Neither Here or There

I’m getting ready for another weekend of knife sales.  The Medina gun show doesn’t run over the summer months, chiefly, I suspect, because attendance in nice weather is too slim to be profitable.  Since I’m not attempting to make a living with it, that’s okay with me.  I like having my summer weekends. 

But the return of crappy weather signals a return to knife sales.  I ordered a few replacement items for things that have sold.  It’s very hard to stock inexpensive quality knives.  Knife prices are zooming upward and the influx of counterfeit knives is ruining the market.  But it isn’t always the counterfeit that’s hurting everyone.

I use to carry Kershaw’s Leek.  It’s a great knife, thin and sleek with an attractive blade.  They always sold too, but for the last couple of years Wal-Mart has been selling them.  Selling them cheap too, perhaps too cheap.  Wal-Mart has a reputation of shaving quality out of products to lower their price point.  Maybe they turned over a new leaf.  Maybe Kershaw only cares about profits today and well, tomorrow might be someone else’s problem.  In any case you can find the Leek at Wal-Mart.

So I don’t carry Leeks anymore.  Between online shoppers and Wal-Mart there is no market I can tap.

I read a number of blogs and people send me links and I’m amazed at what I must call stupid money items.  An everyday carry knife for thousand bucks?  An improved flash hider for an AR in the hundreds?  Flashlights that will light up a stadium for 90 minutes on high for 200 bucks?  Even my beloved Spydercos and Benchmades are beginning to come with a loan application.   It’s no surprise.  Costs are going up faster than disposable income.

The question I, and perhaps you, have is answer is, do I really need those items?  I’m not sure a $400 knife will serve me better than an $85 knife.  I know the wristwatch with build-in calculation for drop correction will not make me a better shooter and I seldom have the need to light up a stadium for even a minute.  I suspect  the answer will be found in careful use if a need/want/anticipated use table.

Last weekend was pretty nice so I escaped to the West Side Market in Cleveland.  That area is known as Ohio City and it’s beginning to thrive.  There are quite a few interesting store and activities there.

I’m a sucker for new and unusual vegetables or fruit so I bought a Pitaya or Dragon Fruit.  They are actually cactus fruit originally native to Mexico but also grown in East Asian and Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Indonesia as well as Okinawa, Hawaii, Israel, northern Australia, southern China and in Cyprus.

I noticed too late that none of the vendors had prices listed.  I normally don’t pay silly money for fruit, but ….

Half a Dragon Fruit. It cuts easy.

It’s a strikingly good looking fruit, reddish rind with green tipped fleshy ends.  You eat it like a kiwi, cut it in half and scoop it out.  The flesh is white with little black seeds.  Again very impressive.  Taste is another matter.

Inside Dragon Fruit.  Just use a spoon to scoop it out.

Totally bland.  Well, there was a little resemblance, maybe a hint of something suggestive of kiwi.  But I’d skip it completely if I were you. 

I took my wife to see “Gone Girl.”  The audience was mostly women, but I wasn’t the only man there.  It’s a story about two sociopaths who marry.  The wife, Amy, is a much better sociopath.  Better doesn’t always equate to good.  I found it frightening as Amy exploits the tragic flaws in all of us.

What was more frightening was the responses of the women in the audience to Amy.  Amy’s plots resonated with many them and I found myself scrunching farther and farther down in my seat.  I never heard so many women give out a throaty, deep, almost subvocal “yeah” every time Amy’s well planned scheme digs the hole a little deeper under her husband and his sister.

This is the best image of the hole Amy dug for her husband, but I got to say, he jumped in.

I will say, it’s just coincidence that I’m trying out cold weather sleep gear in the garage this week or maybe for the rest of the year.  I have mentioned my unattached garage locks from the inside, haven’t I?