Catching Up

I replaced the scraped-up fascia on the Mustang yesterday, now it is restored to like-new appearance once more. I have one wheel that is slightly scuffed (one day I'll quit doing that) so that is next on the list to be fixed, and one day I need to put a windshield in the Scoobytruck as well.

I mowed the lawn today and managed not to knock off the corner of the house again.  I also got up early enough to score 3 boxes of 9mm at the Mart of Walls up the road from me. They also had some boxes of God's Own Caliber, but I'm pretty good on that for the time being and since I could only get 3 boxes total I went for the ones I didn't have rather than for the ones I did have.

Tomorrow Daughter and I will take the new Glock out for it's inaugural run. I'm also going to take the EBS out for another pattern check following its latest modifications. I've also been contacted via email regarding one of the items on the Guns I Want list, but since I just made some new purchases...grrr...

Other than that, it just doesn't get any better than this...

Taken To The Woodshed

I certainly was, in comments at Ace's, by some uber-patriotic twit who took offense to my opinion that it's going to burn, there's nothing I can do to stop it, so I'm going to sit on the porch and drink icy drinks and watch the light show cause life is way too short to be pissed off all the time.

Apparently he thinks I should be marching two by two up and down the battlements to die gloriously in combat against all enemies foreign and domestic, never mind that "our side" can't even be assed to make a harshly worded statement concerning all the usurpation of powers that has occurred in the last six plus years, much less join battle against the same.

So I'll just keep the blender busy enjoying the fireworks, and then when the fires die down I'll see what happens next. I know my downhill neighbors are of like mind, so perhaps we will sit on our rooftops pointing out targets to one other until we run out of ammo. But until it comes to that I'm not going to get wrapped around the axle about things I cannot change, which is why you won't see a lot of* ranting and raving on this page.


Besides, this guy does it so much better.

*note that I said "a lot of", not "any", because I do reserve the right to rant and rave on my page as I wish, even though I don't exercise it regularly.

September!

And besides being time for a new header picture, it's also Redhead Appreciation Month! (or what I like to call, every day)

And without further ado, I present September's "Last Refuge Header Hotness", the lovely Scarlett Pomers.

So far this month is really starting off in the right direction...

I Don't Know

where your muse went...

but I might be able to tell you how it got there.

Should Have Stayed In Bed

Youngest Son and I were supposed to have gone to a CMP Rimfire Sporter match today, but when we got to where the event was supposedly occurring we found closed gates, no signage, no people, and generally no indication that anything of any interest at all was happening.

The NoVa Kids Shoot was better organized.

UPDATE: Apparently this match wasn't part of the CMP Eastern Games...ergo it was held in Fayetteville, which kind of explains why we couldn't find anyone in Butner. I guess we'll try this again in November.

Another Mouth To Feed

I've wanted a 9mm for a while now for a couple of reasons, primarily it's cheaper to feed. The bonus at work paid out and it was sufficient to remove an item from the Guns I Want list.

The 19 is the same basic size as the 36 with the magazine and Pearce +1 extension installed (note, these pictures were taken with an empty magazine in the pistol). Because of that I can use the same collection of holsters for both.

The grip on the 19 (on the right) is a smidge wider than the 36 but not so much so that it isn't a pretty good approximation. It should be a good practice pistol, and Daughter can use it to take her CC class.

And as a side note, anyone who says that "XXX is harder to buy than a gun" hasn't bought a gun lately (probably ever).

Wordpress Blogs

I have forgotten my password to comment on your blogs yet again.

It's not worth it to get a new one. It's a blog FFS, not the grand entrance to Ft Knox.

Doesn't mean I'm not reading, I just won't be leaving any comments.

Ah...

Got it.

You're still my tribe.

Carry on.

Save The Drive-In

Yes, there are still a few of them out there, considerably fewer now than there were. One of them is local to me in nearby Henderson NC, but they are also on the endangered species list. The film industry is going digital so they need a new projector, and the expected cost is around 80 grand.

However, there is hope in the form of a contest where 5 lucky drive-ins will get new projection equipment based on a vote from the general public. If you don't have a local drive-in to vote for I'm sure that Raleigh Road Outdoor Theatre would appreciate your vote.

You can vote once a day until September 8th, so vote often!

Thank you.

Cars And Cruising

Car show in Dunn NC this morning, so we were up with the dawn. We left the car show early to go to Lincolnton NC to do some cruising.

We just got home, it's been a long day, and I still get to stay up tonight so I can sleep tomorrow and go to work tomorrow night.


joy...

Note To Lefties

Leave me alone and live the way you want to live. Don't leave me alone and face my squirrelly wrath.

Draw me in and force me to have an opinion and I can pretty much guarantee you that my opinion will be against you.

So to recap...leave me alone and we can ignore each other till we go away, shiny?

EBS Revisited (UPDATED: Now with pictures!)

When last we visited the EBS Project, I said that I was done (with the caveat "for now").

As usual, when dealing with projects (be they guns or cars or houses or whatnot) they are never "done" in the purest sense.

So with that in mind I found one of these while wandering around the local Mart of Walls.

I have not been completely satisfied with the need to add drop spacers to bring the stock down so I could use the sights. I had to put two of them on and when all was said and done the angle was so off that I might as well have just left the pistol grip stock that I started with on instead, but that kind of defeats the whole "EBS" purpose (namely, to give Nanny Nancy fits). Not to mention there was no way I could use the tacticool Mall Ninja Team 5 (I'm not good enough for Team 6 but I'm working on it) Stock Accessory Kit.

So of course I am now the proud owner of said rail, and it went on in minutes following the provided instructions. And now since there is a rail, and since I already had one of these (different brand name but same sight) from the Mosin (when I got it there was a rail installed in place of the rear sights and this contraption was on top of it, the first thing I did was put the iron sights back on it), of course it has a new home atop the Maverick. And since the sights sit up higher I was able to take the drop spacers out and put the cheek piece back on.

And now all of that is done, it will have to be patterned again. Oh darn, I need to go to the range, woe is me.

There are worse problems to have I guess.

Sequester

There has been some pain felt on the individual level, mostly with the military and military contractors (which IMO should never have been included since they are, in fact, one of the responsibilities assigned to the USG by that document that none of them even bother to read), but by and large the sequester has not touched the average American.

This is akin to the lefties chant about having a war and no one shows up.

As the stories regarding cities like Detroit roll in, and as the sequester fails to make any impact on the lives of average Americans, the panic strategy might full well backfire on the politicians who used it as a scare tactic. Not only that, but since the average American is feeling little to no pain regarding the reduction of government they might start to get the idea that it's not such a bad thing.

In my opinion the next target should be politicians paychecks.

Hey Gun Grabbers

You lose.

Scuppernongs

I have at least a half dozen grape vines scattered about hung on various trees, but only one of them has grapes growing on them.

The grape vines that grow wild in this part of the country are Muscadines, sometimes called Scuppernongs (although from what I've been able to find out the Scuppernong is actually just one variety of the Muscadine). Apparently there are perfect flowering (male and female flower parts) types and flowering only (female flower parts) types. The second kind are not self-propagating, so they have to be co-planted with the self propagating sort. It seems as if I have one perfect flowering type and the rest are pistillate (self-unfruitful), but I don't know what variety they are.

The fruit bearing vine is presently wound about a pine tree, but I'm considering bringing it off the tree and putting it on a trellis and maybe making a cutting or two for replanting elsewhere. I might try creating and transplanting shoots of it with one or two of the other non-producing vines to see what will happen. I have no idea what variety of grapes will grow on these vines but it might be interesting to find out. 

I won't be getting into the grape growing business full time, but it seems like it might be a fun hobby.

Best Laid Plans

Nobody in town has that corner piece that I need. I can have it ordered, it will run about $77 per piece and there are five pieces in a box. I only need a half of one, but I have to order an entire box. That's $385 for the box.

So today was pretty much wasted in running around and finding out that the piece I need is not available. Oh what fun. Tomorrow I'll try to find something to build up instead. Of course that means my plans for today and tomorrow are completely shot.

Men plan and God laughs. But at least I have beer.

A Full Schedule

I got up today and went to the dentist to finally get the crown put on molar number 18, scheduled a cleaning for next week, took the blades off the riding mower and sharpened them, put them back on upside down, took them back off and put them on right side up, mowed the lawn and tried to rip the corner of the house down.

Tomorrow I'll go get the trim piece to put back on the house, then I'll transplant the rosebush from Laura's grove to a sunnier spot and replace it with a plant that blooms in the winter and does better in the shade. I'll also get some trellis for the grapevine I have growing in the tree, pull it out of the tree and put it on the trellis. Maybe I'll even get some grapes off of it this year, there are some growing on it but they are still green.

Saturday I'll go help a club member put the newly rebuilt engine in his 71 Mustang and maybe hear it start up, then I'll go on over to Grill 57 in Garner to end out the day.

I really should try to get some homework done, too.

Yeah, it's like that...

So today on my way home from work I happened to see a redhead in a convertible Firebird.

If you have ever ridden in a convertible...or on a motorcycle with a windscreen either, for that matter...you know the wind comes up from behind you. The wind had blown her hair forward all the way around her head, so she must have really been having some fun in that 'bird. But I digress.

I saw her as she pulled up to the stoplight. When she got the car stopped she pulled the hair back from her face, laughing all the time, and wrapped it up in a knot at the back of her head. As she did so the first chords of this song came over the speakers in the Baja.


An eternity, caught in that one instant.

I couldn't help but think that some lucky bastard gets to come home to her tonight, and he'd better have the sense to appreciate it. If he is a smart man he spends every waking moment making her smile.

I envy that man.

Vexing Issues

So here's a problem for you tech-savvy folks to chew on.

I'm running Firefox on both my Vista laptop and my new Windows 8 machine. When I open the blog on the laptop my navbar at the top shows my email address and all such things while I'm signed in as it should. On my Windows 8 machine it only shows the "Create Blog" and "Sign In" links as if I'm not signed in, but if I hit the "Sign In" link it takes me right to my dashboard.

If I open the blog in either IE or Chrome the navbar shows the logged in info as it should, but I don't like IE for the hacking issues and Chrome wants to integrate every-blessed-thing and won't let me use my Gmail addresses...which I have two of because it seems that every time I open Gmail it won't let me into my own account (keeps saying "that username is already taken"...why yes, yes it is... by ME!!!).

So if I want into my gmail account I have to log out of blogger, and if I want into my blogspot account I have to log out of gmail because I can't be in both at the same time...and if that's not enough...you can't associate a Gmail address (which is GOOGLE, FFS!) with a google account...

Time to move on to another platform, I know, but I fear change.

UPDATE: Got it. You have to enable 3rd party cookies, which I'm not really too happy about.

Squeaky Wheels

Tracey: When you can't run, you crawl, and when you can't crawl - when you can't do that... 

Zoë: You find someone to carry you.

I've mentioned before that blogger Squeaky is having a rough time with medical procedures and bills and so forth. It seems that life, as it will, has thrown her yet another curve.

The bratty little sister of the gun-o-sphere has some worthy stretch goals that have turned out to be not so much of a stretch (for us anyway, maybe not so much for her*). One thing about this crowd, when one of our own is down we're pretty good about gathering together to lift them up.

Another grand to the next stretch goal. That's 40 people donating $25 each (actually that's 39 more people donating $25 each). Squeaky needs a little lifting up. The lifting-up details are here, go do what you can.

*One of the things is to have her picture taken for publication. To hear her tell the tale even introverts consider her to be shy and withdrawn (once upon a time certain cultures believed that one's soul lived in pictures, and to have a picture taken was to expose your soul to mortal danger), so for her to do something like this is a Big F'n Deal.