Shoot and Scavenge

It's been a month at least I think.  At least a month, since I've been to the range.
This past Friday, in the course of conversation I mentioned it, and how I was feeling unusual.
Uncle Jay reminded me that, "that's why it's called recoil therapy".
I was determined to go to the range before the weekend was over. Aside from poking some holes in paper, my routine has been to buy three boxes and shoot two.

Cool Change posted up about the incredibly fast delivery he got from Cheaper than Dirt on some recent ammo purchases. They have 9mm FMJ in stock?!?.  I'm psyched!  I'm on my freaking smaht-ish phone waiving it in the air trying to find a 4G signal to get to Cheaper than Dirt.

K. For anywhere from $60 to $139 a box of fifty I'd expect someone with a Cheaper than Dirt logo'ed shirt to knock on my door and hand it to me.

I paid $22 a box of fifty today at my range.  It disturbs me that I now go to my range with the mindset that I'm leaving with a full box of ammo.

As many have noted, shooting is a perishable skill.  I had too many holes off the silhouette today. Only a handful, but I'm not happy with myself.
Also, Belle elected not to go today. Not having my wingman woman there was distracting. No one was in the next booth rapid firing till the mag was empty.  Blue man target down!

I'm still feeling all sullied and unusual.
I'm not taking up golf. I refuse to chase my projectiles. I'm just going to have to  make the time to get to the range every week. And, pay the coin.

That and convince Belle she needs to go too.  My hearing has improved in my right ear. Something is just not right.

Flapper 3.0 and other errata

As a public service announcement
I offer that you should never buy a flapper valve for the toilet that has more than two parts to it. The flapper and the chain.  Flapper 1.0 was all high techy and stuff having multiple plastic parts which served the purpose of who knows what. Flapper 1.0 worked for a while and then feeling overly gaudy for a mere flapper valve jettisoned all its extraneous plastic bits into the drain tube in the bottom of the tank.
Flapper 2.0 did not fit. Even with some famous Kx59 mods it did now work. Fail.
Flapper 3.0 was purchased at Lowe's, L'Homme Deepot having failed me twice before. L'Homme Deepot's purchasing department's protocol for flappers appears to be, " We have a wide selection of 5 flapper valves! None of which will work on your Toilet! Thanks for shopping at L'Homme Deepot!". Flapper 3.0 seems to be working. It has two working parts.

We switched cable providers yesterday.  Cable tech informed me that the house was not grounded. Ah, ok.  The 9 gage wire must have popped loose from the ground rod again. (well ok, I admit it probably had help, had to be me with the mower)

The lug clamping the wire to the rod was iffy at best.  I've had to re-attach it before. So I got a new grounding lug while at the hardware store.  I'm thinking this is going to be a 5 minute job*.
So I've got a screw driver, the lug and a plastic bag to kneel on, being as it rained frogs yesterday.
Digging in the dirt with my fingers looking for the ground rod. Digging some more. Then, digging some more.  Srsly?  What dickweed steals a rusty rebar ground rod?  Ugh. Like all home repair jobs, this one was going to require a minimum of two trips to the hardware store apparently.
Being that the copper ground rods sold at the hardware store are 8' long and my car is roughly 7.5' long inside, maybe, I opted for a 4' piece of #4 rebar.  8 feet long?  All I need it to do is get to moist ground, not poke someone planting rice on the other side of the planet in the ass.
Fortunately, it rained frogs yesterday, so driving it into the ground was a piece of cake with Rudy Sr.**, the 5 lb. hand sledge.
Not bad. Only two trips to the hardware store to git'er done.  But, the new house we moved in to 15 years ago is not so new anymore.





* The last time I put a short time estimate on a home repair / improvement it turned into a two day affair.  That happens when you drill a hole through a water pipe.
** Yes, some of my tools actually have names.

I guess I have to say this again

You! Yes You there with the Virginia License plate and the Obama / Biden bumper sticker.
This is Texas. Not the Blue State hell hole you fled from because there are no jobs.
There are no jobs, from whence you came, because of the mush head liberal politicians you voted into office.

Kindly remove the bumper sticker and grow up. Or, go back home.







fucking twits. soil their own bed and then bail out, move down here to do it all over again, but this time we'll get it right!

Nothing good happens after midnight

That's what my elders always told me anyway.  Turns out they were right. So, you don't find me out that late much these days.

Between 7 and 9pm, that's the sweet spot.  In spite of the previous post, Dinner was actually at the Ragin Cajun.  The Big Guy is in town and needed to refuel the Cayenne pepper reactor that drives his gravitational personality.  Jay had two of his mates from work in tow. Really nice guys. They both like Shiner Bock. That makes them OK in my book, I don't care what anyone else says.

Between Belle and Jay it was hard to get a word in edgewise, but it's just as well. I spent too much time attempting to coordinate the swallowing of  beer while laughing.

While listening to some of the back story of Mr Frogs Wild Ride Jay's ride home from Texas to Florida after DAB II in a 900 mile blinding rainstorm that never made the front page of Listen to Uncle Jay,  I learned that Ogres on motorcycles actually cannot absorb all that much water. Who knew? Right?

Thanks Jay.  We had a great time. Always good to see you.

As for the post title. If you close down the bar, you always see all the other drunks on the road going home. At 9:30 pm the amateur drunks are out after the office "happy hour"  in really heavy traffic running at 70 mph.  I do believe I uttered the word "really?" ten times on the way home tonight.










Protip for young single men: If you like your women on the trashy side, like the song lyric goes, there is some pretty hot trailer trash that hangs out at the Cajun on Friday nights. In herds no less.  Take a wad of cash as bait. They're looking for sugar daddies.


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Dinner

I just know I saw a French fry in there somewhere!

Grackles. Rats with wings.

My! but things have gotten busy

Borepatch passed through town and emailed about a dinner meetup.  Being the lazy yahoo email reader that I am, I didn't see it till he was already headed out. His follow up email indicated he'd gotten tied up and probably wouldn't be able to make it, but I'm still annoyed with myself.
Turns out the Mighty Kevin. was in town as well and this would have been a blog meetup with two of my favorite bloggers.  A blogshoot reunion. Doubly annoyed with myself.
 It was not to be so.

Sigh.
All is not lost though.
The Big Guy will be in the BAR Extra-territorial jurisdiction soon and has an insatiable  need to cut his thumbs peeling mud bugs, extra ZING* included, double your order just pay extra shipping and handling.

Speaking of traveling bloggers, who all is headed to Houston for the NRA convention?



 * Cayenne pepper, the Coon-Ass answer to Merthiolate applied to a scratched ringworm. It's debatable whether it's hotter going in than coming out.

So, I just have to ask

I know this is going to be insensitive and perhaps politically incorrect, but is any body else west of Massachusetts as wound up and breathless as the media about this manhunt for douchebag Boston Marathon bomber suspect #2?

I mean, I don't feel the least bit threatened.

I have the news on. Something is happening.  The media is scratching the bottom of its brain via a nasal passage. Digging deep for words, more words, words more words to fill the passing seconds to fill the 24/7 news cycle.
  The suspect may be holed up in a boat on a trailer in someone's driveway. An unidentified witness has purportedly stated that many shots were fired and the suspect may be dead.  Knowing the accuracy with which the Po Po up north can place a round, all I can say is "poor boat".  I hope the owner has good insurance.  The fortunate thing is that this is not a crowded street in New York City.

The media has attempted to turn this into a national catastrophe. It is not.  It is a local criminal act. Jihad? Maybe. The perps are Chechen Muslims living a seventh century religion in a modern world.

Watertown, MA. went into lockdown. This is not an appropriate response to a loose fugitive.  I suggest a block party.  Everybody on the block get your sidearm and shotgun.  Bring the BBQ pit and a cooler of beer out front. Don't forget the lawn chairs, it's going to be a long day, perhaps extending into the night. Let the dog out into the back yard.  If you don't have a dog, borrow one.
I call this the IRL denial of service attack. Leave the perp no where to runhide.
Anybody shows up and sets foot on your lawn that you don't know, shoot him.
Now that's crowd sourcing rat thar!

Wait.  That's the people's republic of Massachusetts, not Texas. My bad. Never mind.


As I watched the Communist News Network at the airport last night I noticed how they showed the time in the lower right of the screen. Eastern time then it would show Pacific time.  Oh well, it doesn't matter anyway. All us 'tards in the fly over Central and Mountain time zones can't tell time anyway.
And the geniuses at CNN can't figure out why the number of people that watch is so dismally low.

Airport TV

Sitting in an airport watching CNN interview itself about the video images released by the FBI of the person of interest in the Boston bombing.
Meanwhile an overweight cop cruises past on a segway packing a glock  of some flavor. I feel all warm and fuzzy and safe now. You betcha.
The plane I was to board an hour ago was delayed in Houston due to weather, although the BAR weather center reports nary a drop of rain.
The true travesty of this trip is that I forgot my phone charger and my battery may not

I'm going to make someone's life miserable

Here I sit after 2 1/2 hours of commuting and 10 hours at the office, on my couch attempting to write a meeting report and an agenda for another meeting on Thursday, still attempting to work.
My office laptop gets loaned out from time to time.
If I find the emeffer that upgraded my Microsoft Word from '03 to '07 there is going to be hell to pay.

I can just see the development meeting for MS Word 2007.
"Well, we really can't think of any new content to add to the program, or any real improvements for that matter."
"Yeah, there's a few bug fixes we could do, but basically we got nothing."

"I know! Let's repackage the user interface with that new Ribbon thing that's going around!."
"We'll hide all the really important stuff that used to be so easy to find and sell it as an upgrade!"
"The users will think they have something new and shiny because they are having to learn a "new" program!"
[high fives all around]
[fade to black]

I may just have to type the sumbitch in notepad and take care of the formatting in word '03 on my wheezing old desktop* at the office.

I am not a happy camper.



* I am not a noob at this computer thing. I have three at my desk that I use every day. One for clerical, one for cad and email and one for 3D design. I run all three every day. I guess I've never mentioned my disability have I? I have four arms.

Beer thirty is finally here

I've always said too much work is a much better problem to have than not enough, but man I am getting too old for this shit.
Brought the laptop home with a bunch of stuff to work on over the weekend. I'd planned to do some Saturday and perhaps some Sunday.
I had this pipe dream of somehow working in a short trip to the pistol range in there somewhere*. I didn't make it last weekend and I'm feeling all sullied and unusual.
Saturday I woke up brain dead and completely unmotivated.  I finally quit beating myself up mid afternoon and admitted I didn't have it in me to get anything done.  Parked my portly ass on the couch.
Sunday morning I awoke to my work "to do" list and my brain whispered, "Dude, you are so screwed :-)"  I hope, some day, my brain grows up. I'm getting a little old to be called "Dude".

So after 8 hours of drawing and crunching numbers**, lots and lots of numbers, it's finally happy hour.
Belle just asked "how you doin'? "

"Getting better by the bottle"
If only there was some weekend left.......



*Didn't happen.  God laughs while men plan. The squirrel that took up residence in the oak tree out front is getting a little annoying as well. You just keep it up barky, I'll rake up the 50 lbs. of acorns in the front yard one of these days.
**Excel is my friend.

Hey Kids! it's that time of year again!

Time for the semi-annual employee review!
In keeping with BAR corporate policy, nothing factual, also known as "negative" will be brought up in your review.  The fact that you are a living, breathing, semi-sentient being that shows up for work on time mostly on time when you want to, is a real plus in our eyes. [thumbs up]
 Also the fact that you are willing to work really long hours to get that sweet, sweet time and a half overtime pay to put random lines and words on paper with no thought whatsoever makes you really stand out among your peers.
Well Done! Keep up the Good Work!

In reality, I do have to do employee reviews before the turn of the month. I loath doing these.
When I'm king of the company, things will be different.
A piece of my soul erodes each time I have to scrape the inside corners of my mind with a fish fork to find something...anything positive to say.

I have a much, much different metric by which I deem an employee "good".
My partners assign a  "good" or "great" label to the aspiring licensees if they are willing to work ridiculous hours to churn meaningless drivel on to electronic "paper".

I deem them good if they've run up against a problem, researched the building code and the Americans with Disabilities Act [ making the world flat for you!], present an actual construct-able solution and have an answer for 90% of my challenges to their solution.  The last 10% they get as homework.
No margin for error. *





* Were you to do the risk versus reward assessment on my profession, the first question that would come up is, "why would anyone in their right mind do this?".



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Good Bye Old Friend

My road weary berf case* decided it had enough. It's seen a lot of miles and a lot of sunsets from the top side.

One morning, not too long ago I hit the latches to open it, and it threw in the towel.  Well actually it flung it's latch across the room.
Well s*&#t. **

The lovely Belle bought that case for me.  It carried me through some tough years of horrific projects.
I haven't had the heart to trash it just yet. It still has some crap in it that I "might" want.
My grand daughter Scooter took possession of the previous berf case. It only had one latch left that worked as well. I dare not throw that one away.  That child has a memory like a steal trap.
Perhaps she'll give berf case 2.0 a good home and the case my father bought me after college can finally rest in peace.

*loiyas carry "brief cases". My berf case carries things that add value to something.

**  Some BAR major stockholder got wind of the new AP style book in which the words "illegal" and "alien" are not to be used in close proximity to one another, ever, again, mmmkay. The edict came down that I am no longer allowed to type the words "well fuck" unless the words "well fuck" are in quotes. [ example given, well fuck is inappropriate. "Well fuck", with attribution is acceptable.]

More good stuff............

Okay, recently I posted up a video of Beth Hart singing and Joe B. on guitar.

Here is a video of Joe Bonamassa playing an acoustic version of Slow Train.

Amazing song...  and not only is Joe B's strumming technic and sound wonderful, that fiddle player was awesome too!!

I won't even say a word about his vocals.


 

Okay now that i have your attention, try this one on for size.  It's a studio recording of Joe B.  a song called 'Stop!'

Natually he is also singing and on lead guitar in this gem.

 

Jost gotta love it!!

He is coming to Houston in November....   I think that the hubby and I will be attending.

nice try Jane

You'll still have some 'splaining to do.
I hope you like a dry sauna.*

Hanoi Jane repents.

you do know fibbing is a sin..right?

via Moonbattery


* where is that "on fire" font anyway?

Obama's North Korea stategy

Fund raise in California: check.
Play some golf: check.
Learn to shoot freethrows: refer to blue ribbon commitee.
Blame Bush: check.

This PC BS has gotten totally out of hand

Ordered a beer in the Nashville airport.
Waitress asks to see my ID.
I am not flattered. I have gray hair, gray teeth, and a balding spot on the crown of my head. Its a sure bet I'm not younger than 21. And I know that she knows..that I know. (Careful there sparky, you almost stepped in an endless do-loop there)
Is this supposed to protect the fragile self esteem of some underage kid attempting to buy alcohol?
Well, we card everybody, and your blonde hair does not seem to match your photo ID ...(squint)...Mr. Habib.
At which point "Mr Habib" becomes upset and embarassed.
Teh harrah.

That's the stuff right there!!!

Yeah so lately I've really learned to appreciate The Blues.

When I was a teen, it just really was never my bag...   now that I'm older, I'm liking it more and more.

My latest discovery (though both are very famous in their genre so they're new to me) are Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa.

Holy crap !!!

Joe B. can sing as well as rip the hell out of the guitar....   Beth??   Well just let this speak for itself.

Sound quality isn't great on this video, but they really tear it up!!



 

Enjoy

On the nork's saber rattling

Historically, North Korea has been the deranged homeless guy of countries on the planet.  You know the guy, the one that won't let go of your sleeve til you give him a dollar to make his smelly ass go away.
The norks do this bs every time they are looking for a foreign aid hand out to feed the citizens they are wiilfully starving to death.
I can see the US state department negotiations in my minds eye as I type, "ok, ok! I give you dollar! You go away, shut up! You scare my wife!"