Month: August 2009

Didn’t happen… again

/ hsoi / 16 Comments

My second attempt at pistol competition was a bust. The Aggies say if you do something 3 times it becomes tradition… so I hope my next effort is successful. 🙂

While most of the Austin area didn’t get rain yesterday, apparently parts of it did. One of those parts was the Austin Rifle Club. Got there this morning and the match was cancelled. They got dumped on with rain and the new action bays were muddy. Some were also full of standing water. The bays were only recently completed and I’m going to guess this was the first time they were rained upon. So while most of the drainage was good, it wasn’t perfect and this was the first time they got to see that. A lot of ARC members were standing around talking about that and how they’d have to fix the bays to remedy it. So… while perhaps the match didn’t happen, hopefully the rain meant good things for the future.

Before I left I dropped an email to foo.c to see if he wanted to join. He called me back, I missed it (don’t know how…. but the iPhone’s vibrate apparently doesn’t vibrate enough, and for whatever reason I didn’t hear the ring either). Called him from the muddy parking lot and asked if he just wanted to go to the regular bays at ARC to shoot. I swung by his house, picked him up, we came back to ARC and shot for a while.

I got to try out his new Rock Island Armory 1911. It’s not as sweet at his Wilson, but pretty darn close. Certainly makes you wonder if all the money in something like a Wilson is really worth it. Wilson had a slightly better trigger, the RIA wasn’t too bad. He also had this Sig P6 which … gah… if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all, so I’ll just stop. 🙂  Fun little beater gun, but wow, that DA/SA action is ugly and the DA pull is junkyard dog ugly.

I shot my Buck Mark a bunch. Gosh that gun is fun to shoot.

Then got some trigger time with my XD-9. The fiber popped out of the front sight. Put it back in but it popped out again and I couldn’t find it. That sucks. I’ll contact Dawson Precision in the morning. I was shooting OK. It’s evident I haven’t been to the range in a while. Dry fire all you want, in fact you should dry fire a lot. But in the end, you gotta get to the range some because you need that recoil to really make things go. Darn this ammo shortage situation… a big reason why I haven’t been to the range and only dry firing. 😦  Still, shot OK.

So, while today wasn’t the day I wanted, it was the day I needed. Happy to have gotten the trigger time. Good to hang out with a friend. I’ll try competition again some other time.

Finally going to try it

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

I’ve mentioned I’ve wanted to try competition shooting. I figured a good place to start was Steel Challenge type of competition. One time I was ready to go, but it didn’t happen. Now Austin Lone Star Practical Pistol Club has moved to the Austin Rifle Club because of their newly built action shooting bays.

This is the fourth Sunday of the month, which means a steel match.

I’m going to try it.

I’m going to shoot my .22 Buck Mark with iron sights (total stock factory gun). It’s the cheapest thing to shoot and I’ve got far more .22 LR ammo than anything else.

I’m excited at trying out competition for the first time. I’m a little nervous because I have no idea what to expect, and ensuring I have all the right equipment for how they like to do things. But I’m looking forward to giving this a try.

My goal? Just to shoot and have fun, get familiar with the club and people and how everything works. But if Caleb’s Shooting Sports Jargonizer is correct, that really means I want to win. 😉  Actually to win or not doesn’t matter (tho I’d love it). The real desire is to not come in last place, especially because of procedural errors, rules infractions (especially safety issues), or disqualifications. 🙂

I’ll be back….

Sunday Metal – Ugly Kid Joe

/ hsoi

Their name was a play on another band’s name, Pretty Boy Floyd. Ugly Kid Joe was also quite the opposite to PBF in every other way. While most people knew Ugly Kid Joe for songs such as “Everything About You” and their cover of Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s In The Cradle”, Ugly Kid Joe had rather a good metal sound. Tracks such as “Goddamn Devil”, “So Damn Cool“, “Don’t Go”, “Jesus Rode A Harley”, much of their later albums (especially “Menace To Sobriety”), quite heavy with just a hint of funky.

On the album recording of “Goddamn Devil”, Rob Halford provides guest vocals… hearing The Metal God screaching “I’m the Goddamn Devil!” is just awesome. 🙂

The Bill of Rights – Amendment 1

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Source: The National Archives and Records Administration, “The Charters of Freedom” exhibit.

They got off lucky

/ hsoi

ToddG tells a story of range safety. Frankly, those guys got off easy.

Every time I take my kids to the gun range we go over the safety rules. I also tell my kids that if they see anyone doing something unsafe on the range that they need to speak up. Just because they’re a kid and the offender is an adult, that doesn’t matter. This is a matter of safety, and if a kid sees an adult being unsafe the kid has the right, duty, responsibility, and obligation to speak up and correct them. I also follow it up telling my kids to stand firm in their application of safety rules, and if the person they correct has a problem with a kid telling them what to do, to redirect the person to me or the Range Safety Officer.

Like ToddG said: range safety is everyone’s responsibility.

Man with a gun

/ hsoi

Many gun bloggers like to post “man/woman with a gun” posts from time to time. The blogger is someone with a concealed handgun license, and the point of the posting is how they go about their daily lives — with a gun. That means they are legally carrying their gun and might go to the grocery store, thus they’ll post about a “man with a gun at the grocery store.” Or they might go to the park and post about a “man with a gun in the park.” Or maybe they had to take their kid to a birthday party and it’s “man with a gun around young children at a birthday party.” You get the idea.

As I’d read this posts I found them annoying. I’m not exactly sure why. But the most I thought about it, the more I realized that there’s a benefit in telling such a thing.

It demonstrates there are lots of people out there, normal, law-abiding people out there. These people just so happen to carry a gun, for whatever reason they choose. And nothing happens.

There’s no blood on the streets.

No one died or got hurt.

No children were harmed.

No gun spontaneously lept to life and started shooting.

And it just happened all around you. You were probably blissfully ignorant of it the whole time. It was no big deal. There was nothing to be afraid of, and there’s still nothing to be afraid of even now that you’re aware that there are folks carrying guns around you. The only thing that changed was your knowledge of the situation; it’s no more dangerous now than it was before.

Life just goes on.

Some might say if nothing happened, then that demonstrates you didn’t need a gun in the first place; things were obviously safe enough. No, not quite. The point is to say that the mere fact a man with a gun was out and about doesn’t mean bad things will happen. That just because you might be in proximity to someone with a gun, doesn’t mean you’ll die. That because someone chooses to carry a gun doesn’t mean they’re a bloodthirsty killer. But it also does mean that there are at least some people out there that understand when situations arise in life, you can handle situations better when you’re prepared for them. Furthermore, that many times the right tool make it a lot easier to solve a problem. It’s easier to hang a picture if you’ve got a hammer and a nail.

So know there are folks carrying guns all around you. The ones legally doing so? You don’t have to worry about them. The overwhelming odds are they’re a good person. Life remains good and peaceful, with the knowledge there’s sheepdogs out there.

Updated: Joe Huffman provides a quote that ties in nicely.

The Bill of Rights – Preamble

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Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Source: The National Archives and Records Administration, “The Charters of Freedom” exhibit.

I guess I was lucky

/ hsoi

Back from our shopping day. I guess the gods were smiling upon us.

First stop was JC Penny’s. They’ve come a long ways and overhauled their image and merchandise. We actually managed to knock out most of our shopping there, racking up a hefty bill. When we got to the car I took a moment to look at the receipt to see how much we didn’t spend (note: not “save” because this isn’t saving, it’s just not spending as much) and I noted that we were charged tax! I knew we’d have tax on a few little things, but I checked the math and we were charged tax on everything! That’s not right. I went back in and pointed it out. Seems they had some problems with a bunch of registers charging tax. They thought the register I checked out on was working, but apparently not. In comes the manager. The only way to fix it was to totally void the transaction and start over. So, on the faulty register she voided it all out, then we had to haul all our stuff to a register in the back of the store at the exchange/returns counter and have everything rung up all over again. Yeah, a pain… but, no big deal.

You see, here we go again with the InSights ABC’s: Always Be Cool. Smile on my face, taking it easy, no big deal. And it really wasn’t a big deal. Sure it was a bit of an inconvenience, but the manager kept apologizing and I just looked at her and said “Hey, shit happens… no big deal.” and smiled and relaxed. I could have pitched a fit, but what good would that have done? Frankly, I was in a great mood, I had no desire to complain, so ABC was just natural. Just be cool. And what did I get for being cool? Well you see, there was a coupon in their sales flyer: spend $50 and get $10 off, or spend $75 and get $15 off. That should apply to the whole transaction. Well, for whatever reason (I can only assume good customer service, and because I was so understanding and cool about the problem), the manager opted to ring up the whole of my purchase in $75 increments and give me the discount each time. 🙂 Score! That’s not a normal thing and not how things are to be done, plus it’s a lot of little transactions, but hey… Always Be Cool. It pays off.

In the end, I we didn’t spend about $120 due to the lack of sales tax and then the nice manager. That was well worth it… both shopping today and well, being cool. 🙂

Went to a couple more stores.

Let’s just say Burlington Coat Factory aims for a different demographic. The sort of clothing they sell… nothing really there for my kids in terms of style.

Old Navy still has a store. I thought they were closing up and Levi’s was eliminating them for Gap stores or some such. But we went there and were able to round a few things out.

In terms of how much we truly didn’t spend, that’s hard to gauge. The original JCP receipt said we saved a few hundred bucks. My guess is that’s totalling the actual sticker prices vs. the price we paid. There was a lot of sales, 30% off, buy one get one free, buy one get one 50% off, clearance discounts (about 75% off original price). So yeah, I feel we did OK on things. But if I walked into the store during an off day, I’m not sure they’d still be selling any of that stuff for sticker price. So how much we really didn’t spend I don’t know, but the sales are aggressive this weekend and compared to what else I’ve seen I think we fared OK. Frankly in total we spent a little less than we normally do for kid clothes shopping, but I know we came home with more clothes for them and even Wife and I picked up a few things for ourselves. Plus then the flat out non-spending on the sales tax, the bonus discounts and such…all in all I think in the end we did alright.

And to boot? Had to run a little errand when I got home. Walking back past the grocery store I poked my head into the entrance just to try to buy a Coke from the vending machine. The Coke guy was filling up the machine and I asked if I could get one while he was filling it. He handed me a bottle. I asked how much I owed, he said “nothing… it’s cool.” Really? Yup. Wow… that was nice.

Always Be Cool.

Today was a good day. 🙂

Seeking facts

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Linoge is seeking information. Click here to find out on what, and if you can contribute please do.

I am curious about this myself. I’m still figuring out where I stand on the open carry issue. There are political aspects, social aspects, tactical aspects, practical aspects. I see pros and cons of each, but still undecided on what to do as a whole. Open carry of handguns is illegal in Texas, so presently the issue doesn’t directly impact me, but maybe in the 2011 legislative session it will come up (it was possible for 2009 but didn’t happen). The questions Lingoe brings up are good ones, and answers would certainly play a part in my personal decision.

On a semi-related note, I figure if it did happen in 2011, it’d be appropriate to buy an STI Eagle 5.0 to celebrate. 😉