Paint Drying

There's the back surround, the back-wall, sides and ceiling. My bike looks like a medieval horse with some old drapery covering it. Once this is dry and cured the wall cabinets and bench can go in. Then I can finish painting the rest without all the crap in the way. Gotta get some 2-1/2" decking screws for the wall-system thingies, and bring-down the laser-level which is actually kind of a bitch-goddess who I may resist.
The pinkie finger is turning into a nice scab, deep because of the blood-blister effect, and since I don't want to see it turn green I have to keep prodding it to get clear fluid out. Heh. Simple toys of childhood remain.

Feeding the Beast

A diet of mud is what it seems to want, but the back wall and ceiling is about ready to prime and paint - light gray. And the soffit-thingy (below) just needs some sanding.

My shoulders (mainly the right) is/are killing me from all this "upstairs" work.
Got a lot done over the weekend however, more junk to Goodwill off the floor and out the door!

Update: Damage Pictures just-in: With any Physical project there is a price to pay, and the Thirsty Old Cement Gods must be appeased by a blood sacrifice for chipping away at small foundation irregularities with a Civil-War era chisel. Above the drumming and chanting and Native calls, a great scream was heard for miles around. Doing fine now but it slowed me a bit on Friday and temporarily weakened my resolve.

The Balcony vs. The Garage

The Balcony wins with a new display from the Bird of Paradise. The Garage's entry, a bunch of mud and sanding failed the Judges scoring a 2-3-2-2, with a 7 thrown in by the East German Judge...

The Airtight Garage

...is not, and not watertight either:

Nevertheless I feel like Major Grubert overseeing construction inside the hollow asteroid, wondering what Jerry Cornelius is up to...

Stripping

I hear the light pitter-pat of rain and the morning sky is gray, today will be good for mud and tape.

I finished getting all the shelving down yesterday afternoon, leaving many holes and dents.
Saturday we went shopping and found a One-Day sale on some "Gladiator" storage stuff at Sears, and with permission I bought with frenzy like a shark.
We have always tried to make-do and economize because we're not affluent and money has always been tight - but now we thought to put a little of the money from an intended Kitchen re-model to this purpose. We're gonna be stylin'! Some of the boxes are still on-order, and I have to make decisions about ordering others.
Yesterday in full AR-mode (and not the rifle) I made an Excel spreadsheet of costs and estimates - now we have a Project Budget. Since the space is only eleven-feet wide by nineteen feet long I'm limited and can't fill it up with too much - that's a natural restriction.

Sunday we had sorted through the crap and developed a Pile-System: One pile to Goodwill, another to the Dumpster, an third to keep and decide later. We had to clear a path to the Craftsman bench on the back-wall that had been my center of activity and focus - I was giving it to a buddy, along with a French bistro table we thought his his wife would enjoy. Sure take it!

A load went to Goodwill - anything I had not touched in over three-years had to be re-evaluated. Some of the big travel bins swallowed-up dirtbike gear and camping equipment - I have accumulated way too much crap and it makes me stumble where I go.
There's still a bunch of things poking out of the ceiling and patching to be done. Wires need to be cleaned up and wiring-holes covered with a box. New lighting figured-out. No more extension-cords draped across the ceiling through eye-hooks, I'm gonna run some hard conduit up there - it was never even done right in the first place and I'll bring it up to spec.

Outside the rain taps in the bottom of the downspout. This year's Buy-A-Gun day might turn out to be Buy-A-Garage Day...

A Disturbance in the Force

Early in the morning around 7:30 AM I was taking the garbage down and accompanying my wife to the car as she left for work. Over the whining-grinding sound of the garage-door opener in action came a deeper rumble-sliding thumping sound... Wahaa??

Damn!! The shelving I installed a few years back has given-way. I don't think it was an earthquake. The worst was the two-stroke exhaust that landed square on her car-hood and left some little dents. Her car is a fine (but oldish) Europeener car, unlike my truck that can take a scratch and dent or two (and has). I didn't realize how much stupid crap I had stacked up there in my little garage. Camping gear mostly, and I haven't been camping in ages. There's even more crap threatening on the other side.

UPDATE INSERT: Even though well-screwed into the wallboard and anchored, they just un-zipped down the length. It could have been the door-opener that starts with a twisting kick of torque, gave it just enough of impetus to let go.

Now I have a garage project. Fortunately the case of Coleman propane (our earthquake backup-supply) was already on the ground or the car-dents would have been major.

So I go back upstairs to the reloading bench to continue my load-work from yesterday. I set about calibrating the digital scale and powder dispenser. The scale calibrates easily.

From the tall powder dispenser comes an unusual sound. A grinding graunchy raspy noise. Powder is dropped easily with a smooth whine in the first stage, but in trickle mode the machine emits a wretched gear-jumped noise like a bad chain-wheel. It finally measures-out but something is clearly not right with the device. I call and the phone rings and rings without answer. I call again with the same result. Third time's a charm, if a recorded message is what charms you. They close at 12:30 on Fridays in Texas, and now it's past 12:30 - something not noted on their website.

Fate has changed my priorities for this weekend. Now I'll really have to set the Garage straight and outfit it properly.

Ex-squeeze me I'm busy here

"Slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch..."

Pressing home CCI-200 primers by hand in fresh Nosler 30-06 brass, I am preparing for this weekend's Match. I will top it off with a Sierra 155-grain HPBT called the Palma Match over 46-grains of H-4895 to compare and contrast with the performance of the Hornady 150-grain FMJBT's, and see how well they glides downstream towards the targets. The weather forecast is for more of the same so bring sun-screen.

Hegemonic EcoLeftists

In his "Death To Heretics" post Hegemonic Pundit warns of the nature of pseudo-scientific "consensus" just as villagers with pitchforks and torches rally at the castle walls of Civilization.

Religious fervor, gross error, and political zealotry all add up to one thing: danger. For believers, global warming is one of those issues which transcends scrutiny. All opposition is to be swept away, shouted down, shunned, demonized, and suppressed. Scientists who disagree with 'the consensus' might as well look for another job.

Like most cargo-cults, Globular Warmingists has as it's ritual the ornamentation, the look of something but without that thing's complex internal operation and function. It is Science Quack with the feathers and the call, but the duck doesn't walk or fly or do duck things.
Leftism is consensus driven, and the Left has proven time and again with History repeating, that they will kill whomever disagrees until a consensus is reached. From Stalin to Mao and from Che Guevara to Pol-Pot, it is a demand of the Collective, an imperative that must be obeyed - and it's hardly how Science operates.
To advance The Cause in the past the Left typically took to robbing banks where the stupid, unenlightened, "Not-Reality-Based" Petty Bourgeoisie store their ill-gotten Gaia-raping hordes of money. But in this modern age of leveraged buy-outs and sophisticated financial instruments and investment opportunities, to advance the pseudo-Scientific Religion they have created another funding method.
Much like the cargo-cult Scientism that drapes the shroud of Globulistical Warmillusion, the clever but economically ignorant True Green-Believers have created ecoCargonomics. It's a kind of freelance, pyramidical, undocumented, laissez-faire off-shoot of accounting.
Following religious doctrine and now available for purchase are Carbon-Offset Eco-Credits. Greendulgent Carbon Offsets are new financial instruments, purchasable through Generation Investment Management, a purveyor of fine-feelings and smug assurances for the Eco-Faithful who must not be overly inconvenienced in their Eco-Buying Power.
This is an instrument of Faith as well as (pseudo)Science and (pseudo)Economics - it is an investment in the Future. Do it for the Children.
The Leadership leads the flock to prayer and to shearing - the insturment is a pair of scissors. Al Gore not only uses 20 time more power than the average American household at his 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, to offset his gargantuan carbon footprint he also buys his massive offsets from Generation Investment Management. Conveniently and as the popular financial strategy goes, "Pay Yourself First," to prove his Faith he is not only a consumer of this specially Eco-tailored line of investment instruments, he is also the Chairman of Generation Investment Management. It is, as Al Gore himself says, "a remarkable area of innovation"... In the old days people made graven images of Baal and Mammon, maybe those are the Wall Street symbols of bull and bear today. Whatever the case, Mammon (and Caesar) are still to be served.
In closing Hegemonic Pundit says,

Offending the gods is not a new concept either. This is the basic argument of global warming advocates. We have offended the gods and they now demand a sacrifice.

Or as the freelance-Socialist mugger on the street might also say, "Your economy or your life."

Juniors Program

We had a really big turnout Saturday morning with the kids, with enough to run two full relays - and one Boy-Scout Troop even called and canceled! It was a mixed group of ages and sexes. One little girl in the 2nd Relay had done it before and helped spot targets for the group on the line.

If they hadn't it would have been bedlam, as it was we did the safety intro, staged them to their targets, ran it off - and were done by 12:30. The Second Relay of kids was very patient, but I'm sure it was hard on the kids to have to sit and wait. It's been a while since I was Eleven or even Eight, but I remember often being told to wait quietly for my turn, and kicking my feet in the dust with anticipation and impatience.
The parents in attendance were very supportive, but some were non-shooters and didn't really know what to tell their youngsters in assistance - but the kids shot well as always and with their young eyes were putting .22 holes in those tiny targets.

Afterwards when most everybody was gone some Club members lingered to practice and I got out the Carbine to sight it in on the 200-yard gongs. With the assistance of another shooter I found my impromptu settings way off. First I had to wind-down the elevation quite a bit, and then adjusted the windage.

Here's the Aimpoint 9000SC with the 4MOA dot and the windage turret off.

Once that was done I was consistently able to pull the trigger and bang the gong on either side of the targets.
Having the carbine set-up I turned attention to the '43 Colt and loaded a couple magazines. After a few unsupported shots I went to the sandbags and rested, and with a second magazine managed to start dropping in on the gong also, so my worries about its windage was unfounded!

Woo-hoo! An excellent Saturday! Drove home and met my wife who had just returned from a "Spa-Day" with one of her longtime un-visited best-buddies. We were both famished and went out for Mexican food at a great little nearby restaurant, Fiesta Del Mar Too and enjoyed a Margarita made with Partida Añjeo (since they were out of the Espolon).


UPDATE: Oh yeh, Uh - don't be too jealous about the Carbine, the trigger is so gritty it's like having a four-stage break! I'm getting a muscle in my index finger from just pulling on it. I need to do something about it but I'm not sure what, and what I think might work I haven't yet tried... As for the Tequila, life's too short for anything but the real-deal blue-agave - stay away from the nasty carmel-colored flavored grain-alcohol crapola like Cuervo Gold! Blecch-yaaarg!

DC Majority Opinion says: Individual Liberty not Collectivist Bolshevism

From the Instapoodle we are served notice of Howard Bashman's coverage at How Appealing, that the majority opinion of a,   "Divided three-judge D.C. Circuit panel holds that the District of Columbia's gun control laws violate individuals' Second Amendment rights" and that,   "[T]he phrase 'the right of the people,' when read intratextually and in light of Supreme Court precedent, leads us to conclude that the right in question is individual."

...The Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad).

End of story, it's not a collectivist circle-jerk narrative about the Government allowing itself to arm itself - you'd have to be a Leftwing idiot familiar in circular logic to cogitate that sort of self-supporting nonsense.
Read more at the above links. It's bitchin' kewl.
As a bonus step-and-turn in the Happy-Dance, Chris gives us further elucidation in the comments at SayUncle with this:

... just as the First Amendment free speech clause covers modern communication devices unknown to the founding generation, e.g., radio and television, and the Fourth Amendment protects telephonic conversation from a “search,” the Second Amendment protects the possession of the modern-day equivalents of the colonial pistol.

UPDATE: Chris has a kewl aquarium and guns, I'm gonna add him to my blogroll.

Mitt Romnic meet Ruduvan Giulizumbo - the People's Politburo of Conserbo-Toatia

Xavier alerts us to the truth about Romney.
"I support an assault weapon ban and that's why I signed a bill of that nature..."

This puts him on my PAWB list: Pandering Assault Weapon Banners.
As far as I can tell Romney isn't any more a conservative than Rudy Giulizumbo. Both are slick, Big-City/East Coast elitists who only look conservative from the hazy bongwater perspective of the even more Leftoid East Coast Big City population of Anarcho-Socialists and Green Welfare-staters.
Mitt and Rudy are both ready to shred the 2nd Amendment if it gets them a crossover vote.
Fuggheddaboudit.
See, I learned something from the Zumbotrocity. I learned who's who.

UPDATE: "It would depend on what it looks like" - HELLO-HELLO?!? That's precisely what's freaking WRONG with EVERY aspect of it and of your judgment - it's an entirely looks-based and favoritism oriented. Thank-you Mr. Prom King.

Where's my manners?

I've bookmarked and been reading Rivrdog's blog for a while, I forget since-when so it's been a few brain-cells anyhow. I enjoy his combination of advanced History-reading and 2nd Amendment issues-posting, so the addition to my blogroll is latecoming and my apolgies. Thanks and keep it up.

Practicing a Perishable Skill

After more than two months out-of-it for various reasons including illness, death, more illness, and nasty-bad weather, I finally got back out to a Club Practice-Match.

It was a fine and clear morning and I wound up putting my gear and spotting-scope on position 9 and pointing my digital camera downrange through the scope. 200-yards distant in the center of the range was my fuzzy little target-figment. I had my handloads all ready to go, and go they went!
Improvements were seen in Offhand and The Rapid stages where previously I had sprayed shots in generosity and dropped many points. Today I was getting groups - not great and tight ones but groups nonetheless and a 2nd personal-best Offhand, 81 with an X.

rapid prone
But as the day progressed and fatigue wore on I slumped - not sure of the exact scores, but something stupid like a 351-2x I think. Still the loads seem to show an improverment.

Kalashnikitty At Cost Plus

Overheard in the parking lot returning to the truck, two small children in a Jetta with the windows rolled-down:
Little girl's voice, "Look-look, it's a Kitty!"

Slightly older little-boy's voice, "Look-look! Kitty has a rifle!"
Much amused tittering and giggling and turning around in the rear seat to see Kalashnikitty.
Mom didn't even turn her head away from the magazine she was reading.

All Your South Park Are Belong to Us

Via JimmyB and a well-versed commentor at his site, The Educated Shoprat, we found our way to my South Park character.
Since we don't get cable I havn't actually seen a whole lot of episodes of the show, but what I've seen has been very enjoyable.
Moi

Had to get the Carbine in there in post-production.

UPDATE: Moi-Kitty

Go Carbon! Go Carbon!

I'm a carbon-based lifeform and proud of it - I don't hate myself anyhow. According to The Economist, the Neo-medieval practice of buying Eco-Papal Greendulgences - commonly referred to by The Goracle and other tree-hugging Greenweenies and EcoTaliban as "Carbon Offsets" - it is teh boomerang:

If you are salving your conscience by buying carbon offsets, which allows you to cheerfully emit 20 times more than the average person, then even a conservatively estimated rebound effect means that carbon offsets are increasing the amount of emissions.

Har-har-har - Go carbon! Go carbon!