'Twas the ides of November...

... and all through the Castle,
not a creature was stirring
'cept... um ... a couple of cats.

That opening rhyme needs work... Sorry, a poet I'm not. No apology. (Feel free to post your rhymes in the comments)

The SandCastle Son is off at a weekend long birthday bash, and the SandCastle Queen (SCQ) is taking a CCW (Carry Concealed Weapon) class. After taking the Babes with Bullets class, she felt confident with the weapon and wanted to get her CCW.

Arizona mandates an length and content of the class. Leading up to the class she was apprehensive that she was the only woman in the class and that their might be some yea-hoo in the class. You know the one... Wears combat boots and camo while bragging about covert operations. But the beer belly physique and beater car suggests quite a different background. I promised her there would be one of those in the class, all the while hoping that with a class of only 8, she might get lucky.

From the stories she reports, it was even worse than expected. The day started with the Yea-Hoo, er, Socially Inept Character (SIC guy) bragging "I killed a man with my bare hands in New York. I head butted him three times but the sucker wouldn't go down...", and "I was required to register myself as a deadly weapon". The class rolled their eyes in unison and the stories got worse as the day wore on.

I happened to be chatting with the Arizona Rifleman FTF when she called on lunch break. She was disappointed in her shooting only 90% on the qualifier (5 shots at 5 yds, 5 more at 10 yds on "the biggest target we have"). She said a breeze in the range caused the target to flap about. She asked to try again. The instructor shooed her away saying "This is a 70% government test. You passed, now go away!"

She further related how whenever the SIC guy spoke up the two guys a the table with her would pick up the application form and point to the "Adjudicated Mentally Defective" question.

Since she had completed her shooting qualification, I took her weapon home. Good thing since as class wore on they talked about different confrontations. For every story the instructor told, the SIC guy always had to top him. Ugg.

JR the instructor kept the class lively and entertaining. Most of the class is on is justifiable and what is not. They teach the basics - your CCW is for protection of yourself and immediate family. Anything else, you don't have enough information. Call 911 and hope for the best. The discussion of different scenarios alone are worth the price of admission. "As you arrive home and open the garage door, someone runs out and heads down the street with your stuff. SCQ answer: "Call the insurance company and say I want new stuff!" She also now understands my suggestion for the umbrella insurance policy. Of course the SIC guy wants to engage and shoot 'em in the back.

She's tired and her application is almost complete 'cept the state required processing fee money order (no, the state doesn't take checks or cash). SandCastle Son is also tired and ready to sleep in his own bed too. Expect din to resume normal levels in the AM.

No it won't...

A flying car based on a Ferrari could be ferrying wealthy commuters to work within two years, designers have predicted.

No it won't. Story here

The first line of the story told the tale: "... is being developed by "Moller International"". Moller has been working on the topic for decades and never actually produced anything that's flown untethered. I don't buy their "insurance requirements" excuse. If you're going to sell a flying machine at some point you have to take off the leash and they never have.

Further, I do not recall ever hearing that they have taken a vehicle through FAA certification. Quite the contrary, they intended to sell the M400 with a 10 foot AGL limitation to avoid having to get FAA Certification.

Certification of flying machines using a proven configuration that the FAA understands, is a demanding process. Now you want to certify an unproven configuration? Expect that effort and cost to multiply. By what factor? 2x? 3x? 5x? 10x? Any of these would be reasonable guesses.

And good luck getting an FAA waiver to let you take off and land on public roads. That means you're limited to existing airports and heliports. Which negates the vehicles main feature - leaping out of and over traffic.

So lets look at the finances. You've got this machine that's worth the better part of a $million. Aircraft are built light. A soccer mom yakking on a cell phone backing into it is going to cause significant damage. Not to mention the distracted driver that blows a red light taking off the back end. Good thing you weren't T-boned because you probably wouldn't survive. Instead just the car is totalled. His insurance limits won't cover the loss and he doesn't have two nickles to rub together. Can you afford to write off that $1E6 as a total loss? You'll need collision insurance and that's going to run something like $30k a year. That $30k buys a pretty nice new car to leave at the other airport and the other half million you didn't spend having your $350k Ferrari converted to fly buys a pretty nice plane that will fly faster and cheaper, including the pilot, to fly you to that airport.

The bottom line is that when you try to build a machine that does two such vastly different tasks, you end up with a compromise that does neither very well. Car-boats (like the Amphicar) work but they don't stack up very well against cars or boats. Amphibious boat-planes do better but the boat hull, floats and wheel retraction mechanism extracts a significant performance penalty. Heck I'll even throw helicopters into the mix. The ability to fly at zero forward airspeed greatly increases complexity, reduces useful load and limits maximum speed over a conventional airplane. Efforts to build convertables such as the Osprey just make the complexity problem worse.

However they seem to be going after the "money is no object" crowd. When you've just spent 40 minutes in a traffic jam, been passed by three snails and now are late for the Board of Directors meeting for your $1B company. How much would you pay right now to get out of this mess? At a million bucks or ten, you'll probably get a couple takers.

Dingdingdingdingding!

We have a winner!

Subtitle: Michael Ramirez +1

Though if I may quibble; to my eye the figure above the heels more resembles "ThunderThighs" Hillary than Sarah...

(Link blatantly stolen from Kevin)

Friday afternoon rant...

Two things...

When you leave a voicemail and expect a callback, DO NOT leave a long rambling message describing the problem, then rattle off your phone number like a lawyer in the last two seconds of a used car commercial. Say it slow and say it twice. I may not be ready to copy the first time, and if I have to start the voicemail and listen to the rant again, I'm gonna be annoyed. And that's going to delay the response.

Two, if you're tailgating me down an eight lane freeway (4 lanes each direction) honking and generally acting like a jerk is not a very good way to get me to speed up or move over*. I'm already 6 over the limit and passing a car in the next lane. You have 4 lanes to choose from, pick a different one.

This is especially a bad thing to do when I'm headed to the range and have several weapons to choose from. BTW, given that I was fairly lightly armed today with only a pair of .22s and a 9mm, which weapon did I reach for? Answer: None of the above, not even the proverbial middle finger salute. I reached for the cellphone. Once he figured out I was dialing 911, he found another way past me two lanes over with nary even an evil glance.

Sometimes just the threat of a 911 call is enough to end a tense situation. When it's not, what's your plan B?

* My general attitude towards faster drivers is "Hey knock yourselves out. Go find those DPS officers laying in wait. " I always like a blocker if you get the Burt Reynolds reference.... Just come up easy and I'll move over as soon as I get to a safe place to pull over. Then you can take off and attract all the unwanted attention, letting me cruise on by while Officer Friendly writes you a ticket.


PS.. I need to find that old digital camera and keep it in the car for just such occasions...

Aw Nuts!

Stopped by the local Sportsmans Warehouse the other day for powder & primers. As mentioned the other day, for small quantities the hazmat fee kills any savings from mail order places.

But opening the bag tonight, I see instead of buying CCI 500 Small Pistol Primers, I actually brought home CCI 550 Magnum small pistol primers. While I missed the word "Magnum" on the package, I recall reading CCI 550 and thinking, "yea that's right". So its my bad for not reading carefully before buying

No store is going to take them back, no matter how unopened the package is. Seems my options are to either find someone locally to take them, or buy a gun that uses them.

Looking through my databooks, only Lyman's 48 shows the CCI550 as applicable to the .357 Magnum. Are there any other uses for the primers?

We are so screwed.

MSM has called the election for the most socialist ever.

I have a number of scenarios how this plays out, and even the best case is pretty bleak (I keep my Dayjob(tm) but taxes take all my money(Earnings, 401k, healthcare)). The worst case leads to a second civil war as the old maxim of "A democracy will only last until the majority learns it can vote itself largess from the treasury."

I'll have more to say later on the quality of the campaign later... for now we'll let the drowning of sorrows begin....

We are so screwed.

Reloading Blues

Ain't got no primers (ba ba ba ba bah)
Ain't got no Brass (ba ba ba ba bah)
I'm almost outta powder (ba ba ba ba bah)
I think I'm gonna crash.. Cuz I got those..

Reloading Blues....
Reloading Blues....
I wanna pull the handle
But I just don't have the news...

Ok, ok.. I'm gonna keep the Dayjob(tm).

I've loaded up everything I have to the limits of the raw materials.
9mm - out of bullets, but fat on brass.
.40 - out of powder, way low on brass, just a handful of mixed headstamps.
.223 - out of powder. Bullets and brass are critically low.
.30 Carbine - no Brass.

The SandCastle Queen made a trip out to Sportsmans Warehouse today in search of IMR4895. For small quantities, the hazmat fee is significant so I prefer to buy locally. SW was out of the 1lb jars, but had 8lb kegs. I passed. I shoot far more pistol than rifle and 8lbs would last me a really long time. Also, their price was ~150 something. Powder Valley's price on the 8lb keg is thirtysomething dollars less which easily covers the hazmat & shipping. Besides, I really don't want 8lbs of powder sitting around the house.

Oh well... FedEx has custody of 26 lbs of 9mm & 223, should be here on Thursday.