Dumb Woman Gets Herself Locked In Store's Gun Safe.

In Pennsylvania, the gene pool almost got a bit clearer yesterday as a woman let her kids lock her inside a gun safe on display at a local Tractor Supply Co. store.

Woman rescued after locked in gun safe

And this is why stores can't leave gun safes open for the grown-ups to look at.

Here we have a store that caters to the self-reliant farm types, and some airhead ambles in with a few of her children and proceeds to "play a game" in this store that ends with her being locked in one of the store's display safes, necessitating the fire department to respond and cut her out.

OK, partial blame to the store for not having the combination of that safe on hand, but still...

Now the store is out an expensive safe (those fireproof ones aren't cheap) and Lurline or whatever her name is is probably burning up the free minutes on her Obamaphone trying to find a cheap lawyer willing to step forward and fill her pockets with more of that store's cash. And meanwhile, the rest of us who actually shop for gun safes have to learn to be content to just see the outside of them in stores or look at their interiors in catalog pictures, because stupid people like this one cause stores to rethink their policies of just leaving the safes open so actual safe customers can see them.

OH--this news story has a bit more about it:

Woman rescued from safe at Tractor Supply Co.

It seems that the dim-bulb who caused this mess was 33 year old Rachel Mitchell of Germantown, Maryland. (A Marylander...figures.)

It also explains that the battery on the store's combination lock was dead, but rather than change the battery, a store employee pried the lock off with a prybar, basically making it impossible to open. So apparently this store not only allows stupid people to shop there, it hires a few, too.

Darwin Award Win! Man with toy gun tries to rob man who has real gun.

Yeah, you just had to know that was going to end well...and it did.

POLICE: ATTEMPTED ROBBERY VICTIM FATALLY SHOOTS TOY GUN-WIELDING SUSPECT IN UPPER DARBY

Investigators say a 67-year-old man was walking on a path when the suspect ran up and demanded cash.

"He hears somebody running behind him. As he turns around, he sees a masked man with a gun pointed at him saying, 'Give it up, give me all you got," said Supt. Michael Chitwood, Upper Darby Township Police.

However the intended victim grabbed the suspect's gun.

During the struggle, police say the victim pulled out his own weapon and fired one shot striking the attempted robber in the head, killing him.

The victim does have a concealed weapons permit.

Police have identified the deceased as Tyler Williams of West Philadelphia. Tyler was 18 years old, and police are searching for a relative willing to get in front of the news cameras and tell us all how he was just getting ready to start turning his life around, get a job, and go to school to become a dental hygenist or some other such nonsense.

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, the streets are a little safer and even the air is a little fresher tonight.

Guns Save Legislators Lives in PA.

Remember when Barry Obama sneered at Pennsylvanians as "bitterly clinging to their guns and their religion"? Well for a couple of Pennsylvania lawmakers, clinging to guns saved the day when a punk pulled a gun on two of them, only to be met by the gun of one of the legislators, State Rep. Marty Flynn, who has a concealed weapons permit.

Statehouse Shootout: Pa. lawmaker exchanges gunfire with would-be robber

Imagine that--guns saving lives. Who'd have thought, eh? Looks like at least some of the Pennsylvania legislature are apparently more secure than B.O. is in the White House. Of course they're taking responsibility for their own safety and not trusting their lives blindly to a bunch of people that they've disrespected for six years straight.

As for Pennsylvania, I'm betting that we don't see much in the way of CCW restrictions out of that legislature, at least for a while. And mad props to Harrisburg Police for responding quickly and nabbing four of the punks responsible for the attempted robbery.

Flight out towards Indy

Mission Frag: Fly to MI, pick up The Shekel, fly to Indianapolis.

Stage 1.
Launch at first light, heading northwest.

Say "Oh, dam" when you see:

A dam. What else would you say?

"Allegheny County, show me turning left base for two eight, roger clear for option."

Wasn't planning on stopping there, but a touch-and-go at Allegheny County airport just east of Pittsburgh set me up for a beautiful low-level departure over the city.

"Super Cessna to Cricket. Sub Spotted. Rolling in with camera hot."

It's USS Requin, (SS-481), outside the Carnegie Science Museum. She's been blogged here before a couple of times too, but this is a first from the air.

She's beautiful inside, but she could use a bit of paint on the outside.

Then it was off to the northwest some more, staying low along the river to avoid Pittsburgh's Class B airspace.

Twist my arm and make me fly low...oh, yeah!

A quick stop at Beaver Falls, PA to use the bathroom revealed an F-86H on a post.

And it looks like they've got a small museum in the back that I didn't have time to visit on this trip, but I will be back just to fawn over that F-15.

Lesson learned here: Don't land where a flight school is actively flying. Trying to get back out, I wound up fifth in line behind four students who all apparently had to do the full "by the book" checks, and by the time I got to the hold-short, the first few up were already back shooting landings. Took a while to get back in the air.

Ohio farm country is beautiful and the sky is perfect for flying.

There was probably something down there that I was trying to photograph, but I don't remember now. Anyone see anything neat in these two that I can't find?

Then it was out over Lake Erie, with my flotation vest in view on the back seat, just in case.

Kelley's Island.

Landed here last year in a wicked variable wind and damn near sunk the island with a touchdown that was more like a ramp strike than a landing. But no aircraft damage, thank God. Murphy the Dog was not amused.

South Bass Island, known also as Put-in-Bay.

Middle Bass, where I took The Spud and Murphy camping two years back.

And here's North Bass Island. Haven't landed there yet. On my "to-do" list though, just because it's there.

Then it was on and into Michigan, where I got to buck another sketchy quartering headwind to land. But I'd learned from prior flights, including that Kelley's Island "landing" last year and I greased her in nice despite a sudden wind change as I was coming over the fence on final. So down I was, and down I stayed, because the forecast winds in Indy convinced me to drive instead of fly and a five-hour drive beats a two-hour flight that may not be able to land safely. Good Pilot judgment. I'm getting it. And we still made it in time for dinner with Keads and e.IA.f.t. so the night ended well.

Armed Citizen Drops Two Robbers in Philly

And as expected, the thugs' families and the liberal media cry and want to know why.

Shooting of two robbers shakes a street, and a city

The afternoon shooting stunned residents not for the violence but how it unfolded - and the mystery surrounding the shooter.

As the two masked robbers fled Krick's store with money, cigarettes, and lottery tickets, they were confronted by the man, whom police describe only as a concerned citizen in his 40s with a military background and a license to carry a concealed weapon.

He ordered the bandits to stop. They pulled guns. He shot and killed both.

Berks County District Attorney John Adams reaffirmed Tuesday that his office would bring no charges against the man, or identify him out of concern for his safety.

But the prosecutor said the man was justified to kill the would-be bandits. "How foolish of them to try to rob this business in broad daylight," Adams said in an interview.

One of the dead was Robert Decarr, 18 years old. And as expected:

Nearby, friends and family members of DeCarr erected a makeshift vigil site with candles and posters sporting "Rest in Peace" and other handwritten messages.

In an interview, DeCarr's sister, Taylor DeCarr, 20, said her brother was a "good kid" who "hung out with the wrong crowd." She said she had no idea why DeCarr robbed the store.

"He did not have to kill him," she said of the shooter. "He could have shot him in the leg. . . . They would have laid there till the cops got there.

All that was missing was the expected comment about how he was just about to turn his life around, get a job and start working his way through medical school. The fact that this little hood pointed a gun at someone and threatened to kill him unless he turned over all of his money doesn't matter to these feral hood rats.

But sometimes justice comes in the form of a good citizen in the right place at the right time with the right ammunition.

Kudos to the prosecutor for making the right call and not the easy, politically-correct one.

Centralia, PA

One of the targets fragged for Tuesday's flight was the ex-town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. 51 years ago, a trash fire that was lit in the town's landfill--ironically by the town fire department--ignited a coal outcropping that took the fire down into the network of abandoned mine tunnels beneath the town. It's still burning today, despite numerous attempts to extinguish it. Conceding defeat, the federal government and State of Pennsylvania bought out the 1,400 residents and removed them from the town, then demolished their homes and shops. A few hold-outs resisted and are still fighting to remain, however. At least count, there were seven people left still going on with their lives and trying to get the government to just leave them alone.

After 50 years, fire still burns underneath Pa. town

Approaching Centralia, PA. Here's where the state cut old highway 61 and re-routed the traffic because of a long-burning coal mine fire that broke through here, buckling the road and rendering it forever unusable.

Here's the cracks caused by the fire below. Ten years ago I was here and the steam and heat rising from that crevice was still hot enough to burn your hand.

Centralia is almost gone, but not quite. Most of the buildings are gone, their lots returned to nature. But a few still go on as if nothing's wrong.

Here's the still well-tended St. Ignatius Cemetery, with the smaller St. Peter and Paul Cemetery behind it. The barren pit next to the cemeteries was dug out long ago as part of the suppression efforts. When I was there, there was still hot steam rising from the ground there.

Not gone yet. A few residents still soldier on.

Even though the fire started back in 1962, no one really worried about it for almost twenty years. Then it became noticeable following two incidents:

In 1979, locals became aware of the scale of the problem when a gas-station owner and then mayor, John Coddington, inserted a dipstick into one of his underground tanks to check the fuel level. When he withdrew it, it seemed hot, so he lowered a thermometer down on a string and was shocked to discover that the temperature of the gasoline in the tank was 172 °F. Statewide attention to the fire began to increase, culminating in 1981 when a 12-year-old resident named Todd Domboski fell into a sinkhole 4 feet wide by 150 feet deep that suddenly opened beneath his feet in a backyard. His cousin, 14-year-old Eric Wolfgang, pulled Todd out of the hole and saved his life. The plume of hot steam billowing from the hole was measured and found to contain a lethal level of carbon monoxide.

Looking up Center Street from the west. Most of the last remaining buildings can be seen here.

The fire is believed to span 400+ acres below ground and is expected to burn for another 250 years. It's also believed to be heading slowly towards Ashland, just to the south, but not expected to reach there for another hundred years so folks aren't worried.

I was there ten years back with Lagniappe and we spent two days hiking the area. Unfortunately and somewhat comically, word quickly spread about the young man with the military-style haircut and the German Shepherd who were poking around in a white SUV asking a lot of questions about old mine sites. I was trying to chat up a local bar maid that night and she let me know that most of the dozen-or-so people in the bar "knew" that I was an undercover agent looking for marijuana plots with my "drug-detecting dog" out in the truck. It was funny for a few minutes, and then I realized that I should probably be moving on. A short time later, a friend of mine who works for a certain three-letter federal agency that deals with such things told me that that area was then one of the biggest hotbeds for marijuana cultivation in the northeast. He advised me against going back to look around again, especially alone and unarmed.

Silly him...I never go anywhere unarmed.

Tuesday flight--and a milepost reached.

Off late for this flight because a heavy haze was hanging around the area, making flying a chore. I gave it a couple hours then launched anyway, figuring I'd fly part way along my newly-revised flight path and see if it would clear or not. As you can see from these pics, looking straight down isn't a problem, as indicated by this bridge near Sharpsburg, Maryland. But trying to look out at the horizon...forget it.

I did come across this corn maze though. As I flew over, it just looked like a random warren of trails. Still I snapped a shot, and when I looked at the picture later though...

There's some real planning and talent there.
Oh, and how about this gold course? Not only do they put the green on a freaking island, but they go the extra distance and put a couple of sand traps on it, too. Sheesh!

Crossing the Susquehanna River northeast of York, PA.

Hey look--a dairy farm.

I was sharing the pattern at Smoketown, near Lancaster PA, with this little heckiflopter. Cute little sucker, ain't it?

And here we go--my hundredth airport hit since I got this plane. Keller Brothers farm near Lebanon, PA.

And the cows in attendance go wild to mark this historic moment. I've now put this plane on one hundred separate airstrips across six states. (not one hundred landings, but one hundred different airports.) It's made for a lot of extra flying adventure as I've seen a lot more of the country and it's been great training besides; my landing skill has improved dramatically as a result.

Here's Ashland, PA.

Ashland is just south of the old ghost town of Centralia, where a mine fire burning under the town forced almost everyone to leave years ago. (There are still ten hold-outs there today.)

I'll do a separate post about Centralia later today or tomorrow.

Here's one of the coal scrapes just west of the town. This whole area is nothing but coal and illicit marijuana fields and EBT cards.

But there is new building just a short distance away. This reclaimed coal scrape has been filled in and re-contoured and plotted for new housing. The roads are laid and a few houses are in, but right now it's just miles of new subdivision waiting for the builders.

Then I was into Wilkes-Barre and it's Wyoming Valley airport.

I'd originally planned to fly farther north, but owing to the late start and wanting to get home and check on Murphy, I cut the last leg off the flight here and headed back south and west.

Final approach to Sunbury, PA's grass strip. Coming in right over the heads of some fishermen.

Sunbury airfield is on an island in the middle of the river--and they've got a campground, too. Might have to take Spud and Murphy back here next summer.

Train bridge across the Susquehanna River.

And here's the remains of a bridge that once was.

Clean up your yard, hillbillies! The eye in the sky sees the mess!

And on landing, I spotted this little C-130 Hercules tucked in next to a C-5. (And only a C-5 could make a C-130 look "little".) Note that the C-130 is an older one that still sports the four-blade paddle props.

Back on the ground. 5.3 hours flown and 14 landings logged, including this one here at home.