02 December 2009

Note to self

Your carelessness lack of attention to detail is writing checks your skills can't cash.

So the creator of the November ePostal match, apparently drawing on "lessons learned" from previous contests, thoughtfully included a ruler on the target so a shooter could easily tell if the target was sized correctly or not. That's a great idea!

I printed the first set of targets on the SCQueens inkjet and checked the ruler. It was a little off but by only a hair. Next set of targets were printed on someone else's laserjet and I didn't bother to check the ruler since "it looked about right".

Scoring the targets back home, there was one shot that narrowly missed the Bond Girl off the top. Now I vaguely recall adding a trapazoidal shape above the legs to fill in the gap and yet here was a gap big enough to drive a .30 cal bullet through with room to spare. Hmmm, that's odd...[cue minor irritation in the Force] In the short run though, I can see a clear white line between the hit and the BG so it scores as a simple miss instead of a Bond Girl Hit.


It wasn't until reviewing targets submitted from other shooters, targets that showed the BG extending very close to the top edge of the paper. So how is it possible for my shot to miss and still keep on paper.. Here is a snippet of the original target. Notice the BG extending nearly to the top of the paper.

After reviewing half a dozen targets, it struck me to check the ruler again. Sure enough targets are 15 or 20% too small!

That ruler was a stroke of genius by the match master. You have no one to blame but yourself for NOT CHECKING TO MAKE SURE YOUR TARGETS ARE SIZED ACCORDINGLY! The matchmaster does not make allowance for your carelessness and your shooting skills aren't nearly good enough to make up the difference. You have no one to blame but yourself.

Update... "Carelessness" never felt like the work I was looking for... Edited to replace it with "Lack of attention to detail".

1 comment:

Ian Argent said...

When I saw the one target scan you posted it caused me to panic a bit that I had printed out oversized and to go measure.

I then guessed you had printed on oversized paper; sinc ePDF is usually pretty good about outputting correctly. Guess you had scale to printable dimensions selected and a printer with relatively wide non-printable areas.

It's one of the reasons I bought a color laser. The other one being that a toner set may be more expensive, but sinc eI print out so irregularly, the ink drys and clogs in an inkjet, so I ended up buying new printers every year or so. With an HP laserjet, I can expect to register it to vote before it dies.