Incremental Update

It's fairly common knowledge at my workplace that I'm a shooter. From time to time I will get questions from coworkers about guns or shooting, and sometimes even about buying firearms. Last week a coworker expressed interest in going to the range. I'm happy to oblige any new shooter, so we're tentatively going to be heading out this weekend. The forecast calls for 104 degrees, so the plan is to head out early to avoid the heat of the day.



In other news, while Michael works on the custom rig I requested for the LCP, I figured that I really ought to get that pesky recall service thing out of the way. I would have done it sooner, but the LCP is my everywhere gun. If I'm going somewhere where I can't carry, I won't strap on the OWB pancake for the Hi-Power - that setup is nigh-impossible to unload discretely in a parking lot. But the LCP can drop in the pocket with an Uncle Mike's pocket holster (or soon-to-come OWB clipper rig) and get secured in the truck in a matter of a couple seconds. Having nothing to stand in for the LCP in this capacity, I've put off the recall service.



Well, along came someone at work selling a NAA Guardian .380 at a good price, so I jumped on it. I had the opportunity to try one out a few years back, and was quite surprised with the accuracy of such a small gun. The NAA was on my list of prospective pocket guns for a long time until I bought the LCP. What I didn't realize was that NAA produced a version to cater to California's ridiculous regulations, and installed an integral "lock" on those guns. My newly-purchased NAA happened to be one of these.



If you know me, then you're probably aware that I'm not a fan of unnecessary potential points of failure in firearms. Fortunately, this turned out to be a tack-on solution, and was easy enough to remove without affecting the functionality of any other systems. I appear to be the only one in the history of the internet who thought it would be a good idea to put up a guide for this procedure, as my search for such information returned nothing. Look for a guide on removing the Integral Locking System from the NAA Guardian here in the near future. I'll also be putting the pistol through reliability testing and should have a review soon with my general observations and photos.



I haven't done a food post in some time, so I'll be putting one together in the near future. A comment on my last post from Jim (flier389) over at Granddad's Corner got me over to his blog, which got me thinking about foods of years past, and those that remind me of my childhood. I thought it would be a fitting subject for an upcoming post.



Anyhow, there's a preview of things to come. See you then.

Hiatus, inturrupted.

I apologize for the dearth of posts for the past 2 months. After acquiring gainful employment with an awesome company, I've been acclimating to my new work environment and schedule. All of this job searching and orientation has left me with little time for creativity in the way of food, photography, or guns.

More specifically, on the gun front (the biggest focus of this blog), I've been on a tight budget due to prolonged unemployment, not wanting to put myself completely out of money prematurely. Imagine my irritation once I had money again to find that there is no range ammo to be purchased, unless you're shooting 7.62x39, .223, or a more obscure caliber. As I shoot mainly 9mm (and to a lesser extent .380) in my handgunning sessions, I'm out of business.

Wanting to get a range session in a couple of weeks ago, I searched my local big stores (Wal-Mart, Academy, Cabelas) without success. I finally broke down and went to the range with the 2 boxes of 9mm I had remaining. I couldn't bring myself to deplete my stock further, and grudgingly paid the $20 for a single box of Blazer Brass at the range. I rotated it into my stock and used a box of Monarch instead. I also tried some .22LR rounds from the one bulk box I was able to find, in a brand I've never tried and will be writing a review in the next several days.

As you may know from previous posts, 50 rounds is simply not enough to get back up to speed when I haven't put in range time in months. My range therapy didn't go so well that day. To add to my disappointments, my range has implemented a new rule that folks can no longer pick up spent brass. It seems that there were people abusing brass-pick-up policy and culling large amounts of brass they didn't shoot, so now no one is permitted to pick up spent brass. The only way to police your brass now is to put down a blanket/sheet or employ a brass-catcher of some sort. Neither are practical options when it comes to moving and shooting sessions, so I'm screwed out of my brass until I can figure out some other arrangement.

Things aren't all bad, though. I've been out of town for work, and visited a Bass Pro Shops for the first time. My first impression was that the place was exactly like Cabelas, down to the lanterns indicating a checkout lane is open. After walking around the store, I noticed a couple of key differences. First, there is a better selection of goods. As an example, when compared to the Cabelas in Buda, there's about quadruple the number of duck calls availble. Secondly, Bass Pro Shops is cheaper - and from what I can tell, this is pretty much across the board.

As hunting season is coming up, I've decided that it is time for me to purchase a proper bird shotgun. While the EBS will work, it's certainly not purposed for hunting - what with the lack of a choke and having to deal with that silly foot-long plug. So... I'm off to Bass Pro on my way back to Austin to buy a Stoeger Condor. I realize that my choice may disappoint some of you die-hard shotgunners. I honestly cannot understand why the common belief is that an Over/Under shotgun, one of the simplest designs possible, needs to command a price tag of over $1000. Hey, I can certainly understand and appreciate the quality of a finely-crafted firearm. What I can't understand is the reluctance of manufacturers to produce utilitarian-grade O/U shotguns. Were I a competition shotgunner or a prolific hunter, a $1000+ price tag would certainly be understandable. But I'm not. I shoot skeet a few times a year and go bird hunting only a bit more frequently than that.

Remington has actually put its name on a line of inexpensive shotguns and rifles (including an O/U) called Spartan, but it seems almost as if they're ashamed of it. They import them from a Russian manufacturer, and you won't find any detail or pricing info for the line on the Remington website; It took a Google search for me to even find them, as they're not listed in the normal product navigation menus. So... inexpensive O/U shotguns are currently made by a small niche of companies, Remington (who is afraid to really own the line), Yildiz (Turkish guns who seem to only exist at Academy), and Stoeger - which is owned by Benelli. All things taken into consideration, the Stoeger Condor appears to be the best choice for me.

Also in good news, I've got a range session with a coworker of my girlfriend. She's got an old Browning .22 Short that her father gave her when she was a child, and hasn't been shooting since those days. I'll be bringing a sampling of rifles, handguns, and shotguns for her to try as well. I'll have a range report to follow.

And with that, I'm off to go purchase my new Stoeger.

Blogroll updates and meh.

Sorry for the lack of posts. It's been a rough and busy few weeks, so I've been busy dealing with other issues. I don't have anything to post of substance quite yet, but I do have some long-awaited blogroll additions in the queue, so go check them out. I'll see what I can do about getting a real post up soon.

Politics, Guns, and Beer - a delightful lady blogger named Laurel from Idaho. Her blog is about politics, guns, and beer (as you might have guessed), as well as some family topics. Good reading.

Another Gun Blog - as you guessed, another gun blog. Mostly political/gun stuff with some new shooter range reports and other random commentary.

The Eclectic One - Another guns/politics blog, with some random entertaining posts sprinkled in for good measure.

The Anarchangel - There's too much to say about this blog really. Chris and Melody have been had a rough time in courts due to a vindictive ex bent on sapping them dry with legal costs. They've received some great support in their times of need from the gunblogging community, and are determined to pay their own way in true American entrepreneurial style rather than continue to rely on the generous charity of others. Bayou Renaissance man has some backstory rundown of their predicament with some links, if you're interested. If you're able, consider making a purchase of their cookbook and help support them in their fight.

The Arizona Rifleman - Enjoyable reading, with topics of guns, politics, life philosophy, and plenty of insight into the practical use of firearms by ordinary people in daily life. Plenty of good range reports with new shooters.

That's all for now. Go read the links!

Status update and blogroll additions.

I apologize for the lack of original posts as of late. I have been attending to the business of securing new employment, and simply haven't had time to do much here. The discussion in the preceding posts hasn't really progressed, simply because I haven't had time to pay attention to it. I may get back around to it eventually, but not right now. Too much to do. I have secured gainful employment once again, so once I normalize my routine, I'll get back to the serious business of writing new entries.

I've been collecting new blogs for a blogroll addition over the past couple of weeks, so I'm going to go ahead and post them here.

Confessions of a Gun Toting Seagull is the writings of a private charter pilot and fellow gunblogger conspirator, aepilotjim. I've been meaning to add him for a while, but the notion has always escaped me when I did blogroll addions in the past. Now that's remedied.

Brillianter.com has a lot of practical tips for self-defense and use of force. Good reading when you're thinking of "what if" scenarios.

Sipsey Street Irregulars - lots of good political commentary, gun-related and otherwise.

Shangrila Towers - a geeky fellow whose writings are interspersed between technical gadgetry, movies, music, and guns. Sitemeter informed me of my addition to his blogroll, and I was flattered at his description of my blog: "He posts less frequently than I do, but the posts are much longer and more detailed - nice for grabbing a mug of coffee and pondering.". Welcome to the blogroll, Mulliga.

ricketyclick is a good mix of political and gun-related content and interesting oddball entertainment pieces. Whee!

Ballistic Deanimation - an almost exclusively gun-related blog, with the occasional saddening or funny story regarding the state of society. Appears to have BOFH tendencies, which makes my SysAdmin self giggle.

Where I've Been and Some Commentary

Via several folks on my blogroll, I have this nifty "where I've been" map generator.

First: States in the U.S.:


visited 34 states (68%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or jurisdische veraling duits?

And secondlly, Where I've been in the world:


visited 6 states (2.66%)
Create your own visited map of The World or Best time to visit Nakano

... Not nearly as extensive as my travels in the U.S., with the Asian countries from my early years growing up as an Air Force brat. Canada, however, was done via an extended road trip on a shoestring budget during my early 20s. Lots of great experiences during that trip, and much of the western US states from the first map were covered during that trip.

Some places I'd like to go:

Germany - The homeland of my ancestors. I can trace my family back to the 1790's in the Oldenburg area - the generation that left the Old Country. It appears that most folks with my family name in Germany still reside in that general vicinity. With some genealogy work, I'm hoping to find some very distant relatives and meet them. Fortunately, my last name is relatively rare. Every person I've encountered with it in the U.S. can trace their roots back to the same family in the midwest that I come from. Hopefully, the same is true in Germany. Acquiring a working knowledge of German is one of the things I want to do before this trip.

Switzerland - Renowned for its rifle shooting and marksmanship among the common population. Yes, I know they have skiing and good food, but the shooting is what draws me. My wish is to visit a hundreds-of-years-old rifle range, and do some target practice with a K31 (the first rifle I ever fired).

Thailand - This one is for the food, beautiful landscape, and culture. I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I'm a Capsaicin nut. Spicy food is the cat's meow for me. Thai Chiles are among my favorite peppers - lots of heat and good flavor. Thailand has beautiful mountains, monestaries, and people. I have no desire to visit the tourist trap areas along the coast. When I travel, I seek a route where I will encounter people as they really are, not a manufactured image for me to consume. A bicycle tour is a possibility here.

Belize - At one point long ago, I made preliminary plans for a road trip to Belize via Mexico. Now, such a plan would be foolish, to say the least. Mexico has become a very dangerous place to be a foreigner these days, especially away from resort towns. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of visiting Belize, but I fear there's no place to go anymore where I wouldn't get the tourist treatment. Still, it remains on the list, in case an opportunity falls in my lap some day.

Iceland - Its stark beauty and wilderness have been a draw to me for a long time. The prospect of backpacking through that kind of country has an entrancing quality about it.

Alaska - Yes, it's on my map of places I've been. My time there was limited to passing through as a toddler on the way stateside from Asia. There is a stamp on my old passport to prove it, but I have no memory of it. Alaska draws me for a variety of reasons. It is perhaps the only place that surpasses Texas in the qualities I value for living. Rugged self-reliance, a frontier spirit, and respect for the liberties and rights of men. The gun laws (or lack of) are icing on the cake. As I have alluded to in previous posts, I have made preliminary plans for a backpacking trip through the Alaskan wilderness. Specifically, it's my desire to travel across a large portion of the state, backpacking through Gates of The Arctic National Park and rafting the entire length of the Noatak River within the Noatak National Preserve. The Alaskan wilderness has the same kind of draw for me as Iceland. Being in a place where very few bother to venture is a desire that is simply part of my being. Visiting a remote corner of the world where people simply do not go to on a whim has some sort of profound value for me which I cannot explain - and the state is full of those kinds of places. Alaska is also a place I would be proud to call home.

Antarctica - Again, the remote, seldom-traveled road holds its appeal for me here. At one point in my life, I considered applying to work at McMurdo station in a technical capacity. The place is desolate and beautiful. Few people ever make the journey to Antarctica. Other life priorities prevented me from sending in the applications and making a serious run at it, so Antarctica will probably never be on my "Where I've Been" list. I'd still like to go if the opportunity ever presented itself.

And now for something completely different.

Due to a the daylight savings change, a change in job status, and various other variables, I find myself up late at a coffee shop, browsing the internets and rummaging though thought tangents. Something crossed my mind from last week, so I figured I'd post it. It is not related to guns, food, or photography (unless you consider that a movie is a set of moving photographs).

Anyhoo, my girlfriend and I were flipping channels on the idiot box the other day, and came across National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation. This particular scene had our usual characters arguing over what to do in a hotel courtyard, with the daughter all dressed up to go out on town separate from the family. I had never seen the movie and was unfamiliar with it. Judging from the clothing, I pegged it as something quite recent. I was wrong. Apparently the film was released in 1997 - twelve years ago! Did the National Lampoon folks have some eerie insight into future fasion? Almost.

Most of my estimation was derived from the clothing of the daughter character. She was wearing clothing typical of what you would see worn in modern times by famous actresses and pseudo-celebrities like Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, and the like. My girlfriend pointed out that the clothing in the movie was meant to portray, shall we say, someone of questionable morals. A slut on the town, in other words. I found myself wrapping my mind around the notion that 1997 "slut" garb is acceptable everyday fashion for 2009.

Quite a ways we've journied in a little over a decade. It makes me wonder what fashion will bring us in 2021.

(I tried and tried to find an image on the internets of this scene, but was unable to locate one.)

EDIT: I just realized I got on this train of thought while reading phlegmfatale's post about Africans and donated clothes. Heh.

Just checking in...

For the handful of people who have been kind enough to follow my blog, I apologize for the lack of posts. Work has been a bit crazy, and then I was stricken with the cold for a good 5 days. I have a few ideas for posts in the works, so I'll try and get something up soon.

In the meantime...

For your viewing pleasure I have a photo of my FM Hi-Power, taken in the very professional environment of my kitchen counter top - the closest thing I have to a seamless background at the moment. Oh, how I miss having a studio to work in.

(click to enlarge)