That's about how I feel.
Friday, 17 May 2013
Thursday, 16 May 2013
How did it get to be Thursday already?
Last week dogged bad. This week, not so much.
Other than looking up 2m/440MHz antenna designs and trying to figure out where to put one and how to get the wire to it, it's just work work work around here. You?
Saturday, 11 May 2013
Shot a couple hundred through the newly-repaired 1911.
I'm still pulling down and left, but I'm putting a lot more into the center of the target than I used to. I think some of my pulling issue is that my carpal-tunnelled wrists are really weak and I'm simply not holding the gun well -- plus I haven't shot a .45 in over a year. 9mm just doesn't kick like .45ACP...and the Bersa is a lot lighter to start with.
But I also think that the new springs and plunger tube Gunsmith Bob put in are helping a lot. A new barrel might help solve the keyholing I still see in the target, but this gun just isn't worth putting a new barrel into, unless I were to lose my head for sentimental reasons.
I also discovered that when the gun gets warm, it refuses to lock back on empty when loaded with the two newer (read "cheap") magazines I picked up at Cabela's a couple of years ago. I had to lock the slide back by hand and then poke the mags out with my finger, too. Works fine with the ones Dad got when he bought the gun, though. Guess it's time to look for some new mags.
Friday, 10 May 2013
trying to ruin it for everyone else, as usual.
I for one would have been kicked out of college numerous times if we'd had a speech code like the one being advocated...
This is ridiculous. Nobody needs the Federal Government to protect them from hearing something they don't want to hear. This needs to be quashed, and that soon.
Thursday, 9 May 2013
Having sat through exactly one (1) "performance review" in over 18 years with the same company, and that well over five years ago and possibly nearly 10, I think this article is brilliant.
Because it just about mirrors my experience.
H/T, another article you should read. Part of it begins:
A man I know began working 20 years ago at a large corporation that he deemed it a pleasure to work for. (...)
That specific man wasn't me, and my CEO hasn't sold the company yet, but my goodness it was like looking in a mirror. I need to find something new to do. Problem is, that's difficult at 53.
All I could think of was, "He rode a blazing saddle...he wore a shining star..."
And then: "But of course. He's Black Bart."
Well, I never claimed to be politically correct.
Customer with what appears to be a PEBCAK problem on the part of his local users writes:
These customers are pro's on [our product - ed.], how can they be mistaken that they [performed the operation that the logs say never happened] and all ???
Oh. My.
I LOL'ed.
I have worked with this product for nearly a quarter century. I wrote most of the documentation. And I still make stupid mistakes with it.
It's a very complex software program. It's easy to screw up if you're not careful -- even if you're a "pro". Chill, grasshopper.
Tuesday, 7 May 2013
WaPo: Report: Sharp drop in gun violence, but most killings still involve firearms
So. We have a sharp drop in gun violence!
Firearms-related homicides declined 39 percent between 1993 and 2011, the report said, while nonfatal firearms crimes fell 69 percent during that period.
Sweet!
But the WaPo wants to emphasize that Evil! Gunz! are still being used at the same proportional rate to commit murder as they have been for twenty years.
Yet the document also made clear that when people are killed, it is still most likely to be with a gun. In 2011, as in the past two decades, about 70 percent of all homicides were committed with a firearm, and the majority of those firearms were handguns.
This is not news. Why would this be news? When existing gun laws aren't enforced and folks who wouldn't normally be able to obtain a gun through the legal process can buy one on the street pretty much with impunity (and I am NOT referring to the so-called non-existent "gun show loophole", either), I'm thinking that when murder is committed, the go-to weapon of choice is likely to be a gun.
But if firearms-related homicides are down 39 percent, even if they're still 70 percent of all homicides, THEY'RE STILL DOWN 39 PERCENT. That seems huge to me. (By the way, the simple use of mathematics suggests that this means all homicides are down 39 percent as well...even with firearms ownership at an all-time record high, thanks to that shiznitz gun salesman Barack H. Obama.)
So isn't that good?
I guess the WaPo doesn't think so.
Monday, 6 May 2013
In a word: Yum.
Can't find a place to bury Assface Islamic Bomber?
Why bury him? Fly his body over Chechnya and dump it out the back.
Alternately, bury him at Guantanamo. Or bag him up with a pig, cremate him, and dump his ashes in Mecca. In any case he should definitely be buried with pork products.
See, that was easy. Now, as Rachel says, we have better things to do.
I had a nice QSO with an old friend and Masonic brother, W9ELF, this morning. He took a moment to figure out who I was but once he did we had an enjoyable chat. He told me that they'd started a radio club (W9IMH) for the residents at the Indiana Masonic Home in Franklin, and that I could join as an associate member if I wanted.
He was coming in pretty well, hitting the 700 repeater from just south of Franklin on an HT. I was impressed. That's about 30 miles from me and the repeater is just about exactly two miles north of me.
Saturday, 4 May 2013
It shore 'nuff is purty. Thank you, Gunsmith Bob.
I think there will have to be some bang-bang time tomorrow morning.
Friday, 3 May 2013
if the jerk who keeps hammering the .700 repeater with static is aware that there are folks out there with direction finders who are going to find him if he keeps it up...and that there are some hefty FCC fines for interfering with radio frequencies.
Thursday, 2 May 2013
This has been an interminable week. Today should have been Friday. It seems, however, that tomorrow, sadly enough, is actually Friday.
I'm sitting here listening out on 2 meters, 146.700 -- the most popular local repeater -- on the Yaesu FT-7900 "base station", and 146.625* on the Baofeng UV-5R HT just in case someone decides to use it. Most of the evening on .700 has been pretty much a wasteland...there's a guy who spends a lot of time on there throughout the day who just absolutely drives me up a wall, and I figured out why -- he reminds me of someone else I know who used to absolutely drive me up the wall, but worse. Most of the other "regulars" seem to be off doing other things tonight. Am I talking? No, I'm lurking. I don't feel comfortable talking yet.
It seems like nobody uses the other 2-meter repeaters. Lord knows why, there are a dozen of them listed on the Indianapolis Repeater Association website. And the other thing that is somewhat irritating is that two guys who were sitting just a couple of blocks apart were monopolizing the .700 repeater this evening...I thought that when you were that close, you were supposed to go simplex and let other people use the repeater who might be too far apart to go simplex. I guess their local conversation was important enough to be heard across 9+ counties, or so they thought anyway.
Someone opined this evening that there wasn't much traffic even on .700 tonight. Someone else stated their opinion that it's due to the fact that the old hams are dying off. I think that's probably right. It's a shame we can't get more people interested in old-fashioned amateur radio instead of Facebook, Twitter, and other Internet crap that rots your brain. Including blogs. Like this one. And I think my brain just rotted a bit when I typed that.
Oh, but wait. You have to take a test to be a ham. And if you don't have a technical background, it's kind of hard. And there's math. Not much. But there is math.
Internet: No test, no math. It's a no-brainer.
FWIW I'm trying to get a friend of mine -- who has a deep, long-term, abiding interest in emergency management, fire-fighting, and suchlike -- to get a ham license. I tried to give him my ARRL Technician book last Saturday, but he left it here. He'd be a natural for ARES, damn it.
Enough yack yack from me. Oh, and I finally got a call from Coal Creek, they're sending my 1911 back with some basic repair done, and they wanted money. Not too much; I'm happy. I might have it back in time to take it to the range on Sunday, depending on whether priority mail gets here from there by Saturday.
Damn I need to feed the cats. I am wifeless until Sunday, and that's normally her job.
_________________
* Edited 5/6/2013 to note that I actually don't listen on the 625 repeater from home now, because I discovered that I can't reach it from here with the Baofeng. I 've been listening to the 146.970 repeater instead, as it's only a hop, skip and a jump from my house, and I can hit it reliably with the Baofeng. Not that anyone seems to use the 146.970 repeater for much.
I did hit the 700 repeater with the Baofeng from North and Illinois last week during the ARES net, which surprised me because there was a ton of static in the reception. I guess standing outside the west entrance of the Scottish Rite Cathedral doesn't give one much of a shot at the repeater up north...maybe I should have gone up in the bell tower :)
Tuesday, 30 April 2013
I have not talked much about my weight loss programme lately. Somewhere down below I mentioned that we are doing Weight Watchers again. Here is my latest chart:
As you can see, I've lost 20.8 pounds since the beginning of the programme. However, that still leaves me a few pounds short of where I started the first time we did Weight Watchers, which was somewhere around 254 pounds (coincidentally, close to my 10% goal weight this time). But still...20.8 pounds!
Sally has also lost 21 pounds so far. Basically between us we have lost a two-year-old.
Once I get to the 252.6 pound goal, I'm probably still looking at around 70 pounds to go. The charts say I should weigh around 160 pounds, but I call bullshit. When I graduated from high school I weighed 180, and I was not fat, except maybe in the head because I was 18 and knew everything. On the other hand, I was climbing in and out of peoples' crawl spaces and attics doing HVAC and electrical work in those days, too. That's a little different from sitting at a desk piloting a computer all day.
The first time we did this, I got down to 213 and got stuck. And frankly I did not feel all that badly about 213. But I'd like to get back down below 200, this time.
And then STAY THERE.
Links of Interest
Gone but not forgotten.
The Fisher House Foundation
Need an Indiana concealed carry permit?
- Marion County, Indiana, gun permit page
- Indiana State Police firearms FAQ
- Indiana online handgun license application
The Indianapolis Business Journal
Fox News
The Wall Street Journal
Investors Business Daily
National Review Online
The Washington Examiner
The Washington Times
The American Spectator
Voice of America
Rush Limbaugh
Victor Davis Hanson
Best of the Web
Jewish World Review
Real Clear Politics
FedNet
MEMRI
Ann Coulter
Mark Steyn
Dennis Prager
FrontPage Magazine
Tax Protester FAQ (For you folks out there who think there is no Constitutional or legal duty to pay income taxes)
Taking Sense Away
FAIL Blog
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