I grabbed a sweatshirt that normally does fine covering sidearm, magazines, and leatherman but apparently is just a skosh too small to hide sidearm, mags, leatherman, and flashlight.

Standing at the grocery checkout, it was surprisingly slow at the store, so the cashier and I were chatting. The manager, a pleasant enough fellow but not someone I’d conversed with further than general pleasantries and such when he was manning a register was around too. I finished paying and went to leave and in departure from normal, he followed and motioned me slightly aside. I thought I’d forgotten something, but apparently not.

“So what do you shoot?”

Had I mentioned that previous conversations were just “How’s your day, nice weather, etc” already? ‘Cause I hadn’t ever said word one about toys that go bang around him before.

“Well, I’m fond of pretty much anything that goes ‘bang’….” I must’ve looked confused at this point. Turns out my sweatshirt had ridden up over the flashlight. When he saw that, he then noticed the magazine carrier, and from there saw the bulge - still well covered, he was kind enough to point out - on my hip. As it turns out, he’s rather fond of shooting too, and through the rest of the conversation we wound up just shy of actually setting a “Lets go plinking” get together.

Ok, there isn’t really much else to the story, I just wanted to gloat that there are still some places and people downright cool about guns, despite all the hand wringing and doom floating about over things like the college panicking over a single round of ammo. Hell, might even wind up with a shootin’ buddy out of all this too, and given that the closest folks we socialize with other than my parents are a good 45 minute drive off at best (or a couple hours for others), I’d call that a win.