I am completely perplexed
 

I had quite some knives in my life. Swiss Army pocket knives, other pocket knives of cheaper kind when I was a boy, full blade knives, I still have not-too-cheap Japanese kitchen knives of proverbial surgical sharpness (I just love to grind these things, it is very relaxing), and I had an old-generation, 40 years old BW combat knife as well.

Some of these knives need cleaning and maintenance and oiling at times, also grinding. I have one day per year at last when I do all that on all these knives in one session.

This afternoon I took the BW combat knife, quite a robust and big thing with a I think in Germany now illegal blade length, it is stainless steel, and it is quite thick, so very stable and durable. Considering there are two screws in the grip, I assume it is a full tang covered by the hard plastic grip from all sides, but that grip prevents from seeing the tang to be sure. Its quite massive and anything but a toy.

I pulled the blade out of the sheath, I looked at it, it looked fine, there was nothing unusual to see - and then suddenly, one finger's width above the grip, before my eyes, the blade broke and fell to the ground. Just that. And the gripü stillö in my hand, the tang broken into two parts.

To say I was perplexed, would be a monumental understatement. And if I am honest, I was kind of frightened int eh first seconds. This came totally unexpected. And I have no explanation still.

The fracture is not completely smooth, but still, there is no rust, my knives are all well-maintained, heck I once even owned Japanese ancient swords, I really know a thing or tow about how to treat a blade good and well and how toi grind it. This steel is not suposed to just break into pieces when being hit by a harmless glance".

:o

I am even more perplexed, because this morning my wrist watch, a Citizen model that costed around 250 bucks when I bought it 15 years ago, so it is no cheap China watch, stopped working as well from one moment to the next. It just stopped. The battery is still fine, and did not leak.

:o :o

Early this afternoon I also wanted to clean my SLR's optics, and the lenses on my digital compact camera. The SLR still is an analogue thing, and I do not user it anymore, just move the optics' mechanisms once or twice a year to prevent the grease from becoming sticky. The digital compact camera however - while I had it switched on and wanted to check the SD card and what still was stored on it - it died in my hand, from one second to the next. Screen off, power gone, dead.

:o :o :o

That are three totally unexpected and quite unexplainable breakdowns of items that had proven their durability over the past years. especially the knife is what sticks to my mind, since there is no visible corrosion and no moving parts and complex mechanism and no electricity and no micro electronics involved. A piece of thick, stainless steel without corrosion and in quite good state should not just break into pieces all by itself. It just should not.

Weired day. I must admit I feel irrationally worried. I am not known to fall to these kind of sentiments easily, and I am certainly not superstitious, I am just too coldblooded for that. But when the camera, the third item, broke down, I was stunned and worried.

Weired, weired day.

You may not believe in witches, but they do exist!

As normally one would say around here. Some times there are days like that and I got my share of strange things.

When stuff begins to break or fall, by no normal reason or what so ever, I tend to pick some object and throw it against the floor or the wall. If it is going to break at least it is by my actions.

Funny thing is after I do that, the "events" that are annoying me do stop.

Perfectly normal-not Weird at all: "they go in threes" :dead:just met "nuthin' good lasts forever!":yep: I just lost the battery, CD player and the pcv emission valve on my '05 Corrolla...at 259666:hmmm:(considering my :subsim: avatar??) miles on the odometer...now that's weird!:arrgh!:

There must be a good conspiracy theory in there somewhere, oh I got it, George Soros must be behind it. :hmmm:

^ This, or the EU. :D

Seriously, i just switched on a lamp, and the bulb made a loud "Pop",
and went out. To change the bulb i tried to switch on another lamp, and "Pop". So i got a torch and wanted to switch it on.. and it lit up and went out immediately. Not the battery.. :hmmm:

No power peaks, and certainly not on the torch.. I still don't get it :o

You guys are sweating the small stuff. We had a post-tropical cyclone, the remains of Hurricane Dorian blow through here last night. Put your big boy pants on. :D

I wanted to photograph the broken knife, think many people will not believe me when they do not see it.

I found that while my smartphone is working - the camera on it has broken down. Last picture taken was two days ago, when it still worked. This evening, it did not work anymore.

Thats four strange breakdowns for today.

When my father's father died, having gotten bad family news and starting to cry while laying in bed, being dead 30 minutes later (said my grandmother), my father said that the clock on the wall in my parent's kitchen stopped running. Not exactly the same minute, but close to it. When my mother'S father died, in that night I dreamed of meeting him on a stroll through the forest, and he was so serious and waved me good-bye when he lkeft an vanished in the green. The next day I heared that he had died.

I must admit I called my parents on phone today, just to hear their voices, and a friend, to hear hers.

I wish I were made all-Vulcan, not just some percent.

We had a over-2-hour power blackout last week, Northern part and northern outer sectors of the city. This is Münster, district capitol, 380 thousand population, 2019. Third power blackout this year, though the other two were just less than a second. But it shows the stability of the powergrid is going down the drain. It goes like this since three years.

Don't worry, your Russian (Arab, Chinese, AI, underline the prefered option) overlords are just making sure that you are safe and sound. Stay calm and continue onwards with your routine.

Was that the KM2000 combat knife?
Very strange it would just break like that.

Possibly HRC was vacationing in Germany? :hmmm: :har:

Well we did not have any blackout, not even for a split second according to online reports of the energy distributing centers. Despite some unpleasant "meteorologic disturbances". Also our main FI protection fuse blows in a split second, and there is a secondary power limiter switched between that and our home distributor.

OT:
Let me guess, your energy provider has been privatized?

Like with the "Bundesbahn", the state-built and tax-financed network is being "sold" to some private company for peanuts, so they take their present and the first thing they spare is maintenance to maximize profits.
And when the first dead hit the news and there is an uproar because of neglected care it is all being bought back for billions, and repaired by.. tax money!
And then the circle can start again :yeah:

the westfälische nachrichten wrote about. northern parts of münster were affected, some more in fact than was written at the time. they qoted the police with saying that it as due to some "störung im hochspannungsnetz". it lasted from 1730 to 2000.



microblackouts of less than a second are indications for instabilities in maintaining grid voltage on equal levels, they stem from switching on and off reserves that create short spli second moments when spikes race through affected parts of the network when own production is not sufficient and neighbours powerplants must jump in. this gets centrally controlled, and such emergencies happen now every week due to unexpected shortcomings from regenerative power production: both overproduction - sun shining - and lack of (lacking wind). in this case oil and gas powerblocks must get activated, germany increasingly lacks the ability to react with that, and so power from other nations must fill the gap - leading to instabilities in these.


the grid stability is europe-wide declining since some years, especially in staes that directly border to germany.


there are activists websites documenting the performance of the grid daily. the majority of weeks in a year sees one or several emergencies of these kinds. this year alone they say germany escaped state wide blackouts just by narrowest margins of time.


government offices of course do not publish this loud in tne media. the energiewende must be narrated as a success.

No, it was this model, 40 years old, in very good shape, zero rust, no visible microfractures:


https://www.kpemig.de/Bundeswehr-Kam...-Koppelschuh_1

I think I found a nice "replacement" for the broken BW dagger. I spend some time to check whats on the market, and decided for a Morakniv Garberg Black with carbon steel blade, not a stainless steel blade, which is also available. The thing gave me a very good impression already from the first look at it. The blade is shorter, which is okay, since I want it more as a robust, durable tool (inj the very few instances when i actually "need" it :) ), and beyond 12 cm its illegal in Germany anyway. Carbon it is because although the blade needs more maintenance and protectiona gainst rust, it is easier to sharpen in the wild, and gets sharper and keeps its sharpness longer, than a stainless steel would. You need to oil it, okay, but you get something for it that stainless steel does not offer. And the sheath of it seems to be fantastic.


I have a soft spot for good knives, of any kind. If I would have the space, maybe I would be a collector.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdUby5sAJ8c