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That’s not fog…

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So lately around fort freedom the environment has been less hospital than usual.  So first, here’s a view I regularly see on my drive home:

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Lately however the view has been quite different.

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Since the picture off Google maps isn’t that great, here’s another set from in front of my house:

Cold Winter Day

That’s from winter 2010, here’s what it was when I got home Friday:

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Here’s the thing though folks.  That isn’t fog, it isn’t overcast, it’s smoke, and it smells like I’m sitting next to a BBQ smoker.  Seriously I went to CD’s Smoke pit Saturday for a Bacon Explosion Breakfast and there was no difference in smell there or when I got home. 

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I love that smell but it does get tiring.

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Above is a snippet of an image via NASA, what you see is a fire hose of smoke pointed in my direction.  You can just make out the Idaho Washington border, find where the border meets the Snake River (where the border starts following the river) and that is just south of my AO.

Day to day the smoke varies too.  Here’s what it was like driving home from Moscow Saturday.

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What I should have seen:

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We need rain out here in the Pacific North West.  We need it bad.  Currently a lot of the regular stomping grounds for hunting will probably be shutdown specifically because of the fire danger.

A Piece of Advice

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Never tell a guy who’s over 6 feet tall, weighs 300lbs, open carrying a firearm who’s familiar with explosives and wearing a kilt, “Hey Nice Skirt!”

 

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It’s not a skirt dumb ass, it’s a frickin’ kilt!  Besides, do you like cancer!?  Because if you hate the kilt, you love the cancer!  In the words of The Oatmeal, Kilt Love good, Cancer Bad!

So here’s the deal.  My kilt came in late this year but alas there are many other awesome guys worthy of your support, well in the running, and there are extra incentives for your donations.

So head over and donate and support the blogger of your choice.  Prostate cancer hits home in my family and KTKC is most definitely a worth cause and I shall participate next year… To prove I’m not kidding, I’m teaming up with the bloggers above to produce a video for next years fund drive.

Kilted To Kick Cancer

Hobie Cats Don’t Tip Over….

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For my mom:

Let’s just say the title is a line my dad uttered that proved to be false…

In which I take advice and set the bar higher

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So as Joe mentioned while we were in Reno we ran the LAPD qualification stage.  I passed, not as comfortably as I would have liked but was no slouch either.

I followed through on my word since I knew when these stages would be coming and practiced less and less as the day approached.  Prior to this shoot the last time I had shot was the beginning of August at that USPSA match.  I hadn’t shot any steel either since March and hadn’t done any extra practice either.

So for all intents and purposes I went into this thing pretty damn cold since I only really shoot about 150 rounds at a USPSA match at most.  Overall my opinion of the stages was that it wasn’t hard or difficult.  Doubly so since we made the stages harder than what actually required by the LAPD.

Ry suggested I try using Adobe Premiere and step up my game in production quality for the video.  I happen to think on this it’s probably a good idea.  So I spent this morning playing with Premiere and could actually cut a raw video that looks decent of Joe and I both shooting the qualifier from multiple angles.  That however isn’t the type of video I’m looking for.

I started writing up a script tonight and am intending to spend a decent amount of time editing to provide the maximum punch possible from this video.  There are some serious notes that and things that need to be emphasized regarding many of the stages and that needs to be done correctly.  Further, as I am evidently a beer swilling redneck, I figure I might as well act like one and start surpassing the CSGV’s and Brady Campaign’s production values for their videos.

The end goal is to get down to a short 3 to 4 minute video to educate people on the truth behind these “standards”.  Some have said we were self-selecting and I could see that if this was a National or Area level match, but not for a local match.  Local matches give you a wide variety of shooters, including multiple new shooters, with new and unfamiliar equipment.  The details on how and why that matters will be clearly illustrated in the video.

In the mean time enjoy this instead:

Sometimes It Just Doesn’t Make Sense

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I had a crazy dream last night.  By crazy, I mean the following mantra was applied:

There are very few problems that cannot be solved by the suitable application of high explosives.

Overall there’s nothing wrong with the above statement.  The reason it is crazy is because it violated all laws of physics.  Here’s how it went down:

I’m called on site for some issue a utility is having with a recloser.  For some reason they ground only two phases of the recloser while working on it.  The third phase, for what ever reason was packed with explosives and detonated… this fixed the problem.  It’s crazy because it defied all laws of physics since the recloser wasn’t rendered to its molecular components.

Now it is worth noting though, explosives are used in the power system.

Had I been involved in that, or shock testing, things would have been a lot more normal and note worthy.

It’s a bummer I cannot find a way to combine my job with the above, that would just be AWESOME!

Getting back to the dream, using explosives and not annihilating a complex mechanical mechanism just doesn’t seem right.

The War on Mice

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Those who know me know I hate varmints and vermin with a passion.  We had a small problem last year but we quickly got it taken care of and didn’t have any further issues.  Well this year they have returned, with a vengeance.

Our cats clued us in to their return as they started staring at the access panel to the Jacuzzi tub again.  We opened it up and there was evidence galore they had recently come back.  Down went the kill traps and the wait began.

Yesterday morning I woke up to this:

The other trap had been set off but evidently they got lucky and didn’t take a metal bar to the face.  I reset the traps and away we went.  The wife got home and informed me of the following:

That’s right, two more of the little buggers took metal bars to their necks.  I reset the traps and not even 3 hours later I’m informed by the wife, they’re full again.

Now I’m saying, holy !@#$ Huston we have a problem.  I clean it all up.  Reset the traps and add in two more.  I wake up this morning to find the sneakiest bastard of the bunch:

The little bastard tripped three out of the 4 traps and some how didn’t get snapped… Well the 4th trap broke his neck and ripped open his nose.

Earlier in August the wife and I signed up for pest control which thus far had worked well.  Took out a couple of larger wasp nests that were forming in areas that were difficult for me to get to.  We’ve seen fewer creepy crawlies overall.  At that point we hadn’t seen much in the way of mice signs so they didn’t do much at that time.

Well now that harvest is in full swing, and I’ve killed 6 in 24 hours, they’ll be back out on Thursday.  TMW is less that thrilled right now though because I’m leaving with Joe tonight for Mecca and then we’re headed to Reno for GBR tomorrow morning.  So that means if there are any more of the little buggers she gets to clean them up and reset the traps.

As an FYI, just about everyone has mice problems this time of year in the area, even brand new construction.  It’s the down side of basically living surrounded by wheat fields.  I would poison them, but the last thing I want is for them to die in the crawlspace.  The house would stink to high heaven and then finding the little buggers would be an interesting venture all of it’s own.

Fair Winds and Following Seas Mr. Armstrong

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So as many of you probably know Neil Armstrong passed away recently.  While it certainly is a blow, it is by no means unexpected:

I am by no means old enough to remember Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s historic walk.  I was however lucky enough to grow up being the son of an engineer.  One of my father’s good friends worked on the Apollo program.  I will say I’m not a big fan of NASA, but I will not allow my dislike of them to taint or color the value and accomplishment of the Apollo program.

Growing up I looked at Apollo and it meant one thing to me, if I can dream it, I can build it.*  Hence my becoming an engineer.

I want to see us return in my life time.  But everyone in that program can take solace in the fact they helped inspire a bunch of people to become engineers.  No just at that time, but continuing forward even today.

So pardon me while I go give a wink at the moon.

Good bye Neil and God Speed.

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*It is worth noting what sealed my decision to be an engineer was seeing the development of the Physio Control Life Pack as well as the Automatic External Defibrillator.  The fact I saw something my dad and his friends built from the ground up that at the time only had the potential to save lives and revolutionize everything.  Yup, it did exactly that.  The Apollo program’s impact though was no slouch either.

It’s Time

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I’m spending this morning backing up stuff off my laptop for a complete reinstall.  Back in April I had some issues while at the jet boat races.  Well Windows Live Writer has taken a trip south now as well so I figured it’s time to reinstall.

Especially given in a week Joe’s going to be here and I must say, next Sunday looks like it’s going to be fun.  I have to agree that the timing for this worked out decently well.  It’s doubly interesting because at the last match, there was a pile of new shooters, many who had never shot USPSA before, and even very little outside of that.

There shall be numerous data points, my classification from USPSA just came in and I am not enthused with remaining there.  Upshot of that though is whether or not I make the “gold standard”.

Now why do I need my laptop though if Joe’s going to be here, I have my nice desktop at home.  Well after the match we’ve got a few other things before we depart my place headed to Reno for GBR-VII.  I think my laptop should probably be functional for that.