Something New

I tried something new today and competed in my first IPSC practical pistol match. I was as nervous as a cat going into it, and didn't sleep at all well last night. I even forgot to pack my mag pouch and had to borrow some gear to compete. It was all worth it though. The results aren't posted yet, but I think I held my own. I won't be anywhere near the top of the list, but I'm pretty sure I won't be at the bottom.

Update: Third of nine in the Production division. Thirty-first of forty-three overall. For a first outing, I'll take it.

A Bitter White Guy's Perfect Car

In a flash of inspiration after seeing a gorgeous white Boxster this evening, I've decided that I want one. It must, however, have the following: the personalized plate BTRWHT, an NRA Life Member decal, and a fish magnet. Perfect, don't you think?

Happiness

Is having a wife to buy guns for. This is her Mother's Day present.
Guaranteed to pay for itself in ten trips to the range. The Mrs., you
see, likes to shoot. Keeping her SP101 fed with .38 Special at $66 for
250 rounds, and one box of 250 per trip is rather pricey. 22LR is
blessedly, much cheaper, so even though the Model 317 cost upwards of
$600, the payback period will be over by the end of the summer. God how
I love her.

Happiness

Is having your tummy rubbed.

Rites of Spring

The only good thing about the twice weekly ritual mowing of the lawn is that it concludes with beer. If I've been particularly faithful to the lawn gods, the household Goddess might reward me with a cheeseburger. This is a good thing.

Tomorrow we practice fertilization.

Czech Please

Friday was darn near a perfect day for the ol' Captain. Work didn't quite suck. It was a gorgeous day, and my paycheck included my quarterly stipend for being a qualified Building Emergency Director. Most importantly, and closely related, Sportsman's Warehouse called with the news my new pistol had arrived.

I've been wanting a CZ P-01 for months. They fit my hand like gloves, have a great reputation for reliability, and are reasonably priced. For those who might not know, this is a compact DA/SA design with a decocker based on the legendary CZ-75. At 14+1 rounds of 9mm Luger, it's a potent platform.

Today was my first trip to the range with my new baby. I put 150 rounds through it with zero problems other than running out of ammunition. :-) The DA trigger is smooth and very controllable. SA is light and crisper than my XD. Being a nine, recoil is a non-issue, even with +P loads.

I don't admit to being a great shot, and my first group was pretty ragged. Once I tightened up my grip and started really concentrating on my front sight, things improved dramatically. My last several magazines of rapid fire went into fist sized groups offhand at ten yards. All in all, I'm a very happy camper.

Cool Phone

A Samsung Blackjack II came home with me yesterday. This thing is awesome, although it does have a few shortcomings compared to my old Cingular 2125.

On the awesome side of things is a full QWERTY keyboard. It beats the heck out of predictive text on a numeric keypad. I also really like the scrollwheel/joystick. It makes navigation painless. My favorite feature though, is the built in GPS. AT&T would have happily sold me a ten buck a month turn by turn navigation package to use it. I'm a cheapskate though, and would much rather fire up the free Google Maps application and let it compute directions for me. I ran a little test this morning while I was out in the field at work. I opened Maps and set it to the satellite view. Zooming in once it was tracking more than the four birds it needs for a position, I could see that the plotted position was within a couple feet of where I was standing. Sweet!

The annoyances are few. I can't tag individual contacts with ringtones, and it won't recognize my custom mp3 ringtones. At least I haven't figured out how yet. I'm also having some synchronization issues. I saw this with the old phone too whenever I tried to synch Favorites. It gets terribly slow, and as soon as I get another good synch, I'll uncheck that option. That's always sped things up again for me. Keep your fingers crossed.

Change's afoot

I know, I've been neglecting the blog lately. Part of that is from the lack of a decent computer at home, and part of it is just the annual winter blahs. More of the latter than the former, I'm afraid. It was a terrible winter at work. Don't ask, just take my word for it. Anyway it's catch up time. All three of the kids have had big news lately.

Our youngest will be getting married this coming October to a great guy from Kirkland. He actually had the cojones to ask for my permission to marry her. I almost told him no just to see his reaction, but couldn't bear doing it to him. They obviously care for each other, and that's enough for this dad.

Number two is also getting hitched, but not until next May. He's found himself a real sweetheart of a girl who's been part of the family for several years now. Both of them have good jobs now, and are ready to settle down. We're very happy for them.

Finally, numero uno will be getting out of the Army this fall in time for the wedding. This is good news. We were thinking that he would find himself in Iraq this summer and not being able to return. His contract will be up however, and the Army gave him the option of not deploying. He chose to come home. Now we just need to make sure he finds a job or gets into school.

There's more to talk about later, but no time now.

Pistol Packing Mama

We went to the range this afternoon for a bit of practice. Mrs. Attila is shooting much better these days. When she started, the broad side of the barn was safe, but now, she's making nice groups, and that fighting stance definitely says, "Don't mess with me, or I'll blow your balls off." Must be all the dry-fire practice she's been doing.

Happiness is having a wife to buy guns for.

Where the Neanderthals Went

While unloading the latest half-yard of bare-dirt covering landscaping rock at the yurt, Mrs. Attila asked me how it was going. I had a flash of insight and told her that it could be worse. She could have sent me out for a couple hundred pounds of mastodon on sale in the next valley over. I can just picture Og muttering to himself as he headed out on a mastodon run for the little woman.

Lost Worlds

We had a film crew at the plant today working on an episode of the History Channel's Lost Worlds series. I had the opportunity to be an escort for these folks and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. They found a very entertaining Hanford retiree to be their on-screen subject matter expert, and it was great fun listening to him talk about the old days. He signed on in, I believe, 1947, so he saw the plant as an operating chemical separation facility. Interestingly, the on-screen host is an American History professor at Yale, where our retiree received his wartime commission. The remainder of the crew were all brits and interesting too, although I didn't get much time for conversation. The episode should air sometime in the late summer or early fall. I'm looking forward to it.

And More Plants

It never ends! There's still more dirt to cover.

Must...Have...Plants

The lovely lady must have plants! There is bare dirt to be covered back at the yurt. My friends, take Attila's advice. Kill the lawn and leave the yard bare. Lawns and gardens will rob you of all your time and the money you would have used to buy weapons and a faster steed. Worse, there is no end to them.

A Great Afternoon

Went out for a nice ride up in the Horse Heavens and snapped this on Nile-Mile Canyon Road.

Support

A pox on clueless tech "support" people! I'm trying to ditch Charter in favor of Verizon's DSL. Thursday, I received an email from Verizon telling me that my service was ready and to use the self-install kit to get on-line with it. All well and good, except that I had no signal to the modem. I call "support" and run through the guy's script to keep him happy. End result, since I"d earlier received an email saying that it would be up today, let's wait and see if they jumped the gun on the 12th.

Over the weekend I went out to the network interface box and connected the modem directly to the utility's side, bypassing my household wiring. No joy. I also measured the voltage across the red-green pair. Zip. Tonight after six, same drill with the modem and again, no-joy.

I am convinced there is no signal to the house and call "support" again. Again the guy wants to run through his script, AFTER I told him all of the above! How long is the phone cable? How the hell should I know, you sent it to me! How many phone jacks do you have? Dude, I BYPASSED THEM ALL, I HAVE NO SIGNAL! And the kicker, "Are you using Windows or a Mac?" I'm using a Mac, but have Windows and Linux machines. What part of I HAVE NO SIGNAL don't you understand? Well, sir, since you're using a Mac, I'll have to transfer you to our Mac technical support so they can schedule your technician visit. Fine, then for argument's sake, let's say that I'm running Windows. Okay, what kind of Windows? 98, but who cares? It's not an OS issue. Fine sir, I've run a line check and we'll transfer you to our dispatch agent to schedule your appointment.

Hi, sir, I've got tomorrow between 0800 and 1900, will there be someone home? No, you'll schedule the appointment Friday between 0800 and 1200. Fine, sir, I have you down for Friday between 0800 and 1900. No, you'll schedule the appointment between 0800 and 1200 if you want someone there. Well sir, I can only give you between 0800 and 1900, but I'll put it in your notes. Fine. Thank you for calling Verizon.

What a joke. These guys couldn't support my privates with a jock. I'm hoping that they'll at least send a phone guy on Friday, not some generic outsourced tech "support" weenie from God knows where.

Sleepy

Pet adoption day at Pet Smart is such hard work!

Our new plants!

The seven new plants we put in the front bed Sunday.

Mrs. Attila in her Natural Habitat

Starbucks.

Not at my best

Today's been one of those days. The cold that I've been fighting for a couple weeks came back yesterday and knocked me on my backside. Last night was awful, and I didn't get enough sleep to be able to put in a work day. I stayed home and have been trying to take care of myself, but the cold's been winning. Such is life. May tomorrow be a better day.

Good bye, Subie

Our last look at the Subie before it gets picked up by the salvage company.