Garand Match

Dammit, Sunday is the club John C. Garand Team Match and Barbecue and I havn't been practicing at all. First we were away for two weeks, and then we were all-about painting, so now I'll just have to wing-it. At least I don't have to load any ammo on the fritzing PACT dispenser - the rules state that only club issued M2 Ball ammunition is allowed.
And Saturday is a Practice day - except that it is also a Garage Sale at my parent's house and we have stuff to sell, the too-heavy scuba-fins, the too-large dining-room table,
the too-purple Ladies Vanson motorcycle jacket my wife wore for a week in the Alps, and the Bokhara rug...So I have to be there.
It's gonna be busy.
Oh, here's a picture of the big Ulua we saw at Molokini Crater:

The eel at Honolua Bay:

and the small turtle at Napili Point:

Overstimulation & Optical-Illusion

To avoid the constant bludgeoning of my readership with an onslaught of adventure and excitement, I introduce my next project. This wall needs some paint. Also my powder dispenser crapped-out and I have to call PACT about it so there's no shiny-brass reloading.
UPDATE: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Well, just beige-er anyhow.


With twelve-foot ceilings, 8-foot sliding glass doors, and high clerestory windows we get a lot of light, so we decided to tone it down a shade - except that with all the light the paint is always five different colors anyhow.




It's a miracle my eyes can still focus.

"So loud I couldn't hear myself think"

That's what I remember the most about what my dad said regarding a flight he 'hitched back from Annapolis to home in San Jose, during a furlough sometime around 1945. He left the plane somewhere in the Midwest and took a troop-train the rest of the way.

The Collings Foundation planes are back this week and have been buzzing around, taunting me with their siren-song, and I finally succumbed to temptation. Last year I was short on money but this year my wife convinced me to go ahead anyhow. We chose the hot-rod B-25 Mitchell. My wife said, "My God, this thing is a jalopy!" It's small for a bomber, but very strong and fast.
It had a crew of six, Pilot and Co-Pilot, navigator/bombardier, turret gunner/engineer, radio operator/waist gunner, and the tail gunner.

The big Curtis-Wright 18-cylinder radials motors blasted and popped with explosions at startup until they settled into a rythmic roaring-rumble. The exhaust-headers vent right next to the cabin and there is no sound insulation - the whole thing shakes like a mother too. A deadly serious hot-rod jalopy. After a fairly short trip down the runway we were airborn.

With hearing protection like we use at the Shooting Range it was still very loud, but my wife thought it was fun just the same - we sat in the waist by the gun-windows alone, two other guys who were there first got in front with the pilot. I didn't mind.

The view wasn't quite as dramatic as from the front but the flight was spine-tinglingly exhilarating and the view from the tail-gunner station was great.


After circling the field and flying north past San Mateo we turned again to the south and followed Skyline ridge back. We then came roaring in over the big rock quarry up by Steven's Creek Dam - it was like being on a bomb-run!! Yeh, it's amazing what you can see from 1,000 feet, really...!

We headed down the valley and back to Moffet Field.

Too soon the ride was over.
Damn that was a gas, what a rush! I hear them going by again...


UPDATE: Dad says, "The old Kaiser Magnesium plant was started in the '40s and had a number of fires/explosions as they were starting up the plant and learning to deal with magnesium and their neighbors -- daily news and such for the papers. I do not remember ever seeing their operation as it was WWII "secure."
Today it's still secure in that you wouldn't know half the mountain on the far side was so carved-away - it's out of sight from any neighboring vantage-point. All you can see is the big octagonal hopper-thing.

Today's (Tuesday) is the last day here...and I hear them...but here's the schedule where they were before , and here's where they're going next - go find them close to you.


OOPS! My bad, the The Wright R-2600 Cyclone had a 14 cylinder supercharged double-stack rotary engine -- with pistons the size of dessert-plates, 6-1/4" or so in diameter, making 1,850-HP and with a top-speed of 275MPH.

Surfin' Safari

On the world's smallest wave, in water little more than waist-deep, it's still easy to wobble-off and wipeout.

I did manage to stand up and ride a couple into shore with a push from the instructor and paddling like crazy, including the very first wave. Performance deteriorated after the first wave as I over-compensated six ways to Sunday.
My wife rode several all the way into shore.
It's a helluva lot more work than I anticipated - a sport not just an activity, and I have a newfound major respect for the guys and gals who do it. With the only throttle-mechanism being your paddling arms, and with the board being in the way since you're lying on it with your neck cranked up and looking off into the wet and salty distance, paddling occurs with the outer arms and elbows using a hitherto unknown and unused set of muscles that God probably did not invent but the Devil did.
Towards the end of my exhaustion I got set upon a wave that directed me to the stone breakwater, which me being unstable and unable to avoid, I attempted to bank-off like a shooting a berm - a proper dirt-riding technique that would work if you had a throttle and another motivating source and some tires - and dirt. In water that equals mud - my arms were up in the air, not down paddling in the water. I managed to carom off a few-three slippery sub-surface rocks and headed (leaned) away from the pier before belly-flopping off into the clear water away from the stones. Got a good earful from the instructor and lost the fin. Watercrashr.
Afterwards came lesson #2 about surfing: Later that evening over some beers I was still totally stoked and amped by the rushing endorphins, and eager to take another lesson until I awoke with arms like cement pleading for ibuprofen - the makers of Advil must burn huge offerings to the Surf Gods.
Snorkeling on the other hand is weightless and effortless by comparison, and the fish and turtles who are not curious appear only slightly annoyed at your presence. With masks that have RX diopters we can actually see all the marine life, instead of the fuzzy blotches which inhabit the world when my glasses are removed. They are totally recommended for those of us who are near-sighted and reveal a world of activity that you maybe didn't want to actually know about.

It was a great sixteen days, more pictures when they get developed to CD.