Sigh...

I hate it when Bloglines goes down on a weekend when I'm trying to catch up. It's supposed to be back in about 30 minutes so I'll just post something to kill some time.

I'm running out of my favorite pipe tobacco (sigh again). My favorite--heh, I just realized what I'd written. At one time, I thought I had already found my favorite, and it was very different from this one. But this has definitely taken first place. It's a blend called Bayou Night made by Craig Tarler of Cornell & Diehl. It is a very hefty blend with an unusually high proportion of a special kind of tobacco called Perique. I've heard it's a full 50% Perique, but I don't know that for sure. This time, instead of ordering only a sampler pack for variety, I'm going to get a whole pound of this stuff, as well as a pound of another blend called Grey Ghost, which is a blend of Virginia and maduro cigar leaf. Another "different" kind of blend, but quite good. There are others I'd like to stock up on, but I don't know if I should lay out that kind of cash right now.

And in yet another sigh, I realize I'm going to have to cut down on reading some other blogs. There are so many good ones out there, so much valuable information, that I don't just have the time to keep up with everything. I find that I am enjoying the "personal" sort of blogs more than the big guns. I honestly don't know where some of these folks find the time to do so much blogging. Also, since I discovered that Yahoo will build an RSS feed for any search I want to throw into their news service, I have subscribed to a few searches that are more oriented to the specifics of things I'm interested in.

Someone came to this site in the past week after Googling the sentence "I just bought a 218 Bee Raging Hornet." Whoever it was, I would love to read your comments on this gun. It just sounds like it would be such a fantastically fun gun to shoot.

What is my deal with the .218 Bee? It is completely sentimental. I first hunted deer when I was 14 years old, and we didn't have the money to purchase my own rifle. So we borrowed an old Winchester from my great-uncle (r.i.p., Uncle John L.). I don't remember the model, but it was a bolt action .218 Bee with a 3-round detachable magazine. Yes, I know, this caliber is "too small for deer," and in fact would be illegal for such use in some states. It is legal in Texas, however, and this particular rifle was the first deer gun for many members of my family. Eventually I had to give it back, as my great-uncle wished to pass it on to his grandson. I was sorry to see it go, but bore no hard feelings.

I took two deer with that old rifle before I had to give it back. The first fell within 30 yards or so of where it was shot. The second was another story. That buck must have run about 200 yards through the brush before it finally keeled over. Fortunately, I was a fairly good tracker back then, but I did spend several sweaty minutes creeping through the brush, afraid with every step that I'd lose the next bit of sign--a patch or torn sand here where his hoof went through the leaves, a splat of blood there--and never find him. I did find him though, and breathed a huge sigh of relief when I did. By the time my dad caught up with me, the buck was field-dressed and lying the back of the truck, and I was asleep in the cab. That was something my dad thought was quite funny: that I could kill a deer and then go to sleep immediately afterwards.

I would never take one of those Taurus revolvers out deer hunting. But just the thought of having a gun that would shoot those tiny centerfire rounds appeals to me very much. Maybe someday.