Playing with pictures this evening while chewing on some intransigent code in the mental background.
May 2005 Archives
My mom and dad specifically requested a day at the range while they were here visiting, and the MO and I were only too happy to oblige. As I mentioned earlier, the MO even purchased a new gun for the occasion (like he really needed a reason!).
Dad hadn't shot anything since his stint in the Navy (in the '60's) and Mom had only shot one time when Grandpap took his kids out to shoot his Luger sometime when she was a little kid, so this was basically a "New Shooter" situation.
The night before we went through the mechanics of each gun and basic safety. They both dry-fired each revolver, loaded magazines for the automatics and learned how the sights worked on each gun.
The MO had a "lesson plan":
the new revolver (S&W 617 .22 LR),
.22 automatic (Browning Buckmark),
.38 revolver (then same gun with .357) (Ruger Security Six),
.40 automatic (H&K USP Compact .40 S&W).
I think this progression worked very well. The new S&W .22 revolver is solid and easy to shoot (and needs a name, Mr. MO!), and Flora and Ivan are both incredibly well-behaved, and then Hans comes along and gets your feet back on the ground (for me, at any rate--I can't hit the side of a barn with that .40--serious flinching).
After "Gun Safety 101" Dad was stoked but Mom was feeling a little unsure about the whole venture. I tried to tell her all the things I do to calm myself down, which was probably precisely the wrong thing to do (more to remember!) but by the time we got to the range the next day, everybody was ready to go. Since The New Gun hadn't even been fired yet, the MO warmed up with it while I ran a magazine through Flora (heavens to betsy, I do love that gun!) and then we started with Dad on the .22 revolver.
We worked our way through all the guns (Mom wasn't too thrilled with the .357, but she had one of the best targets of all with the .22 revolver):
Here's Dad shooting the .40 under the MO's watchful eye.
I'm very proud of them both. My Mom is a better shot than I am, and I've been doing this for a year! I'm going to blame part of that on my unwillingness to wear glasses ;-)
All in all, I think it was a successful outing, and I wonder if my folks might be seriously considering adding a firearm to the household. We definitely talked about how much land might be required to house a private shooting range once they move out to Texas. And they haven't even shot Chester or Maggie yet!
Once more, with feeling: "God Bless America!"
Thank you, Grandfather.
Thank you, Uncle Sonny.
And thank you to all the other men and women who protected us then and are protecting us now.
[John Deam served in the 17th Airborne 513th PIR Co E.
Ivan Wellington served in the 30th Infantry 119th IR Co I.]
See, this is why blogs are so much fun.
And now I'm really going to log off. Really. I mean it this time.
Who the heck really searches for "bathe the penguin"? I expect they were disappointed when they ended up here.
Umm, did you follow the link on the post? Have you read anything else on my site? Perhaps noticed the categories on the main page (hello, "In Celebration of the Second Amendment")? Or mebbe checked out my blogroll (Kim DuToit, for heaven's sake)?Either I'm not getting the joke, or you are going to lose your debate.
[See comment left recently on an old entry, "Do Guns Cause Violence?", in which one Jason Brown asks me to "send some facts ... agreeing that guns do trigger violence." I've been trying to decide for three days if the comment is some weird kind of b.s. spam and finally figured I'd just go with it.]
We have these crazy big plants growing on the side of our lot next to the carport. We keep them because they're prettier than the neighbor's backyard, but they do tend to get out of hand. Anyhow, we're used to them and don't really notice them much. But when Mom and Dad were here, Mom wondered if they ever flowered. Huh? Make flowers? No, I don't think so....
Well, today the MO comes in and says, "Get your camera and come see this," and sure enough, flowers. Tons of them. Under the carport! I'm telling you my mom has the greenest thumb ever! Now I wish she'd asked about all our other plants!
The MO's homebrew bottlecaps have rebus puzzles on them. They're usually pretty easy to figure out, but this one has me stumped:
I figure the first word is "you'll" (ewe + L) but I haven't the faintest what the rest of it might be. There's a K, something that looks a lot like a string of pearls, and a "ton". k+necklace+ton? k+pearl+ton? k+string+ton? And then maybe that first thing is supposed to use "baa" instead of "ewe"? Maybe that L is an I? Ball (baa + L)? I just don't know....
Update:
Based on another bottlecap, I think the necklace is a "lei" but I still can't make the phrase be anything meaningful. baa+L K+lei+ton? ewe+L K+lei+ton? Crap.
Holy chick-flick, Batman!
What can I say, I'm such a girl. The Notebook is an incredible movie. Do not watch without a stash of tissues.
There is a small article in the WSJ today mentioning that New York, Iowa and Virginia have (or have had) proposed legislation to ban spinners on car wheels, on the grounds that they are distracting and may cause confusion at intersections. I think if you're too stupid to be able to look at a car (hello, the whole car, they're kinda big?) and tell whether it's moving or not then you're too stupid to have a driver's license. And of course you have those handy dandy road signals to help you out, too. Jeez. Wouldn't want anyone to actually engage their brain whilst driving, now would we?
I know--it's bad for people's self-esteem! They see the spinners and think the car is moving. When they realize it isn't moving after all they cry boo hoo! I got tricked! That mean person made me feel bad! Obviously we need to legislate that cruel and unusual experience out of existence, so they can go find something else to whine about.
The Parental Tour is complete and was a fantastic success. Many pix on Flickr.
(Someday I'll have to figure out how to get a badge into a post without screwing up the rest of the page, but that is NOT gonna happen tonight!)
The More-or-Less-Annual Parental Visit begins this weekend (woohoo!!) and the MO has made some adjustments to the household armory. (I know those don't sound related, or at least not in a good way, but they are, and it doesn't involve any in-law enmity.) Dad wants to go shoot pistols, so the MO came up with a "new shooters" plan, which starts with a small revolver and works up to a large automatic. To do this, though, he needed a small revolver.
A .22 revolver was supposed to be the first installment in the gun purchasing plan but we ended up doing it totally backwards (big stuff first, little stuff later) so we didn't have one. Until last weekend! MO traded in a well-marketed-and-very-expensive-but-not-so-well-manufactured 1911 for the biggest .22 I've ever seen. (Ok, technically the 6" barrel one would be bigger, but hey, it's still quite a hefty small-caliber revolver.) It is pretty cool to pop that cylinder open and see ten-count-em-ten rounds....
I think it will be an excellent introduction for the parentals. They've been listening to me rave about shooting for just over two years now, so I just hope they enjoy it as much as I think they will.
I received an email with an article about Savannah cats, and I googled a bit to find out more about them (can't resist anything kitty!) and found this statement on a site selling kittens:
And last but not least, a very wild looking F2 female available, nice dark spotting, short thick tail, and big ears, just perfect, she was born March 12. Would like her in a breeding program, as she is just too nice to sell as a pet.
Okay, now, something about that makes me a bit queasy. I guess it's inherent in any breeding program, but then breeding programs make me uncomfortable, too. I'll stick with the mutts from the vet or the pound.
The MO took me out to dinner tonight at one of our regular favorite restaurants. This is a place where we usually spend two to three hours working our way through several courses and a couple of bottles of wine. The food is always exceptional and the service is terrific. Until tonight....
We arrived early (as usual) and the new hostess sat us RIGHT NEXT TO the only other couple in the restaurant. This is a major pet peeve, but before we had time to even register this faux pas we were pounced upon by our over-eager waitress. Before long, the MO posited that she was fresh from T.G.I.Friday's or a similar "turn the tables" establishment.
There was not time for a single breath between courses--I don't know how the kitchen kept up (yes, hyperbolic, but you get the point)--exacerbated by a busboy who kept trying to take my plates before I was done (bread--saved twice, only to be snitched during a moment of inattention, salad--waved off once, removed the moment the fork hit the empty plate, main course--eyed covetously whilst hovering after taking the MO's plate indecently quickly, dessert--reached for WAY too early, nearly causing bloodshed). The couple next to us (remember them? they were already drinking their wine when we sat down?) was just ordering dessert when we were being presented with our bill (held out, not put down).
I'm don't remember ever doing the "may I speak to a manager" bit before, but I did it tonight. Said manager of course recognized us (I meant that "regular" at the beginning) and was profusely apologetic, offering recompense (which we refused, that not being the point--the food was fabulous as usual) and promising to discuss the situation with the new waitress. So I suspect someone is having a less than pleasant discussion with a boss, which kind of makes me feel bad, but really. This is a good restaurant, not a fast-food joint. I expect to dine languidly (and in peace!) and leave "fat and happy", not have the food shoved down my throat and get kicked out in search of a Tums.
Harumph.
Check out Illustration Friday for near endless surfing. And it might even convince you to break out your pens and pencils :-)
[Via Burning Bird]
This World Paper Money Image Gallery has some really gorgeous scans. Turns out there's a lot of really pretty money out there!
[Via Coudal Partners]
I found a nice source for jump rings: Spiderchain Jewelry. Some very helpful pages are the Favorite Weaves and Sample Pictures. The "shopping cart" is really a calculator that sends an email with an order number to you and to Spider. You then follow up separately with payment (PayPal accepted). You can include some comments about what you're trying to build (which I did) and Spider will sanity check your order (which he did) which is a nice touch.
My magpie eye got stuck on the niobium rings, which are especially pretty in mixed colors. I got these: air mix. Now I just hope they get here in time for the Bead Party this Saturday :-)
Do I mess with installing my own gallery management program or use Flickr and something totally geekily appealing like this: Oberkampf Flickr Gallery
[from Weblog Tools Collection, an always dither-inducing destination]
Have you ever noticed that the very same cat than can launch itself across an entire bed without touching the mattress once can also put at least eight or nine paws down on your bladder when casually traversing a distance of a foot or so?
Well, switching servers has not been entirely pain-free. On the plus side, I can manage all the domains I am entrusted with (this one, MO's and the EMCA) from a single account. That was definitely one of the deciding factors. On the down side, I am really not up on all the intimate details of Apache (to say the least) and I keep getting hung up on what seems like little things because I just don't understand their setup.
One of these little things is keeping the genealogy database down (I figured this one out on my own--I'm very proud of that--and I'm working with the developer on it) and another is keeping me from getting all my pictures back up. I decided to install a gallery management program that I had tested on my local setup and on the old host, but I can't get it going on the new host. I've posted pleas for help on the forums and in support tickets, so hopefully I'll have an answer soon. Note: that does not mean that the galleries will be up soon--it just means I might know how to get the galleries up soon ;-)
Meanwhile, life continues away from the keyboard as well. The MO has been up to his eyeballs in work, travel and OTC doings, not to mention hosting card games (ahem). The Magpie flees the nest when the boys come to play cards.
As a consolation prize, I bought myself an iPod Shuffle and a cassette adaptor to run it through my car stereo. The cd player in my car has been busted for years so this is super-exciting! Outside the car, I've shuffled at the grocery store and in the movie theatre (I also went to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy during my eviction (and hey, who is this guy? he's got the most amazing teeth...and this chickie is just enchanting)) and it's a very odd feeling. I never carried a Walkman or any of the earlier mp3 players, so walking around in public with my own private music has been a new experience for me. It feels a bit rude, but I think it might be addictive. It's kind of like being inside a bubble. I can hear what's going on around me but it's really easy to ignore it. Not the way you want to walk down a dark alley at night but kind of nice when jostling through the grocery store.
