Mr. C's ePostal matches are back!

It's ePostal season and the first match is up. Go check out the rules and targets at Mr. Completely's place.

While you're at it, don't forget the Gun Blog ePostal Rifle match. The Winter match closes in 3 weeks - get your targets in soon. I have a small bore entry in, and I'll give the SKS one more try (my attempts to date have been ugly to downright embarrasing).

Heh...

The SCQueen was laughing it up and rolling on the floor while watching TV last night. I came up to see what was so funny. She was watching someone's version of America's Funniest Videos. There was a clip of a wedding with the cake being wheeled across the room. Then splat. Yawn, saw that coming a mile away.. yawn...

But tonight Top Gear surprised me... I have no idea why this struck me as funny but it did. As in tears rolling down the cheeks, hoping I can find time to breathe between yuks funny.

I hate these stories...

As father to a 9YO, these stories devastate me:

From ABC15

A 9-year-old boy was shot and killed in Florence on Sunday afternoon, and the boy's 2-year-old brother may have pulled the trigger.

Ok, that's the story at this point. Which leaves a lot of questions like "does a 2YO have the strength to lift a gun let alone the finger strength to pull a trigger?" It would help to know what kind of gun was used.

Why does this smell like dad was screwing around cleaning his gun, shot junior, then blamed it on the 2YO? IFF this is the case, I don't know how he can live with himself. I can't imagine enough alcohol BP Meds in the world would drown this memory.

Not many facts yet and the media is notorious for getting things wrong. They also tend to report anything that is given to them as fact without any critical thought (see also the many Brady and BATFE pressers the media runs as stories). So this could be way off...

Florence is a relatively small Arizona town. Wikipedia (consume one large grain o'salt) gives it a 2000 census of just over 17,000. But's the area has boomed in the last decade so that number could easily be double maybe even triple today. It also says it's home to 9 prisons including the largest AZ state prison. So with such a small population and large number of prisons, what are the odds this will involve an "only one" and will quickly be swept under the rug?

No good outcomes here. Instead of mandating guns be sold with a gunlock, they should include a copy of the Four Rules and a a couple stories like this to drive home the point.

Ch- ch- ch- changes

There used to be a "Dormant" links on the left side here. There were two entries there, The Bitch Girls and Raising FarrahZona. I created his category hoping (knowing?) both would one day return.

Bitter's actually been back for a while. but while her 2A credentials are clearly unquestioned, the food blogging didn't fit the Daily Reads section. And I couldn't think of anything better. So I left it.

But now Farrah is back as well and it's fairly easy to bump her over to the Neighborly Links since RF also is desert based. But then it occurred to me, more than one of those under "daily reads" listed aren't updated daily either. So lets get consistent here!

Glad both are back!

* Yea, I know. SCS only averages a post every other day at best. So Pot/Kettle, I know.

Freeway Parking lots

Well rats!!!

I had a nice post showing the state of the local freeways as the president was getting ready to head down to today's appearance at Dobson High School in Mesa AZ. It included a couple freeway pictures captured from our local Freeway Management System.

However I just noticed the pictures are copyrighted so no reproduction here. A bigger question is why are these image copyrighted? These images were taken by cameras that my tax dollars bought, installed and pay to operate. And posted in near real time on a website that my tax dollars fund. Why are images paid not in the public domain?

The first picture showed an empty freeway where the motorcade would enter the freeway. You can see current images here. The next two showed mile long backups caused by the closures.

I hope everyone enjoyed that parking lot experience and had planned for that extra 30-60 minute delay in their individual travels today.

Thing is, I can't figure out why he's here? The job is in Washington DC. Lots of cities have been hard hit with foreclosures. He landed here late Tuesday PM then reportedly headed straight for the presidential suite at some new ritzy resort. This morning he gave his speech at the school, then beat feet as fast as those GE turbofan's would carry him.

Uggghhh

The One is bringing his teleprompter to the desert this week.

The lines to get tickets started forming immediately when media announced the location. People drove from all over the region to stand in line overnight in 45F temps for one of the 400 tickets. Needless to say your humble host wasn't one of them. I wouldn't stand in a line like that to see or attend any event, not even if the event featured Sarah Palin.

Meanwhile some of us still have jobs to get to and try to maintain some level of productivity. Hopefully the road closures won't start until after rush hour when most of the producer class is already at work. Producing.

The speaking location however is within five miles of the SandCastle but the route to the DayJob(tm) does not cross any reasonable path The One might take. Still, traffic promises to be severely screwed up for miles in all directions.

I wonder what kind of snivelersfine upstanding citizens the event producers will conjure up this time...

SuperHero

As a pilot, I had to have the wings! I just wish they looked a little less Buzz Lightyear and more like these wings!








Breda
Anarchangel
Epijunky

Create your own here

UpdateThe SCSon started off doing "Captain Underpants" but here is what ended up with.

It just doesn't add up...

The SCSon's school is planning a class trip to the Grand Canyon. They held a parents meeting tonight to walk through the trip. The SCQueen and I are still shaking our heads in disbelief.

The plan is to meet at the school at 5AM, arriving at the canyon 6 hours later including a 30 minute break on the way up. Then they have one hour planned for lunch (odd, when the school only gives them 15 minutes to eat lunch on a normal day). Then they finally get to the purpose of the trip: a 2 1/2 hour Ranger guided program. Then get back on the bus for a 6 hour return trip home, this time including a 45 minute dinner break and 30 minute snack break.

That works out to 17 hours on the road, of which only 2 1/2 hours are engaged in actual "learning activities", but 2 3/4 hours are spent on food breaks on the way up or back. An hour of that will be spent eating lunch at a picnic area near the canyon, but not at the rim. They will spend less than an hour taking in the visual splendor of the canyon.

This just doesn't add up. I think we'll take our own trip to the canyon. We can do it faster and choose what to do instead of being forced to the school's lowest common denominator.

PS.. This trip is scheduled for an otherwise normal school day. After returning home around 10pm, they expect everyone bright and early and on time for school the next day!

PPS.. SCQueen talked to the PTO president after the meeting and reports they don't have the money to pay for all this. That suggests they'll be coming to parents with their hands out.

PPPS.. A parent asked as to the identity of the charter company. The teachers either couldn't or wouldn't answer saying "the district made the choice". Sorry, not good enough. We need to know this up front so we can check on their safety record, not after they've departed with our loved ones. (A recent 7-fatal accident pushes this possibility to the forefront).

Is this a good sign or a bad sign?

Is Midway getting hit with a Denial-of-service-attack or are they just real popular these days? I've been putting together an order over the last few evenings, but keep getting messages like this. Last night was real bad and I finally just gave up. Tonight it's working better but the message still pops up.

Is this a good sign, as in the millions of new gun owners are seeking accessories for their new purchases? Or just a malicious DOS attack from hackers.

I emailed the question into Midway's customer service. Look for an update with any replies.

UpdateMidway replies:

We were having system issues that caused some problems over the past few days. We do apologize for the problems.

No BS and they mean it!

I've heard it called "Dillon Precision's No BS lifetime warranty". While I can't specifically find anything about warranty on their website nor in the blue press, there is this statement in the "About Us" section of their website:

This is reflected in our warranty. No warranty cards, registration or serial numbers are necessary. Whether you are the first owner, or the seventeenth, all our hobby-level reloading machines have a lifetime warranty. If you break, damage or wear out anything on them, it will be fixed or replaced – whatever is necessary to restore the machine to normal operating condition.

After reloading for about a year and 5000 rounds (total of all calibers, not just .223), I finally had occasion to test this. I was reloading some .223 after a range session. Some of the rounds were very hard to resize and several had to be pushed back out of the die. Dillon has a very nice scheme - just run the decapping pin down into the resizing die and it pushes the case out.

After pushing out a few cases, the pin became hard to turn. Hmmm that's not normal. So I removed the pin to see what was wrong.

I called Dillon the next day and told them the story. They asked a few questions like "what caliber" and "What's your name". Then they said "We'll mail a new one out tomorrow!" Sure enough, today the new pin arrived and I'm back to reloading.

That's customer service done right!

Caption Contest!

"This Can't be good!" (click on image for full size)

Add your captions in the comments:

Protective Custody

The SCQueen needed to borrow a dresser from her parents. While digging through various storage units and outdoor sheds, she came across these three. Her father has been storing these effectively outdoors and unattended for who knows how many years. They all show extensive surface rust and the stocks are cracked and chipped as well. Fortunately though the bores do not show any pits. Chalk one up for Arizona's dry climate. If these had been stored anywhere on the right side of the country these would be a rusted pile of junk.

SCQueen advised she is taking these into protective custody. We can at least get some oil on the steel to stop the rust and some oil on the wood to keep it from drying out and cracking any more. And give them some secure storage inside.

There is a double barrel shotgun on the left, and a Springfield model 84C on the right with Redfield target sights. The .22 in the middle is by Stevens and originally belonged to the SCQueen's Grandfather. Apparently her dad didn't feel the gun was safe to shoot and plugged the barrel with solder. Uggg, Why do that? I too have a gun that is unsafe to shoot, an SKS with a cracked barrel. Just attach a red tag, but don't make the damage worse. (I'm just waiting for one of those $200 gun "buy backs" and make a profit on the deal).

I was headed to the range today anyway, and took the Model 84C with me after running a bore brush and a couple patches through the barrel. It has a very nice trigger and the Redfield sights are better than my eyes. It's a nice shooter with hardly any recoil.

These are still her father's guns. We have not absconded with them. He says he wants his other grandson to have the shotgun. That's fine, they are his to do as he pleases. In the meantime, they will be cared for in a good home. Most importantly, they will be kept in the family and not sold off because of a spousal objection or because someone needs the money.

He claims to have taken the .22 out just a month ago. I'd be surprised if was any time during the Bush administration. Either Bush administration. In the meantime we need to take him on a range trip.