I've got 'em... Who needs 'em?

I'm not a master carpenter... But I can do a passable job. Now that I'll be working from home 4 days a week for the foreseeable future, I've decided to kick my home wiring project I've been putting off into high gear. This involves some carpentry, as I'm running cable between floors through a wall and into an attic space over a single-floor wing of the house.

My attic is hot as balls... It was 112 degrees F in there this afternoon, so I waited until a little later on to work on what I'm doing in there. The previous owner did a piss poor job of putting down flooring in there for storage, and as I've been ripping it up to get to where I need to run wires, I decided to redo it the right way. Before I can do that, though, I've framed out a "box" made from 2x6s between the ceiling joists that dams off the insulation and will support a trap door in the floor providing access to the cable run. Like I said, I'm not a master carpenter, but I've done a decent job making this thing square and level, considering I'm attaching it to joists that are not themselves square and level, and it was still 95 degrees in there when I was working on it tonight. On either side of the box, I've toenailed in a couple of 2x4s to support the plywood floor on the edges. This took some practice, but I think I got the hang of it. It was still tough trying to do this between lapped joists which were less than 13" apart. One of them, while level end-to-end, ended up being twisted a little out of level vertically as I was nailing it in. It looked straight when I was nailing it in, but I guess my eyes were deceiving me. I can't very well fix this without ripping the whole thing apart, so it'll have to stay. It probably would be close enough for government work, anyway. ;)

I like screwing better than nailing... For the parts that I had no choice but to use nails on, I used nails. Everywhere else I used sturdy #12 wood screws.

I've got the Oblongs theme song stuck in my head... I could hear it from the TV in the living room below, when I was working in the attic. Nick had Adult Swim on for awhile before she had to get ready for work.

We made the same mistake twice... Since it's about that season, we uncovered the pool today. The water didn't look all that bad at all... That is, until we let all the leaves and debris and crap sitting on top of the cover slide into the pool as we pulled it off! It's a good thing Nick fished the dead bird out before we did that, I guess. This is the second year in a row we've allowed that to happen, though. Now the water's all dark and murky. I was able to get out most of the leaves with the net, but it's still pretty cloudy.

I guess we drained the pool last year a little more than we did the previous year... I had the hose running for over 6 hours, and it's only about halfway to where it needs to be. I finally had to just turn it off so I don't end up with a flooded yard in the morning.

I'm beat... But at least I don't have to commute to work tomorrow, suckers! :P

I just labeled my magazines in Russian. There's a practical reason for this. I label my magazines, so that if one is causing problems, such as FTFs or not locking the slide back when empty, I know which one needs to be looked at. In fact, I have extra magazine springs on the way, because I'm sure some will need replacing. I thought labelling them in Russian was kind of a neat idea, since it's a Russian design and all. I hope I got the words right. ;)

Any Russian speakers out there care to tell me how I did?

I just couldn't help myself... They say variety is the spice of life, and I just had to have another (slightly different) Makarov.

It turns out the guy that was trying to buy the Bulgarian Mak at my local gun shop was denied purchase because he failed the background check. Since the thing was relatively cheap, I decided I could use another. The cool thing about this one, is it was manufactured in 1988, just before the fall of communism in the region. It's got the brown plastic grips with the "commie" star, and the original style, rounded trigger guard. The guy that sold it to me said he'd much rather I had it than the slimeball that came in before. Turns out, he really didn't even know much about it, or how it works.

What I hadn't realized before, is that the price included the paperwork/background check, and it came with four magazines and the cleaning rod the other was missing, so it was a very reasonable deal.

So here they are, the twins (fraternal). I'm going to detail strip the new one tonight and give it a good cleaning, in case the previous owner used ammo with corrosive primers.

Speaking of the Maks, I finally had a chance to try out the special edition one last night, which prompted my impulse buy. ;) I really like the feel of the weapon, and how it shoots. The DA trigger pull is very long, but I know that's a safety feature. It'll take getting used to.

Here's a target from last night. As you can see, there were a couple of flyers, but one of 'em was from the first DA shot. I still managed to make a decent grouping at 5 yards. I was high and left, which according to the corrective target, means anticipating recoil or no follow thru. It's not the sights, it's me, and I need to work on that. When I "remembered the basics," I was making shot after shot in the bullseye, but that target was too shredded to post here. The slide also failed to lock back a couple of times, but since the slide stop is not worn, I've attributed this to a worn-out magazine spring, not the gun. I have some replacement springs on the way.

Got myself a Bulgarian Makarov for me birthday today. It turns out that the one I had my eye on at the store down the road was bought last night. The guy told me the person who bought it had a hold put on their NCIS check, so there was a chance it wouldn't go through and I could have it. Unfortunately, that meant a 15-day wait, and I didn't wanna, since it's my B-Day! ;)

I called around and found a better deal from a shop in Philly. I got the pistol, 3 magazines, a case, a holster and a box of ammo, for probably what I would have spent for just the gun and two mags at the other place. Here they are all lined up for your viewing enjoyment. The one I got already had the rubber grips on it, like I wanted, too.

Now I need to buy some ammo for it. I was gonna buy bulk surplus ammo online, dirt cheap.

The idea behind getting this one, besides having fun shooting it, was for summer carry in an IWB holster. The one it's in in that shot is just an Uncle Mike's, but I might end up getting something better (like in leather) down the road.

I haven't fired it yet, but I'll be sure to share my experience when I do!

Well, today's my Birthday. Had dinner and cake with my parents, and gots me some presents, but it took some prompting to get my fiancée to wish me a "Happy Birthday." :\

I wonder if we'll even do anything special today... Probably not. I might just splurge and get myself that Bulgarian Makarov I saw at the gun store down the road. Maybe that little bugger will cheer me up.

I had some fun tonight. :D I figured I'd go to the range, since I haven't been there in over a month. That, and I needed to do something to get my mind off everything that's been going on lately.

I found out that:

1. I could still hit the broad side of a barn.
2. Uzis are really cool. The guy in the lane next to me was blasting away in bursts of full auto fire.
3. I really like Springfield XDs (who'da thunk?)
4. My self control is pretty good, since I didn't buy an XD, or the SIG or Makarov I was looking at.

Here's a neat picture of an empty ammo box I shot up. I thought it was interesting how the shots that hit the edge of the box did that. Of course, I wouldn't have expected any different from something travelling between 1000 and 1200 FPS. ;)

As you can see from the powder residue around the muzzle in this picture, I had tons of fun tonight! :)

Oh, and... the XD-9 I tried out was really nice. I may just have to get one someday.

Somebody from another site I frequent sent me some older N-scale stuff. Among the cars they sent me was a German railcar.

You can see pictures of it here and here.

Besides the rounded roof and smaller doors, it looks like underneath the porches on either end, there are a couple of bumpers on either side of each of the couplers. Also, the trucks have only one axle, instead of two. These features are really unusual for North American freight cars. Is that how they look in Germany?

OK, here's a little project I put together this evening. I figured I needed a little display piece for my desk at work (as if I didn't have enough toys on it already).

Here's a side view, and the end detail. It's kind of hard to see in the blurry picture, but I countersunk the holes nicely (on my new drill press :D) and put it together with trim screws.

The idea is, I can line up a couple of cars, locomotives, whatever on this display, like here and here. Oh, and it's HO scale, BTW. The whole thing is 29 inches long. I used Kato unitrack for the track, since it's already got the track bed attached and it looks really nice.

Finished it off with a nice coat of stain, but I still need to polyurethane it and nail/screw the track down.

I was also thinking I might actually wire the track up and have the wires coming out the bottom and neatly tucked away underneath. That way, I can eventually make/get a little transformer to hook it up to, so lighted dummy locomotives and/or passenger cars light up when they're on the display stand.

It might seem like a lot of work, but it only took me a couple of hours, and it's a way to bring a little part of my hobby into my office in a way others can enjoy.

I just got my new digital camera a couple of days ago, and I thought I'd share some pictures of my train layout. I'm currently extending it, since the "misses" said she doesn't care what I do to the computer room. :D

So, I'm adding an oil refinery/storage area/filling station onto where the freight depot ends. I'm also adding a "shop" area, with a double-crossover for switching cars/locomotives and some sort of platform or building for the repair area (still needs to be added). Here, you can see the farm and countryside, as well as a couple of top views of crossovers here and here.

Oh yeah, and I'm getting one of these for the refinery.

I think it was from this comment. Oh well, I guess they couldn't stomach a dissenting opinion. Buh-bye.

The funny thing is, this person and I would probably agree on more things than most people on my friends list. My point in the post was that the author of the article came off to me as arrogant (and racist), and maybe not short-sighted, but closed-minded. The fact remains that cultures change, are influenced and absorbed by one another, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. It's a natural process.

Anyway, this begs the question, am I the only one that actually friends people I don't agree with? My rationale for doing this, is that I'll gain more perspective by interacting with people with all sorts of viewpoints. We don't have to agree, and we'll be all the more enriched by the experience.

Anyone else out there with me on this one?

Instructions:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Turn to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

Unix System Administration Handbook, Second Edition (oldie but goodie):

(I was going to do TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1, but there aren't five sentences on page 23 in that one. Most of the page is taken up by a diagram on ethernet encapsulation.)

If the system boots into single-user mode, the rc script is executed after the single-user shell is terminated.

As an aside, this is a very entertaining book to read, including a few beer references. :D

In honor of the upcoming National Ammo Day on Nov. 19th, I've decided to buy at least 200 rounds of ammo per day, for the rest of the week.

So far, I bought 200 rounds of 9mm last night and 550 rounds of .22 LR this evening, for a total so far of 750 rounds.

I think tomorrow, I'll be buying some .45, and since it's a bit more on the expensive side, I may only get 100 rounds. I've more than made up for the difference today.

Still need more 9mm for our upcoming NRA class, and probably some .40 S&W as well.

I'm aiming for (pun intended) between 1500 to 2000 rounds by Saturday, which is fine, because I'll use it all, eventually. :D

I've been away for a few days, so I didn't get the chance to take my SIG P226 to the range to try it out again until today.

Before I left, I decided to replace the roll pins they had buggered up, and I discovered something else!

When put together properly, it actually worked as intended. Imagine that! :P

But I've learned a thing or two tinkering with some of my own. Sometimes I'm amazed that I know some things the "professionals" don't. How can that be?

It turns out that the folks that refinished my SIG P226 put a couple of things back the wrong way! No wonder I was getting light primer strikes at the range earlier! Kind of discouraging when you pull the trigger and it doesn't go bang!

It's all good now, just that I can't take 'er to the range until Thurs. or Fri. to have another go. I'm gonna be outta town until then! Arrrgh!