Here I Stand

Here I Stand

Friday, July 1, 2011

Southern California's own Kean Coffee

The newest coffeehouse concept 
by legendary local coffeehouse pioneer, Martin Diedrich. 
Martin himself is fresh-roasting the greatest 
coffees from around the world on site. 

Breaking the mold of the ordinary chain coffeehouse, 
Kéan Coffee™ is an exciting and innovative community 
gathering place, taking coffeehouse culture 
to the next level.

Martin Diedrich, founder and master roaster of Kean Coffee, has certainly lived up to his title. The coffees that I have had at Kean formidably rank among the best cups of Java I have had stateside. I make this statement because there is quite a lot to be said for the environment where a cup of coffee is taken. It is hard to compete with the hot, sweet, comfort of a good coffee on a mountainside in the Chilean Andes; the sophisticated bit of an espresso on a bustling street corner in Naples; or the rich, chocolaty tones of a local brew on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. I also say this to let the reader know that I am no novice, and have discerning tastes when it comes to coffee. I take care and pride in my home brewed cups, and won't praise the bottomless coffee offered by just any greasy spoon diner.

The coffees at Kean, however, are comparable to any I have tasted. They have an excellent variety for nearly every discerning palette. Their rich mochas and Mayan spices are sweet and smooth. Their espressos have the creamy head that is the mark of a talented barista, with a full bodied flavor reminiscent of the north of Italy. The menu is playful and creative, giving a wide range of drinks that would put any national chain to shame. Their coffee by the pound is excellent. Ground to order (I use a metal filter at home) and intensely aromatic, I recommend the Medium Roast Fortaleza blend. It is what I am sipping as I write this, and has a rich, deep flavor, with subtle floral notes that end in a fruity taste of cherries and chocolate. I stoked up, so I hope it is still available.

The atmosphere is what would be expected of any high end coffee house, only brighter, cleaner, fresher. Kean glows with natural light, and is filled with students, artists, hippies, surfers, businessmen, and other Newport Beach locals that give it a perpetual feeling of fun and sophistication. Their outdoor patio is open and breezy, while often just as crowded and lively as the inside. There is always a line at Kean – which speaks to the quality of the drinks and the artistry of the baristas, and the best of luck finding a table, no matter what time of day, but there are ample entertainments to occupy your attention as your customized coffee is created. People watching is as enjoyable here as anywhere, and one can feel the energy and imagination echoing through the coffee house. Martin Deidrich, the proprietor (and, as mentioned before, Master Roaster) can usually be found hard at work, tasting new creations, roasting new blends, and conversing with the coffee aficionados that frequent his establishment. Kean is where I go for a mid day cup of pick-me-up, to write down my thoughts, and to gather ideas. It is the closest thing I have to a creative incubator... and the coffee isn't bad either.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

True Patriots - Kentucky Long Rifles

Read a great article on a historians collection of Revolutionary War era Kentucky Long Rifles. This Article is by Donovan Webster from Garden & Gun Magazine. I am a big fan of this magazine, and even though it is usually filled with good stuff, articles like this really jump out at me. As a history buff, Son of the American Revolution, and firearms fan in general, I can really appreciate the history and American culture behind these pieces.

The article is available at: True Patriots - Dan Webster

True Patriots

By Donovan Webster | Feb/March 10 | 

True Patriots

Virginia collector Michael Tuccori’s eighteenth-century Kentucky rifles are studies in American history

Almost every kentucky rifle has a story to tell. The one I’m looking at has a rectangular silver inlay near the rifle’s butt that reads: “C Kelsey.” And etched along the top of the rifle’s black barrel—in blocky and bold letters—is this: “New Market made by H. Spitzer.”

“This weapon was made by Henry Spitzer,” Michael Tuccori is saying as he handles the antique Kentucky rifle, its curly maple stock glowing gold in the morning sun. “Spitzer was a gunsmith working in New Market, Virginia, and he made this gun for Charles Kelsey, a native of Rockbridge County, Virginia, in 1794. Records show that Kelsey moved into Kentucky with his wife in 1795, only the next year. He took the rifle with him. Now it has come back home.”

As Tuccori says this, we are in a room in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Hung on a wall are his collection of roughly five-foot-long Kentucky rifles, also known as long rifles, amid a collection of equally long fowling muskets, gunpowder horns, and handmade pistols from the American Colonial era. A dealer and collector of antiques, Tuccori, sixty-three, focuses his weapons collection on the few years either side of the American Revolution for a specific reason.

“By the 1800s, you get a more cookie-cutter weapon,” he says. “Before that, it was master gunsmiths working on the frontier with a journeyman and an apprentice. They hand-bored each gun’s barrel, then hand-rifled each barrel themselves using a tool. It was slow and painstaking work. After about 1800, the process got more mechanized, so the weapons get less unique.”

Still, Tuccori goes on, it didn’t take long for everyone who saw a Kentucky rifle to want one. Since the rifled barrels shot balls much farther and more accurately than muskets shot pellets, long rifles quickly became very desirable. “The people settling this part of the world moved around…a lot,” he says. “They traveled into Kentucky, up to Pennsylvania, down into Tennessee, then back. They lived in buckskins or loincloths. There were elk, grizzly bear, and eastern buffalo everywhere, and these rifles helped to keep them fed. And there were also Native Americans who could be hostile. So riflemen and settlers wanted a more precise weapon, both to hunt and to protect themselves.”

A smooth-bore musket, Tuccori says, can fire shot pellets only at close range. Long rifles can be accurate to hundreds of yards. “At one point in Revolutionary times, a man named Timothy Murphy shot a British officer at three hundred yards using a long rifle,” Tuccori says. “That’s a pretty fair shot with an open sight. To the people settling this part of the world, an accurate weapon like that was indispensable. It was more valuable to them than an ax or a hoe.”

Because of their unique history and relative scarcity, the price of Kentucky rifles—as well as that of the long muskets and pistols—has risen significantly in the last few decades. And while it’s impossible to know how many Revolutionary-era long rifles are around, their rareness has made them very expensive.

“Even a nondescript one from the era we’re talking about goes into the six figures,” Tuccori says. “And while we do see a few New England rifles around from that time, the majority of them come from the area between Pennsylvania and North Carolina, though they’re generally referred to as Kentucky rifles.”
Though Tuccori says that new Kentucky rifle finds occasionally bubble onto the market out of attics and unknown family collections, most are traded from known and established collections. “Most are identifiable by collectors. The greater majority of them are made with curly maple stocks and the rest with another hardwood, usually cherry. And each has a hand-forged flintlock. After the Revolutionary War, gunsmiths began to trade once again with Britain and France, and they bought manufactured flintlocks from Europe, which is why the weapons prior to that time are more distinctive. After the Revolution, in places like Birmingham, England, they were making and exporting flintlocks by the boxload.”

Still, the variety of the designs and materials used in the creation of Kentucky rifles goes on and on. Earlier versions of the weapon have far thicker buttstocks, plus sliding pieces of wood to cover the butt’s “patch box,” an indentation where greased patches of cloth were kept to separate the rammed-down gunpowder charge from the ball rammed tight atop it. Later-made weapons have elaborate iron or brass patch-box inlays and thinner overall profiles, each design denoting a specific maker, whether there’s a gunsmith’s name on the rifle or not.

“You know, you look at the guns on the wall here,” Tuccori says, “and you can watch the design evolve across the American Revolution. It’s just another way of seeing how our country made itself.”

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Glock 23 vs FNP-40

My carry weapon is an FNP-40. I have had it for more than six years now, and I bought it more as a target of opportunity than anything else. I was in the market for a tactical .40 caliber handgun as a training and carry weapon. Being in the military at the time, the H&K USP .40 cal was something of my dream weapon, but the price tag put it a bit out of my reach. I compared a few .40 caliber pistols, including the Glock 23, the Taurus 24-7, and the FNP-40. The glock was a bit pricey, and I didn't like the feel of it while handling it in the store. The Taurus was simply reviewed as being not a quality firearm. I settled on the FN because it had all of the features that I liked, it was designed as an M&P weapon – FN making many of the small arms and automatic weapons that I used in the Army, and because I was able to get it at a significant discount, paying $420 for what is in essence a $600 gun. In the past years I have become far more experienced and proficient in pistol shooting, both in the tactical and target fields. I have fire glocks on many occasions, and though I found them nice shooting firearms, I never really prescribed to the religious following that many glock shooters have adopted. Recently I decided to do a side by side comparison shoot, of a Glock 23 and my FNP-40. I shot several different drills at various ranges (7 yards through 25 yards, with most being at 10 yards) Keeping in mind that there is nothing scientific about this test, and that a lot can be counted on human error, I also attempted to remove any bias that I may have towards the FN that I have carried for so long. I evaluated the two firearms on the basis of: Trigger squeeze and feel, sights, recoil, accuracy, precision, reliability, and target acquisition.


Trigger: the Glock trigger mechanism has always bothered me, and shooting it side by side with the FNP-40, I found it lacking. The SA/DA trigger on the FN was also a plus. The long trigger pull on the initial shot takes some getting used to, but each subsequent shot is very easy. The long pull on the Glock left me feeling slow and jumpy in my shots, as well and being downright uncomfortable. This category goes to the FN.


Glock 23

Sights: I actually liked the Glock's sights much better than the three dot combat sights on the FN. The U of the back sights lined up easily with the front sight, and it was a clearer sight picture. Despite my familiarity with the FN, this category goes to Glock.


Recoil: the feel of the recoil for the FN was just more controlled than it seemed to be with the Glock 23. I was quicker to get back on target, and never had any issues with getting my second shot off quickly (well, as quickly as an indoor range will allow anyway) this was despite the superior sights of the Glock, so I am handing this category to the FN.

FNP-40



Accuracy: I liked my shot placement with the Glock quite a bit. This might go back to the sights again, but I was punching holes through the center of my targets, whereas my FN has always shot a bit low. This I attribute to the combat sights I recently placed on my FN which I am still getting used to, and how every other handgun I have trained with has been oriented to target sights (aligning them with the front sight touching where you want the bullet to go, as opposed to combat sights, with the front sight covering where you want to bullet to end up) but I was more directly on target with the Glock.

Precision: I had tighter shot groups with my FN, hands down. This goes back to recoil and getting back on target, or keeping my sight picture, and the smoother trigger squeeze, but I did not like how I was grouping with the glock.


Reliability: I had fully expected this category to be a wash, as I have never really had any issues with my FN after the thousands of rounds the I put through it, and Glock is known for its reliability under any conditions. I was also only shooting 100 rounds through each gun, and thats not exactly the type of volume to make any full decisions about the reliability of a firearm. I did, however, get a stovepipe with the Glock. Many times in training this can be attributed to a weak wrist on the recoil, but I was shooting both guns with the same technique and have never been accused of being weak wristed in my shooting. I am hesitant to say this is an issue with the Glock 23 in general, as I still know many who swear by them for their reliability more than anything else, and I would put this square at the feet of the range where I rented it from. The lesson from this category is that well maintained weapons make all the difference.


Target acquisition: I did these drills firing multiple shots at 10 yards, with head down and gun lowered (not at the low ready) – being the closest thing to a genuine turn and shoot or draw from the holster drill that I can accomplish at my local range. The easier sights of the glock gave it a clear advantage for the speed at which I can put a set of rounds on target. The FN was good, and I liked the smoothness of the way it operates, but getting on target quicker made the difference here. Glock won this category.


Conclusions and summary: both the Glock and the FN won an equal number of the evaluation criteria, and I will never say that a Glock is a bad firearm, but it is certainly not for everyone. I never got used to the trigger, and the grip was wider than I would have liked – but that may be biased considering how I have been training these last few years. Since this test I have been shooting my combat sights the way they were meant to be shot, and have seen a considerable improvement in putting my FN exactly where I want it instead of an inch or two low. I still think I got a bargain on my FNP-40, and won't be switching to a glock any time soon, but I do think that the two are comparable, and encourage anyone who has the means, to actually put some rounds through the various firearms they are considering before they buy. My FN will stay on my hip, and the Glock fans can keep their golden calf, but I can certainly see it's appeal.