Mike Campbell Memorial M1 Carbine Match

Saturday morning dawned cooler than the heat we'd been having all week, and I headed down for the 4th Annual Mike Campbell Memorial Carbine Match.
We've held the Carbine Match in prior years - but it still seems like only yesterday we'd gotten the sad news of his sudden passing. Now it's a Memorial event for my club's longtime Treasurer and co-founder. In preparation (and as a requirement) for the match I removed the tactical rail and red-dot scope from the carbine and restored it to as-issued condition. Since I now have a Ninjablaster M4gery I decided to leave it that way and will probably eBay the rail.
Mike had a unique and special affection for the little rifle. From one story I learned Saturday at the barbeque, it was because his dad had carried one ashore on D-Day in France that Mike had such an emotional bond with rifle and the history of the M1 Carbine. That had lead him to help the club gather together a sufficient number of them for teaching and training purposes and was one reason I had bought my own. One of our club rifles has numerous notches on the stock and the words "Okinawa" carved into it...
Since it is basically a fun match from 100-yards I didn't bring my spotting scope and other heavy gear, but some guys were more serious and lined up with all their stuff. Most didn't and a couple had never fired an M1 Carbine before!
Squadded next to my good friend and one of the clubs best shooters I asked how my sighters had done and he told me I was a little high, with an Eight at 12:00 o'clock. I'd been holding a bit high over a center-mass sight. My carbine shoots to point of aim at 100 yards and I tried to do the same despite the gritty and stiff trigger. Most of what I threw away was in the offhand stage.
The match was fired from prone, seated, and then offhand standing - each with two ten-shot strings and a 90-second time limit - for 20 rounds from each position on the same target.
I should practice my offhand more, but the targets were all uniformly well preforated and I came in fourth with 7 X's and the rest of the target pretty tore up. Rapid-fire fun!! It was a nice day and everybody had a good time.
Godspeed Mike, and God look-over and bless your wife and daughter.

She shoots, she Scores!

She put a stop to the "bridge to nowhere" that would have cost taxpayers $400 million dollars. From the video she's not afraid of an AR and she's an NRA Life member. One son had Downs and the other enlisted on 9/11/07 and is now scheduled to deploy to the sandbox with an infantry unit.



UPDATE thoughts: With Biden, Obama got himself an attack dog to appease the rabid moonbats, it was an offensive strategy and I'm not sure it will pay off since Biden bites his own foot as often as anybody else.

Holistic Hippy Hill-Haven

We finished the rail-sanding (there's another one on the back steps) and brushed on two-coats of some kind of ACME Water Seal. Without the cupping the water should run-off and the wood last longer, but painting water-seal that has the viscosity of milk is not confidence inspiring - I sincerely hope it does the job.
I carried the ugly chandelier up the steps from the outside storage-shed and Spider Habitat (the whole damn place is actually a giant Spider Sanctuary) and hung it in the living room where Big Sis can begin to repair (or not, who knows?) the broken bits on it. It's glass - at least not plastic (barf!) - but it's not Austrian Crystal, however with great optimism (and pink fluffy clouds of unicorns) Sis thinks she can get several hundred dollars for it at Teh Garage Sale. You know, hippies are always having, or about to have, some kind of eventual Ginormous Garage Sale - it's like a permanently shifting date on Teh Hippie Calendar.
Dad walked around and sprayed a bit for termites. He tried to instruct Big Sister that Borax was not a human-health problem or an issue for The Princely Dog from Sweden.
The house has a termite problem which IMO (besides the spiders) is one reason it was abandoned, and another reason that they got it cheap in foreclosure. The Nephews are fairly oblivious about maintenance but recognize the need to do things like clean the gutters. Since nobody has any kind of reliable schedule, getting together for a combined and sustained effort is impossible - it's easier to rake water or heard cats.
Dad and me sat around eating a couple sandwiches from a cooler that Mom had supplied and saw that what we had done was about all what could be done for the moment. Wishes for an English Garden Gate by Big Sis would have to go unresolved. There was no place to install newel-posts without damaging the deck, or damaging the house's walls - or really anything. Instead two crappy old de-laminating plywood closet doors gently weather, leaned together. All she needs is some Camaro parts and a washer-dryer out in the yard to complete Redneck Acres.
The funny thing is that Fairy Princesses hardly ever imagine that their Grand Country Squire Estates will pumpkinate into the Hillbilly Hogshed - it's inconceivable, and with the right "influences" unrecognizable... But sheesh happens.

Happy Hippy Horseshit

Apparently when you move from the "flatland" up to the "mountains" (all of 40-minutes away) you have to wear tie-dye, stink it up with patchouli, and dig out the old Grateful Dead vinyl. Sheesh. My Big Sister says it's spiritual and sits outside in the night under the big redwoods - all night. She's never had any self-restraint or self-reflection. The world revolves around and reflects on her. I hope it's healing somehow - because she's broken in ways ever since I've known.

This week I'm helping my Dad out up at Big Sister's place (actually my Older Nephew's - her credit is shot-to-hell) in Boulder Creek. They need basic help on the hillside hippie shack, like cleaning the gutters so when 40-inches of rainfall unloads on them they don't wash down the hillside. My Younger Nephew started in on that before he had top leave for his job at the Organic Food Store. Older Nephew runs his one-at-a-time t-shirt printing business and lives with The Lovely Girlfriend, out of the basement. I think the wreck of a house we once rented 30 years ago was in better shape. Why these people are living their lives backwards is a mystery - or maybe not if you knew my Sister...

Actually I think my Old Man feels compelled to help the poor bastards out somehow, and making sawdust is his Happy Place - and also he probably just needs to get out of the damn house. Yesterday we sanded the top of the cupped railing that runs along the front in preparation for applying a water sealer. The grain had already been raised so high that we went through a couple belts before we could get the rail to have a crown instead of a dip. We're heading back up there today.

The road is an old, windy, and familiar one. I count the corners and incidents: there's the spot "Flash" stuffed his FZ under the guardrail trying to get to the front of the group - the idiot. There's the "scenic vista" where the guy on the 2-day-old Ducati dowshifted and threw it away, 200-feet down the cliff. Here's the corner where I went down on anti-freeze from a guys' blown beater Honda-car - we caught-up and accosted him up at the rest-spot at Four-Corners where his vehicle was leaking everywhere. Down in that dip is the corner where Dean tried to stuff it up inside Frank and tangled himself off into the trees - he only had bruises but the pussy demanded a neck-brace and an ambulance ride. Never cut up-inside someone to pass, make your pass on the outside. Further along is where Frank tossed his F-2 high into the trees and peeled the forks off - he was ok but we needed a truck to retrieve the bike. Down between those trees is a leafy shortcut that comes out past The Hairpin and ahead of the other bikes - IF you have a truly dual-sport bike with good knobbies - but you still have to hurry to beat them. Heh, sometimes surprise is enough. And up that straight is the tree where Brian died on his CBR900RR when the car pulled out. Too many damn memories, and that road was just one section, one part of the bigger circle we road.

Anyhow, gotta go.

Quiet Hallway

I was cutting in along the ceiling line freehand to establish the next wall color and the voices mumbling along in my head spoke to me again.

Earlier they had been speaking in German, as I thought about an old German friend (lets call him Karl-Heinz) who had visited a while ago and who kept remarking to me, telling me rather emphatically that he was so terribly unlucky. Which took a while to sink-in because of the mumbling voices and rusty college German.

My German was rusty but it was College German and really a bit better than his High-School English. Karl-Heinz rather looked down on it because he's a bit Euro-snooty, has two first-names, and has been quite successful careerwise - while I have a bunch of patents but no Big Job, and I work from home and my career has tanked. But I'm happy. I finally realized that what he really meant was he was unhappy, not unlucky.

Gluck = luck, but Glucklich = happiness. Unglucklich = literally Un-lucky, but in actual translation Unhappy. His High School German had lent an interesting twist to the conversations and repetitions of the past few days, those few years ago. Going way-way back the Germans have a thing about Luck. Tacitus (or somebody like that, maybe Marcus Aurelius) in his writing about the Romans meeting with the early Germanic tribes, related how at every opportunity between fights and what-not, the Teutons played games of luck and chance - like drunken fiends. Literally. Dice games went on all the time, for weeks at a time, and people literally lost their shirts and went about bare - and this is where the Schadenfreude kicked-in, the others laughed at the unfortunate and unlucky. So Freude and Gluck are intertwined and at extremes - and they're a bunch of psychos, I tell ya.

Anyhow that crap all had to do with relating his personal success in Business over the thirty-some years he'd been at the Big Firm where he worked, and a bunch of ennui and self-made complexity. He'd been talking about all his success, his beautiful wife and spoiled daughter, the big nice house and big fast car - and they had not made him happy - not unlucky. But he created his own un-luck.

Part of the problem had to do with his best friend (lets call him Rolf), and arranging the family vacations. I know Rolf. We've met and hung out, sailed on his dad's yacht and drank beer long long ago - and his younger sister was a hottie but she didn't like me and that made me sad. For a while.

You see, Rolf was a bit of a nervous type needing various confidence-building maintenance, and absent that always messing things up. Karl-Heinz was the leader. When they went on vacation they rented a house on the coast of Spain or on an Island somewhere for both the families - but then they also had to rent separate houses for their mistresses, and Rolf was always making some damn change or another, or freaking out about it. And his mistress was probably not as good-looking either.

Life is complicated when you have all that baggage you're carrying around and it includes parallel relationships - and apparently it makes even the moderately wealthy and powerful unhappy. Or unlucky if they get caught. C'est la Guerre. Since I was searching to balance this out in my mind I wondered if perhaps my buddy's wife has the same problem with her secret boyfriends.

So anyhow I'm painting along and cutting in and it strikes me that I'm a bit pissed off at my old stupid and selfish buddy - and that I DO judge things by their appearances - and his appearance was not good.

I'm a painter - of course I judge things by their appearance. I finished the hallway yesterday afternoon in the new Kelly-Moor color "Chadwick". I like its appearance.

Curiously Aubergine

In the midst of paint-goop and tattered shoulders - with another day to go at least, this came in the mail. Woowie! It's got an interesting color which will mostly be hidden, but I wonder how it happened.

clicky for embigninationNow I have a gundicking project - not gunsmithing by any means, just dicking. The National Postal Meter carbine needs to come apart to swap bits, and then I can sell the Quality Hardware trigger-housing unit.
At the end of the month is our Mike Campbell Memorial Carbine Match and I can't use Aimpoint and the tacticool rail, so I need to set things back to rights on this old boy.

UPDATE: Servus Amadeus, willst du noch mehr Gratiniertes Kalbsschnitzel mit gebackenen Auberginen?
Thanks a lot all you Gunmeister Gurus, I had to find it myself. Aparently this comes to us as a refinished part derived from the Teutonic variation:

Your type 2 housing could have been one one of the carbines given to German or Austria at the end of WW2. Many were refinished by them and came out with the purple color to them. Are there any markings on it? (No, none besides the N-16.)

You will find this coloration applied to most of the Carbines given to Germany when they needed arsenal upgrading. Its their version of parkerizing. I have seen only one where the receiver and barrel were this color. It actually looked good.

Spa Day

After the de-wrinkling procedure it's time to moistureize in preparation for the 2,000 year old Egyptian Mud!

Only then we will begin the pancake-makeup and color re-application.
My shoulders are killing.

Peeling Ceiling Scabs

Choretime - just do the job and wet it down.

First you have to tape and mask with plastic.

Secure the fire-alarm in a plastic bag with tape so it doesn't spazz-out and go off. It's freaking noisy.

The Hudson sprayer lashes the crusty ceiling, and the big scraper peels the scab.

It's a makeover to get rid of the lumpy pustules and smooth the skin, going from wrinkly and decrepit to youthful and firm. God, if everything were only this easy - but it's not real hard either.

Soon it will be mudded and sanded to cover minor imperfections, and sealed with some penetrating paint to hold it nicely in place. Can't have it sagging now, can we?

UPDATE: I really couldn't have done this without my wife's organizational and motivational help; I would had dorked around in a wet, slimy mudpit and done worse to the carpet below.
Also reduced the picture of the last big droopy, dangling, peeled skin-shot - it took up too much space. But jeeze you can get some gross stuff from a little work...

Ka-BOOM!

Besides my uniquely insignificant Blogversary, yesterday was another Anniversary of much greater magnitude - the first use of Nukes - the subsequent widespread panic and the fear of which spread so fast, far, and wide that "we" have never used them again (hear that Ahmadinijammy, you wacko fruitcake?!) and only rattled them in their tubular cages.
From Don at Pater's Place we get this in-depth information about the first and second drops and the role Japan actually played.
On the Anniversary of the First Use of Nuclear Weapons

It is important to appreciate that the Japanese nuclear physicists got samples of the dust, and determined that Little Boy was a Uranium-235 bomb. They had their own nuclear program, and knew that Uranium 235 is hard to separate from U-238. They reported to the cabinet that this was a catastrophe, but would not happen again. The Japanese cabinet decided to continue the war, with the intent of accepting 30 million Japanese deaths if that was necessary to cause 1 million US deaths. They were sure that the US would not accept that many casualties. They were certain that they would be able to force the US to negotiate with them.

Fat Man, dropped later on Nagasaki was a plutonium bomb, as shown by analysis of the dust. The Japanese physicists knew that plutonium could be chemically separated from Uranium 238, and mass production of nuclear bombs must be anticipated.

The US knew the Japanese strategy, due to masterful decryption efforts, grouped under the code name MAGIC. Fat Man saved a million US lives, and 30 million Japanese lives. It also prevented Soviet occupation of part of Japan.

And another factoid (* from Scott's comments at VFTP)
(1) The U.S. had so many Purple Hearts manufactured for the anticipated casualties in a ground invasion of Japan that we are still using medals from the original order more than sixty years later.

Postscript: Brigadier General Paul Tibbets Jr, pilot of the Enola Gay that dropped the first one died last November at the age of 92 at his home in Columbus, Ohio last November. Thank you Captain Tibbets.

Not So Hawt

I fared rather poorly at Practice on Saturday but it wasn't the fault of the gun.

(Scanty 10's and few 9's either)
I decided that since I'd been messing around with it - new grips, the trigger-guard, etc. - I ought to try shooting a match with the Noveske carbine. Problem is it's not a Match Rifle and I felt uncomfortable and shot poorly.
A Match Rifle has Match Sights and a longer sight radius than a carbine. The Noveske sights are flip-up battle-sights, and the front post threads up and down for elevation. I dicked around with it and shot high and low - my bad.

(the schmutz overspray is from sight-black)
I haven't even been able to get the rear to move for windage - fortunately it's not necessary.

Also a Match rifle probably has a Match Trigger instead of a crunchy short-armed lever attached to several boat-weights, and I'm spoilt by the (relatively) inexpensive but very good Rock River tuned-trigger in the big-brother AR. Every AR should have this trigger just to begin with, and then go to a big-dollar Jewell or Giesselle icicle-breaker if you really must.
I mentioned trigger and grip, right? It's comfortable as long as it stays in one place, but the amount of squeeze I was levering on the crusty trigger revealed that I had not slid the roll-pin into the slot and secured it.

And finally a Match Rifle is shot with a match-rifle sling, it was hard to get the tactical sling into position where it was as useful as a Turner's competition sling.
Also I thought the Privi-Partizan 75 grain Match ammo shot well, but not quite as well as Black Hills - or else my scores would have been better in the last couple matches... ;-)
But mostly it was me. Take a Ninja gun to a Tactical-Ninja event, and a Match Rifle to a rifle Match.

UPDATE: I made some photo edits to trim the height of the images, reduce file-size, and speed loading. I finally noticed my photos appear in different sized windows since Blogger went and made me change templates, no longer 480x wide it's 430 - WTF??
I'd like to figure out how to change the style-sheet on that...

August 06, 2004

August 06, 2004 was a Friday and my first blog post was a cocktail recipe for my version of da kine rippin' onolicious Mai-Tai. I have since found a source for the Demerara rum (Lemon Hart) which comes from Guyana. It adds a nice nutty flavor and it need not be overproof. Now my bar has over twelve different kinds of rum, two tequilas, a Hanger-1 vodka and an unopened bottle of Tanqueray. No Whiskey, Bourbon, or Scotches, sorry. And tucked away in the Secret Mixology Cabinet is a bottle of Velvet Falernum first developed by John D. Taylor of Bridgetown, Barbados in 1890.
So anyhow, that was my start.
I needed to get out more and this was one way of doing that.

Beachtown

We went to Santa Cruz on Wednesday and had lunch/brunch at The Crow's Nest overlooking the harbor as the fog burned-off. Apparently they make excellent Mai-Tais but it was a bit early for that. Thirty years ago I played around in the harbor learning to sail in dinghies like that.

Then we drove out to Pleasure Point and watched the surfers. The mass of orangy-brown junk is kelp.

It was a nice day.