Weaponized Fish

According to the FBI, the number one weapon in murders is some sort of blunt instrument. A club, hammer, or bludgeon of some sort.

I understand that under the new proposed "Assault Weapon" ban, you will no longer be allowed to freeze a whole salmon, as it becomes "Weaponized", an "Assault Fish", so to speak. After all, the only reason you would freeze a fish is to turn it into a weapon!

It is unclear if smaller fish such as herring or sardines when frozen are exempted, or if they are classified as ammunition.

High capacity magazines are also going to be banned, so if you have any old Sears catalogs kicking around, you better get rid of them as it could be a felony unless you turn them in.

Gun Show Danger?

Holmes Harbor Steel Match Results - 01/27/2013

Early on Saturday morning it didn't look too bad weather-wise, with a bit of blue sky peeking through in places. A lot of shooters got up, looked at the sky, and decided to come and shoot the match on Saturday. However, it was a trick! By match time it was raining, and it rained all day. Fortunately it wasn't too cold, just wet.  Sunday morning was the opposite. Right after dawn it looked lousy, with low clouds, fog, and rain. On top of that, it was cold. I think a lot of shooters had a look at the weather early Sunday morning, and went back to bed. Again, it was a trick! By match time, even though it was a little colder, it stopped raining, and held off just about all day. We got a little drizzle, but that was about it. Everyone stayed home on Sunday, except for a few of us die-hards! Even so, we all had a great time, and didn't get wet, like on Saturday.

#	Name	Class	stg 1	stg 2	stg 3	stg 4	stg 5	stg 6	total
1	Mike Gallion	RF-O	10.54	11.61	12.44	13.90	12.84	9.88	71.21
2	Larry Davis	RF-O	11.70	11.95	13.79	15.81	14.84	10.11	78.20
3	Blake Koszarek	RF-R	13.05	13.20	13.72	16.98	12.03	11.69	80.67
4	Larry Davis	RF-I	13.40	12.40	15.58	19.21	15.70	12.77	89.06
5	Jennifer Kelly	RF-O	14.77	18.37	17.87	24.34	23.09	15.85	114.29
6	Steve Blazina	RF-I	21.17	23.19	23.14	26.82	20.10	14.53	128.95
7	Steve Blazina	CF-P	27.80	24.38	29.04	27.96	21.69	18.04	148.91
8	Russ Blazina	RF-I	57.72	41.83	45.34	67.84	39.12	120.00	371.85
9	Russ Blazina	CF-LR	58.91	57.99	99.82	89.03	60.91	120.00	486.66

All six stages on Sunday were identical to Saturday, so comparing times between the days is a fair comparison.

February 23rd. and 24th. we'll be back at Holmes Harbor rod & Gun Club for two more days of steel shooting, and I'm working on a surprise or so for next month's matches.

Stay tuned!

Holmes Harbor Steel Match 01/26/2013 Results

	Name	Class	stg 1	stg 2	stg 3	stg 4	stg 5	stg 6	total
1	Mike Gallion	RF-O	11.08	11.11	12.77	16.23	12.07	11.57	74.83
2	Steve Mooney	RF-R	14.78	10.72	14.74	17.53	12.46	10.22	80.45
3	Larry Davis	RF-O	16.67	12.87	11.62	14.33	13.07	12.09	80.65
4	Blake Koszarek	RF-R	17.15	11.55	15.09	12.98	12.49	12.48	81.74
5	Steve Mooney	RF-O	14.54	12.72	15.90	14.83	14.30	11.12	83.41
6	Mac McInerney	RF-R	13.72	16.63	15.50	17.27	14.80	11.27	89.19
7	John Davidson	RF-O	16.08	15.98	17.50	17.74	15.72	11.29	94.31
8	Larry Davis	RF-I	16.39	17.80	16.41	17.75	16.98	10.71	96.04
9	Mark McDaniel	RF-O	14.33	15.00	23.44	21.69	18.55	13.75	106.76
10	Thomas Alldredge	RF-I	17.48	21.21	19.64	19.35	17.81	13.45	108.94
11	Mac McInerney	RF-O	19.34	16.02	25.17	19.64	17.05	13.09	110.31
12	John Davidson	CF-P	16.93	18.73	22.40	20.32	15.56	23.69	117.63
13	Dan Lavaty	RF-R	19.20	20.07	20.41	26.18	18.59	16.50	120.95
14	Dan Lavaty	RF-O	18.01	21.62	22.36	23.79	20.02	15.74	121.54
15	Thomas Alldredge	CF-P	19.14	20.39	24.11	19.97	19.75	19.34	122.70
16	Allen Vautier	RF-I	21.03	17.80	24.89	23.36	23.11	16.07	126.26
17	Jeff Proctor	RF-I	23.82	22.11	25.79	30.58	21.53	15.26	139.09
18	Thomas Alldredge	REV-I	20.07	31.28	32.86	29.12	27.09	25.67	166.09
19	Dave Ihnen	REV-I	31.09	34.76	30.52	33.87	27.23	45.39	202.86
20	Dave Shupe	RF-O	18.59	120.00	19.46	19.37	19.90	15.77	213.09
21	Dave Ihnen	REV-I	30.65	29.34	17.47	37.03	62.77	38.45	215.71
22	Jim Dyment	CF-P	60.02	41.93	56.72	40.11	40.63	37.30	276.71
23	Jim Montgomery	RF-I	63.84	42.18	79.18	44.77	48.99	29.04	308.00
24	Steve Murphy	RF-I	60.41	38.18	47.17	68.64	59.67	34.70	308.77
25	Dave Shupe	CF-P	120.00	120.00	40.44	43.07	33.08	26.70	383.29
26	Mike Muzos	RF-I	47.84	89.13	53.76	104.08	39.12	51.59	385.52

Leaky Pipes

I got this in an email from a friend of mine, and I don't know the original source of it, so I can't give credit where credit is due, but it's certainly a good read.

 

I've got a leak in the pipe coming into my hot water heater. It is in the foundation so it is hard to fix. So, I've turned down the temperature in my hot water heater. It doesn't fix the problem, it wouldn't have stopped the water that has already leaked, and I know my foundation will continue to decay from the water that is still leaking, but hey, I've done 'something' and it makes me feel better about the problem. I don't even want to think or talk about what really needs done because it is hard to fix.

We've got young people going on rampages and massacring children. I'm going to make it harder to buy guns. It doesn't fix the problem, I acknowledge that it wouldn't have stopped the killing that has already happened, so I know it won't stop any more killing, but it makes me 'feel better' that I've done 'something.' I won't even talk about the real problem because it is too hard to fix - and it might mean I have to admit I have some culpability in the problem.

The real problem isn't guns. The real problem isn't games or movies. The real problem is a decay in our culture that we've allowed to permeate the thinking of our children. And you are all responsible in some way.

I see kids walking around with their pants hanging off their bottoms like they got them as hand-me-downs from a short chubby cousin, shoe laces missing like they just got out of county lockup, and gang sign tattoos showing like they have 'street cred.' Very few of these are poor kids from 'the hood.' They are middle and even upper class children whose parents can afford to dress them better. Parents who could demand better behavior, but 'enable' their children to worship poverty and crime. Who let their kids listen to rap music performed by celebrities who's claim to fame is their 'street cred' - their criminal activity and 'gangsta' associations. Our culture is one that worships poverty and crime. We worship drug using, wife beating, immoral celebrities. And even if we don't personally, we tolerate it and 'enabled' our children to emulate that behavior. (The President has even entertained these 'celebrities' at the White House.)

But nobody wants to talk about that. We want to blame the guns. We want to blame the games. We do not want to blame ourselves for allowing our children to grow up thinking poverty is good and crime is the way to succeed. It is OUR fault. We are responsible for raising a generation of unmotivated, uncaring, insensitive young adults. But we don't want to address the real problem because we would have to acknowledge our responsibility for it. No legislation by the government can fix the problem of irresponsible parenting.

So, we won't fix the problem - but we'll 'feel better' that we've done 'something.'

SHOT show Day 4 - winding down

It's Friday morning, I am sitting in the press room, and I can see by looking at the people here that it has been a long four days. There are only perhaps half of the crowd here that has been here each day for the last three days. I'm sure a lot of people came for three days and have returned home today so they would have a weekend when they got back to the house.

It is about a 15 minute walk from the hotel where I am staying to the shot show and this morning, I had the opportunity to walk with and visit with Joe Waldron from the Second Amendment foundation. That is one of the most interesting parts of the shot show, the opportunity to meet interesting and knowledgeable people in the industry and get the word firsthand, so to speak, rather than hearing things second or third hand from unreliable sources.

The cost of everything here in Las Vegas is very expensive and food is no exception. The typical cost for a buffet meal is $20-$22 per person, and some are even more than that. Last night after the show, when I went foraging for dinner, I found a Denny's nearby. It was a pleasant surprise to find that the Denny's prices were the same as they are at all of the other Denny's that I've ever been to, and I was even more pleasantly surprised at just how good my dinner last night was. Instead of spending $25 or $30 or $40 for dinner at the other restaurants in the area, I had a senior special chicken fried steak meal for $8.99. It was good! Needless to say, I will be back there again tonight for dinner.

I have just about finished my cup of coffee, and it is time to pack up my gear and head out to the show floor. There is no Internet access at my hotel, or, I should say at $10 a day there is no way I'm going to pay that for Internet access at the hotel! I will probably get one more post up later today,and then, I probably won't have anything to post for a day or so as I will be traveling to get home and then sleeping to recover!

SHOT Show day three report two

It is rather hard to explain in words just how large the shot show actually is. The above picture was taken from one corner of one of the halls where the show is set up.if it looks like there are ceiling lights clear to the horizon, that's not far away from the truth. As I said, this is only one corner of one of the display halls. There is no doubt that although I will have put four days in trying to see all the show, there will still be a number of things that I miss.

SHOT show day three report one

After a pretty good but rather expensive breakfast with my friend Nelson the two of us walked to the shot show. I went directly to the press room and set up the netbook computer to see if I could get it to go online today. After some fiddling around and eventually removing or disabling at least data encryption now it seems to log on and work like it should. I have no idea why it worked just fine on the first day yesterday it wouldn't work. Who knows. At least it is running, I can now check my emails,and I can get a post or so up from time to time to let everyone know how the show is going.I have contacted most of the businesses companies and people that I had on my list of contacts that I needed to make and I have only three or four left to go. I should be able to get all of the rest of the business transactions completed today and any loose ends at turn up handle them tomorrow. Time to put the computer away, and head down to the show floor.

 More later.….

SHOT Show day two report

Day two at that shot show went pretty much the same as day one,except that I forgot to take my camera with me, so no photos today. I started the morning in the press room with a cup of coffee and set up the computer to get onto the Internet to get my first blog post of the day posted. For some reason, I could get a connection to the Wi-Fi Internet and it showed a strong signal, but it did not want to send or receive anything. Very puzzling. I tried several different things, but it did not want to cooperate.I finally gave up, packed everything back into my camera bag, and headed downstairs to the show.

The size of the shot show is mind boggling. It is said that there is a total of 15 miles of files if you measured every single aisle from end to end  and front to back. Not only is there a lot of walking to be done in the show itself, it is also a fairly long walk to get from the hotel to the show and back again.my feet held up pretty well for the first day of the show, but today, the second day, it was a different matter. It feels like both feet are solid bruise on the bottoms! I decided to return to the  hotel room, take a couple of ibuprofen, and propped my feet up. Getting off of my feet plus the ibuprofen has made quite a difference. We have a "Wi-Fi hotspot" here in the hotel room, and I tried connecting to the Internet with that, and it works just fine. I have no idea why it would not connect in the press room. I have now managed to read and answer some of my emails, and put together a short post so you all would know that I had not disappeared here in Las Vegas!

Tomorrow is day three of the show, and after what I hope is a good nights sleep tonight, we will hit it again in the morning.

More blog posts in the morning from the press room, I hope!

shot show report day one part three

It has been a long day. With the exception of the time that I spent in the press room, I spent the rest of the day from 8:30 in the morning until six in the evening walking up and down the rows of aisles in the shot show. The variety of interesting things to look at at the show is absolutely amazing. even having spent an entire day at the show, I have still only seen a small fraction of what is all there to be seen.after the show, I grabbed a hamburger for dinner and came back to the room. I am tired, my feet hurt, and it is time for some sleep.

If all goes according to plan, I will get the next post up from the press room tomorrow morning. But for now, it's lights out.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

SHOT Show Day 1 Part 2

Part of the fun the shot show is all of the interesting people that you see. Here is a pictureof quick Cal Eilrich and yours truly at the cowboy action SASS booth. I got  a chance to visit with Tori Nonaka,  and also, talk to KC Esubio. perhaps the best part of all, was getting a chance to spend some time with Eric
grauffels, talking about the finer points of tuning a Tanfolio 9 mm race gun for steel challenge shooting. it sounds like this may be the year that Eric will also show up at the European steel challenge championships in Holland. Although it is too soon to say for sure, it is very possible that one of the biggest names in shooting will be there in Holland with us this year too.

At the moment I am dictating this in the press room and it is quite noisy in here but even with all of the noise Dragon Naturally Speaking seems to be doing a pretty good job. I am going to go refill my coffee cup, and head back out to the show to see more of the booths for later….
















uick can tell rich and yours truly at the SASS Booth.

Well, here I am at the shot show, sitting in the press room with Jay G, slurping down the first cup of coffee of the day, and bracing myself for the rest of the day seeing the show. When I first came into the press room this morning who did I meet but  Kelly Bachand  who was having a cup of coffee and figuring out which booths he was going to visit today and in which order. Kelly has finished his engineering degree now, and is working full-time,hasn't been shooting much, and recently got married. Kelly is starting up a gun sales business specializing in long-range rifles, something that he knows a lot about.

Jay is sitting next to me, fondling and oak oh site and drooling on it but a, it is an OKO!

I guess it is time to top up my coffee cup, pack up the computer, and head downstairs to the show. It is 8:30, and it's time to go see what's new.

More later.....

Off To The SHOT Show

Tomorrow morning at 4:55 AM I plan to board the airport shuttle bus for the 1 1/2 hour ride to Seattle-Tacoma international Airport. If all goes according to plan, I will be flying from Seattle to Las Vegas, arriving in Las Vegas just before noon  for the SHOT show. for those unfamiliar with the shot show, it is the shooting hunting and outdoors tradeshow held every year usually in Las Vegas. It is one of the largest tradeshows in the world. They say that at last year's show, if you walked up and down every single aisle north-south and East-West, so to speak, and saw the entire show, you would have walked 15 miles.I don't know if that is accurate or not, but considering how badly my feet hurt at the end of the show last year, I suspect it is not far from the truth. I will be attending the show in several capacities, including media, which means gun blogger, dealer, representing Magnum shooters supply, and manufacturer representing MagAero Systems.I am looking forward to seeing a number of people that I only see perhaps once or twice a year and it would will be nice to get a chance to visit a bit, although at the shot show everyone is usually pretty busy.
 
Trying to type on the little tiny keyboard, at least for my fat fingers, of my netbook computer has always been a problem, and I seem to spend more time with the backspace key that on the letter keys themselves. This year at the shot show, I will be trying out Dragon naturally speaking to prepare blog posts, and hopefully, keep everyone posted on how the shot show is going.

that's it for now, and hopefully, the next post will be from the shot show.

Red Skin Potatoes are Racist?

Today Rush discussed some idiot’s article blaming racism for RG3’s injury, singling out the supposedly anti-Native American name, Washington Redskins. Now I ask you, how can it be racist to name the Washington Redskins after a potato?

From Curmudgeonly and skeptical

Misc and more misc......

well, it's been almost 24 hours since I threw the switch on the furnace and it has been working just fine. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though,  since the furnace had been sitting for a couple of years before I fired it back up. This morning, when the thermostat called for heat, the furnace lit right up and warm the house up nicely.

Right now the weather outside is wet sloppy and rain and a little bit of hail so it is not a nice day to be outside. I just got back from the range, where I went to try a new load for the Tanfolio 9 mm.  Race gun. I had been having all kinds of problems with this load, but on paper, it looked like it should work fine. It turns out that the problem was caused by some old primers that I was using, and the load itself was okay  after all.

I have also been experimenting with a guide ride and spring assembly made by Sprinco.  it uses a secondary offer spring in addition to the regular spring on the guide rod. This allows the primary spring to be lighter so that the gun will cycle with a lighter load yet when the slide reaches the end of its travel rearward, the secondary spring  comes into play,  bringing the slide to a stop and absorbing the rest of the energy.  The secondary spring  also gives the slide a bit of an extra push to get it started moving forward a bit more quickly, since it is a stiffer spring.  Eric  Grauffels,  the amazing French shooter, uses the Sprinco guide rod, and was involved in the development and testing.  if it is good enough for Eric's Tanfoglio, then it is certainly good enough for mine!

 I am hoping to give the new guide rod and spring assembly a thorough testing this Saturday at the steel match at KRRC. I hope the weather isn't too ugly, as they are forecasting snow for this weekend.

Installing A New Furnace

about three years ago I decided that our furnace which is close to 50 years old was on its last legs and should probably be replaced. I had been watching craigslist, and I came across a nearly new Thermo pride furnace for sale not too far away from here. A friend of mine and I took his pickup truck and drove to the house where the furnace was located, to have a look.

It turns out that the furnace had been installed in a newly constructed house that had never been finished or occupied. The contractor, who had built the house, decided to upgrade the furnace to a heat pump instead of an oil  furnace, and so  this furnace was put up for sale on craigslist. We checked the furnace over very carefully, and it appeared to be an excellent condition, and had been carefully maintained, even though the house had never been occupied. However, the purchaser of the furnace also had to uninstall the furnace and drag it out of the house. The good news about all of that was that by uninstalling it we also got to keep all of the ducting and connections and filters and fuel lines and all of the other bits and pieces required to put the furnace into another house.

It took us a couple of hours and we had it dismantled and loaded into his truck. When we got it home, I put it out in the barn in a dry place knowing that eventually our current furnace was going to need to be replaced. So far this winter, our oil consumption for the furnace in the house has been getting higher and higher each month and it has become obvious that it's time to make the change.

When this house had its furnace set up the interior walls had not yet been framed, so the furnace was put in place and then the furnace room was built around the furnace. This means that the old furnace would not go out through the door to get out of the furnace room to get it out of the way so that we could move the new furnace in. I dismantled the old furnace into separate pieces and was able to get it out of the furnace room one large heavy awkward chunk at a time. The new furnace was of a somewhat different design and it wasn't as long, but it was about a foot taller which is just fine because we could get through the door and all I would need to do is shorten up the overhead ducting a bit and it should work just fine.

For the last two days, I have been working on the furnace project. I have never done any heating or duct work in the past, although I have done repairs to furnace burners.since it is winter time, obviously, I don't want to be without heat in the house for any longer than is absolutely necessary. Yesterday morning I decided that since the weather forecast looked to be relatively mild and  rainy  it would be a good time to swap the furnaces. By last night I had the old furnace out and the new furnace in place, and all that remained was to manufacture different ducting to fit the new furnace to the old duct work, reconnect the wiring, and reconnect the fuel line.

The duct work was challenging but eventually I got it all in place, and it came out even better than I had hoped for. between the parts from the new furnace and the old furnace I had most of everything that I needed to do the conversion. I did buy a new piece of copper fuel line and I had to buy a seven inch to  6 inch adapter for the stovepipe, and a new copper tubing flaring tool.

Today around noon was the big moment. With the fuel line connected, the stove pipe connected, wiring hooked up, the new ducting in place, and the fuel pump purged of air, it was time to throw the switch.  To my great joy it started up immediately and started making heat.

The new furnace should be much more efficient than the old one and should be able to produce the same or more heat from approximately 25% less furnace oil. In the late 50's, when the original furnace was manufactured, and oil was $.30 a gallon, no one was very concerned about furnace efficiency. With furnace oil costs now approaching four dollars per gallon fuel efficiency of an oil furnace is critical.

The furnace has been running for several hours now this afternoon and evening and has been cycling on and off just as it should and as it is directed by the thermostat. A few hours of operation isn't enough time to be sure everything is going to work as it should, but so far, I am optimistic.

Words can barely describe how nice it is to have the heat back on...….

NOTE: A Couple of months ago I purchased an older copy of Dragon naturally speaking version 11. I wanted to give it a try to see how well it would work for blogging. With version 11 running through the soundcard in my computer the accuracy was not very good. I spent a lot of time editing and fixing misspelled words. Nuance,  the company that produces Dragon naturally speaking software had a special price for Christmas on version 12. Version 12 uses a microphone that connects through the USB port rather than through the soundcard. I thought that perhaps the recognition errors could be reduced by not going through the soundcard and directly through the USB port. At least in my situation, the new microphone that comes with version 12 and connecting it through the USB port seems to work very well. This entire post was dictated using Dragon naturally speaking.