Sig Barrel

The P220 barrel is chromed and serialized to the slide, which I assumed meant that such was a trademark, the way that Sig did things...?

Stripping the P220

UPDATE: Additional commentary added. All piks Clickenz to verBiggen!



I like the automatic slide-stop catch, just pull it back and it locks open









Rotate lever down to disengage the "tumbler" inside...








Release the stop and let the whole top-end run off the rails.






















Lift out the spring and plunger...












The spring fits in the detent/notch on the barrel.















Shiny!












Re-assemble in reverse order, and DO REMEMBER to engage the takedown lever!

Sig Dating Codes

If you're gonna date a Sig you have to know where to look, it's not under the dressy dustcover or a hidden acrostic in the Serial Number - but you do have to look up underneath.

So mine's from 1989, the first Presidential Year of Bush '41 - the youngest pilot then in the Navy when he received his commission in 1943 - and who flew a TBM Avenger off the carrier deck of USS San Jacinto during WWII, flew 58 combat missions, received the Distinguished Flying Cross, and got three Air Medals for his efforts.
And later he didn't totally suck as a President nor was he in the Johnson Administration. But he's almost my dad's age.
Hell, he could have owned one of these.
The year is 2009 now, so it's an old gun - there are kids who were born and damn near finished College already - and girls-gone-wild who got pregnant and had kids since this was made.
Damn I'm startin' to feel all creeky-old.

Zum Vergrößern anklicken Bitte!

Obamaistration Halts Pending Bush Regulations, But Guns In Parks Looks OK

GRASSROOTS ALERT, Vol. 16, No. 3 01/23/09

Apparently it's common for an incoming administration to make such an order, but it does not appear that this action would affect the new rule governing the concealed carrying of firearms in national parks. Yay!

The orders outlined in Chief Enforcer Rham Emanuel's memo would suspend or delay three kinds of rules:

1. Proposed and final regulations that have not yet been submitted for publication in the Federal Register;

2. Proposed and final regulations that have submitted, but have not yet been published; and,

3. Final rules that have been published, but have not yet taken effect.

The new parks rule does not fall into any of these categories. The rule was published in December 2008, and took effect on January 9, 2009. To repeal the rule, the new leadership at the Interior Dept. would have to publish a new proposed rule, take public comment on it, and eventually publish a new final rule.

That action is certainly not out of the question--in fact it would come as no surprise if the anti-gun Obama administration attempts to repeal the rule. Of course, NRA-ILA would strenuously oppose and fight against any such attempt.


In other news, New York Gov. Patterson picked NRA backed Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand for a seat in the Senate, after thin-skinned assumption-ridden Uh-ristocrat know-nothing Carolyn Kennedy ran off to tend her polo ponies. Gillibrand's pro-gun position and admirable patriotism riled the ire of the anti-gun bigots. Amazingly she's not a cross-eyed scale-skinned harridan, she doesn't diss Vets, and she's been to visit the troops in Iraq - can she really be a Democrat?

Halbrook holds Holder

Dr. Stephen Halbrook testifies on C-SPAN against the confirmation of gun-control advocate and generally power-mad political bendover Eric Holder for Attorney General of the USA, in testimony stating the obvious.

His denial that law-abiding citizens have a right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes is exemplified by his support for draconian proposal to criminalize, with severe felony penalties, exercise of that constitutional right.

Meanwhile the Gray Lady continues to stump for Stalinists and whitewash the proceedings with sock-puppet Jurnofist David Stout of the New York Times utterly failing to mention Dr. Halbrook’s testimony and instead putting forward the flat out lie that, "No one has questioned Mr. Holder’s qualifications."


Dr. Halbrook is the author of the recent Independent Institute book, The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms, that formed the basis for the Second Amendment Book Bomb.
He was also represented by his earlier Amici Curiae Brief in the District of Columbia v. Heller case on behalf of 55 members of the Senate, the Senate President, and 250 members of the House of Representatives.

Holder meanwhile has taken an extremely constipated view of our Second Amendment rights with his tightly held opinion is that The People have no such right unless they are commanded (?) to exercise it in a formal militia - which renders the right meaningless and moot, to boot - what a poot.

Smells Like Gun-spirit

Two days into El Neuvo Administrassioñes and still no rainbow farting unicorns - but the Brown Truck of Gunny Joy delivered!
Next to the smell of Hoppes #9 there is a real fondness for the classic Eau de Gunoil, it fills the nostrils with the aroma of machinery.

(clickez-vous to emBigulate)

On the reverse side they say, "Made in Italy," and I think of beetle-browed gnomes high under the Dolomite mountains, pounding out silver and precious ores to turn and fabricate them into little beauties spelled Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Maserati - Of Ötzi the Iceman rushing over the glacial alpine pass carrying a stolen copper axe, fired upon by stone-age archers 5,000 years ago... He sure could have used a Sig.

Spider Peepers

UPDATE: Change in diopteric photo for better illustration porpoises.
One of the guys in my club is planning to sell a couple of his rifles.
One is a custom barrel in 6BR and shoots the X out on the simulated 600-yard target - that's an inch and three-quarters at 200-yards.
I'm happy when I get a few in there and in the 10-ring.
He's been shooting a long time and is very good shot and a real good guy - but he's been shooting a long time which also means he's a *few* years older than me and with age has come some gnarly vision issues: cataracts.
I think he's going to keep his F-Class rifles because the scope helps immeasurably, but today at the 200-yard line with iron sights his targets just disappear - they're not there.
During the previous Practice and at the last and Match I noticed cobwebs in my eyes - actually in my .042" sight-hood aperture. Dammit.
I have learned that means I need a bigger sight-peeper to look through. It means the current hood is too constricted to function properly with my vision requirements.
So I dug through the stuff that came with my White Oak Service Rifle upper and got out the .046" hood.


The upper came with three different sight hoods, a .038", .042", and .046" - and during my initial testing of the upper I found that the .038" hood introduced the same cob-web effects, so I installed the middle one and it worked well. Now it appears my eyes have taken another step.
Time to get a new prescription filled - which will coincide with the arrival of the P220 - then I might be able to see the sights on that too!
Sux getting old.

Daniel Defense Offset Flashlight Mount

Now I know why everybody wears contrasting-color tactical gloves to the Ninja-Tastic Sophomore Prom - their hands are big blobby hairy nubby pink goobery things in the hand-model close-up. Being a learn-by-doing kind of nimrod I tried again but the black Craftsman work gloves I have didn't even show up in the picture - they were Invisible!

With the Viking Tactics mount removed the Daniel Defense Offset Flashlight Mount hooked up fast and easy - except I believe it's crushing the nuts of the Surfire G2. This Operator had to completely remove the allen-head "cage" to insert the light, and then alternating sides, cinch them down. The light isn't going anywhere - but it's still not been Loctited - and the nut's are squeezin' it hard. Oww.
The whole thing goes together very sano with no interference issues and the fit and finish is excellently black as expected. I think Army-Man Green would be cool, but it's not there. Now the Tangoriffic Quick Detachable forward Mojo detaches quickly with no tie-ups, and the light mount also goes easy and snappy with some small springs holding the Picatinny jaws in place instead of them flapping and clanking around, giving away your Ninja-position in the dark. Much Mo'bettah! Who wants a Vikings mount?
The only gripe is silly and industry-general, but why don't they standardize on some damn thing like allen-heads for the various fittings? The Viking Tactics uses a micro-thing .095" head/drive while the DD one is at a generous .014 - and neither is the same as the Aimpoint which is somewhere in between.
So there.
UPDATE: Aack! I got smacked by an Uncalanche! Welcome visitors.

Birthday Match

Woot! HBTM! Shot a 430-3X after some numbingly dumb 280's and 290's last month and prior. Started the morning out with a nice Offhand garnering an 83, then not too bad Rapid Sitting with an 87, then a swell Rapid Prone with an 88-1X, and finished-up with Slow-Prone of 172-2X's and only one flyer in the 5-ring. The hour spent on practice Wednesday seemed especially helpful with today's offhand.

During target-changing pauses I went among some different friends asking, "Sig or Glock? Sig or Glock?" I got mostly Sig as an answer, with a couple Glocks and some weirdness like Hammerli - easily 5-to-1.

After the Match we went to lunch at Fiesta Del Mar where we shared a Chile Verde Quesadilla and nachos, along with a pitcher of "house premium" Margaritas in celebration. Yay! HBTM! After that and an espresso we headed up to Imbert's, Das Gub-Geschäft, and I found a nice, used P220 in .45ACP and I bought it. Modern! It's a few years old, used, without the light rail and with sorta "express" style sights - not three-dot night-sights anyhow, but that can be changed too. At least it's not from the Johnson Administration. Yay!

Hope you-all had a good day too.

HBTM Gub51

Looking at the usual suspects in the Used-gub display windows at various local shop has not brought forth a lot of enthusiasm. The pickings have been thin in the hand-gub department and not particularly gratifying among the long-gubs - so it's been pretty easy to keep my wallet in my pocket.
I mentioned to my dear wife that a somewhat tantalizing Winchester Model 12 in 16ga circa 1929 had scratched my itch and she replied, "You haven't even shot your Grandpa's old shotgun. How do you know if you like shotgunning, and what do you want with another one?" (Not to mention, a caliber of which I don't even have an accidental box of ammo to justify.)
I said that it was an interesting old piece at a price that was affordable, at which she countered, "Why are you always buying old stuff - get something new. You don't have to be cheap all the time." - and with that I was fairly electrified with promise! Woot!!
New? Who ever heard of such a thing?? All my "collection" (more properly a haphazard amalgamation really, apart from some recent fiddling with the Stoner-model rifle) consists mainly of things that would be comfortably recognizable to anyone during the Johnson Administration. Hmm....
And so I've been thinking about getting a BD-gub, and one of modern construction and alloys, perhaps used but of more recent vintage - something that's been made in the last five years. A friend from Back-East with a carry-permit says he really likes his P220. He said the Colt Commander he carried before was slim and great and fit great, but when he picked up the Sig it was just really-great and in fact greaterer than great. I looked 'em over before and noticed that the one I checked-out was metal not plastic.
Last time (yesterday) at my local Shop I asked to have a look at one (in .40SW) from the Used Counter. It felt and pointed natural, but had a weird de-cocker lever unlike anything found on JMB's holy 1911A1. I mentioned that to my buddy and he just said "So what?" Allrighty-then they seem to make quite a selection in various trigger configurations, calibers, finishes, and styles: DA/SA DAO, SAO, steel, polymer, regular size, long-slide, match, carry and compact - and Mastershop race-guns. In fact too damn many.
It's all so new to me. I'm fairly convinced I want something in .45ACP and it also depends on what's available here, so the search continues. This makes for interesting web-browsing. I kinda like the SAO one but have no reason to justify that, but this is America and I don't need no steenking badges, want is sufficient. Why not a Gl*ck? Why did Constantinople get the works?

Practice Poopy

It was a sunny day in the mid 70's yesterday (like today) and I went to the range to practice. Those 200-yard targets weren't going to shoot themselves, and I was rusty from the Christmas holidays -all that futzing around and non-shooting.
The new firing-line cover has shingles and gutters now, and the shooting noise underneath is appreciably increased by the hard reflecting roof that angles and directs muzzle-blast and shock-waves normallyh fleeing upwards and away, back onto the concrete pad. Right where you're sitting or lying prone. It's very nice looking and will provide excellent summer shade, but the increased noise to me is a major drawback. Maybe we can hang some baffling up in the joists and reduce the "return fire" or something...
So it's earplugs and earmuffs and away we go, rather poorly. My off-time has deteriorated my off-hand (the square pasters) skills, with more shots placed out of view in the 8 and 7-ring. Hell, I normally shoot better prone with a sling than from the bench. I kept forgetting to keep my eye on the front sight and was looking past to the target.

Anyhow, I needed some trigger time before the Match on Saturday.

Armor Enthusiasts Mourn

A great man has passed.

PORTOLA VALLEY — Jacques Littlefield, a tank enthusiast who supported many museums and made his massive private collection of military vehicles available to the public, died Wednesday after a decade-long battle with cancer. He was 59.

Littlefield's collection of more than 150 vehicles is one of the largest private collections in the world. Housed at Pony Tracks Ranch — the Portola Valley property acquired by his late father — the tanks, armored cars, and other antique defense mechanisms have drawn the attention of authors, educators, historians, veterans groups, model makers, and the defense and entertainment industries.

Postel said Littlefield was also happy to impart knowledge about the history of his beloved vehicles. He helped with the sound effects in the 1998 World War II drama "Saving Private Ryan" to ensure historical accuracy.

"He liked to share his knowledge and he liked to learn more himself," Postel said. "He really gave the opportunity for people who were most interested in that particular kind of history — serious aficionados and researchers — the ability to understand what those weapons were all about."
http://www.insidebayarea.com/localnews/ci_11419309

This is really quite an unhappy surprise.

Songs of your life meme

(still) UNFINISHED MEME (Faster and Shorter 2nd edit): UPDATE: links added:

I got tagged by Borepatch with the Songs of your life meme - it's taken a while to gather the data.

The rules for what I'm calling The Asterisk Awards are for me deceptively simple:

1. For each year you've been alive, post a song title (with performer name) that was released that year. There's some flexibility here - singles, albums, and Billboard Top Songs Chart will all be within a year of each other, but tend not to overlap. You have a song and a date, you're good to go.

Here's where it gets hard.

2. You have to post songs that you own, or have owned in the past, or your parents owned when you were a child.
If there's a year where you just don't have a song, then pick any old song from that year, but mark that year with an asterisk (*).

3. Ladies do not have to list more than the most recent 29 songs. A Gentleman never asks a Lady her age. If you want, though, list 'em all.

4. Once you've posted, tag 4 other bloggers.

To assist in the task there's a Billboard Top-40 website that you can backtrack songs.

I'm musically naive, pedestrian, and developmentally arrested - much is simply layered-on. There are huge voids in my popular music consciousness, from travel and other externally isolating conditions. The saying where we lived overseas was that any style or trend would take at least five years to arrive from abroad - and what was locally popular was more than five years old. There existed the kind of time-lag you get from living on what might as well be Mars.

Also I mis-hear lyrics: I hear Mondegreens to the point of unintelligibility.

My sequence of musical recognition and adoption is like falling through a series of black holes and hitting different years randomly in relation to the actual musical events as they occurred.

I don't recall my parents actually having any records that anybody ever listened to until much later in life. In the hallway was a Hi-Fi that was a wedding gift to my parents and that saw little use.
I probably burned or broke the most needles of all, playing one record over and over, my first "record" ever that came in the mail from sending away box-tops when I was six. It was "Hey There Yogi Bear."

So let's start with The Asterisks!

1958* - Johnny B Goode - I have to give it to Chuck Berry since he recorded this in January which is my birth month. One other song stands out on the list, The Purple People Eater because I actually remember hearing it while I was young.

1959* - Quiet Village - I only discovered this about eight years ago. I DO recognize the psychotic Chipmunk Song...

1960* - Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini - I was early-on very intrigued by girls and their underwear... I also recognize the fabulously insipid and freakish Mule Skinner Blues.

1961* - Take Five - The seminal jazz sound/song that stands head and shoulders apart from the rest of the musical ephemera this year with a nod to Jorgen Ingman's surf-classic Apache, split asunder only by the twisted and bizarre camp-song, Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor.

1962* - Surfin' Safari - Followed by #54 Green Onions. I remember once going to a Beach Boys movie - was there really such a thing? It may have been the year we began swimming-lessons...

1963* - Ring of Fire - This year #81 stands out.

1964 - Hey There Yogi Bear - My first purchase.

1965* - Help! We saw the movie as a family and I kept falling asleep, but we could all do British accents with the Indian mix and soon we might be living it. The James Bond thriller Goldfinger left an indelible imprint.

1966* - Summer in the City - has the most strong memorable impact. Also the mysteriously unfathomable mis-heard lyrics of Sunshine Superman; "Any Triggin' A Boogin' A Baby, on Your Velvet Stone".

1967* - Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron - On our way overseas in Hong Kong my dad bought a reel-to-reel and had a bunch of LP's taped. I never knew what or who they were and it was an adult machine. Actually heard this two years later in Boarding School when it finally arrived.

1968* - Harper Valley PTA - ? A hook I just grokked on out of the blue, but also Those Were the Days.

1969* - Hawaii Five-O - I had not seen any TV in three years. We returned to the U.S. and TV came back - the tropics remained large in my consciousness.

1970* - All Right Now - The theme-song of the notorious, ill-behaved and inappropriate University Band heard at football games.

(OK TAKE A BREAK....)

1971* - Won't Get Fooled Again - I didn't get this song until a couple years later.

1972* - Horse With No Name - A song that clicked and lyrics I could recognize - and I wanted to get out of the house and go far away. My big sister was going nuts and playing Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow White Rabbit obsessive-compulsively the way I had treated Yogi Bear, except in her case it was LSD-driven, not youthful exuberance. Later she ran away from home and was re-captured a week later. It was all bad.

I'll try to just speed things up.

1973* - Frankenstein - I bought a $68 Sanyo stereo cassette radio, my first musical device, from doing lawn-jobs - and I had this and Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll taped on the short 3-minute tape that came with the device. I listened to it in the morning before rolling a joint and walking to school, in an effort to drown out the pain.

1974* - Radar Love. Wishing I had some - I was a loser in H.S.

1975* - Mehbooba - Overseas again for a year I had left the socially suffocating confines of the Bay Area and would graduate far-far away from my former classmates. This song is from the epic Indian film of that year Sholay, and I actually had a girlfriend. This was a romantically bittersweet youthful reminder that upon graduation I'd leave and we'd probably never see each other again...and we didn't.

1976* - Rhiannon - College music! and mass confusion. A bunch of NEW music in college, introduced by a new dorm-friend who had the most gigantic stereo I had ever seen. In fact everybody there had all the BEST music, and it was all BETTER than anybody else's. I met my first music-snobs with thousand-dollar stereos - where did these people come from, and with ALL that money?
Also George Benson, Stanley Clarke, and Frank Zappa emerged.

1977* - Walk This Way. More Arowsmith influence from dorm-buddy - but from another direction came Backwater.

1978* - Mongoloid - Devo. In college I was still a loser, but New Wave was taking over.

1979 - Planet Claire - Studying overseas again, this time in Europe, I first heard this when I came back in the Fall and it seared into my brain as I set about attempting an animated sequence to this for an art-class assignment - I bought the album.
In other news Nina Hagen and Jeff Beck were big in Vienna, and I saw The Who, Cheap Trick, AC/DC along with and a bunch of other bands at the Zeppelinfeld in Nuremburg. About the last concert I went to.

1980 - "Gates of Steel" - and Private Idaho Really drifting away from the top-100, I was living in a house by Uncle Charlie's Summer Camp with a bunch of other students - who had sophisticated music-machines and a tape deck, so I bought an album to record. There were relationships - one was a girl who was the girlfriend of a D.J. who was best-friends with Jello Biafra. What a fucking jerk asshole self-absorbed dickhead. But finally I knew people who knew People and got onstage during a show - it was Santa Cruz, not much of a Holiday in Cambodia.

1981 - Echo Beach - Graduation and off to an Archaeology dig - and a summer of relentless daily exposure to Phil Collins, I drove back east and wound up in DC. After doing day-labor and gardening jobs was "stripping" at Harbinger Photographic Services.

1982* - Only the Lonely - Summer stock Theater work in central CA and I dated an actress who had the album - a relationship that ironically turned into somethign like Never Say Never , by Romeo void...

1983* - She Blinded Me with Science.

1984* - 99 Luftballons - The German side is strong with him-= he remembers a lot - but Bananarama's Cruel Summer - well, it was along and cruel summer.

(TIME OUT)

1985 - Smooth Operator killed and I bought the album.

Bangles, Bananarama, Nena, Sade, Lene Lovich - Blue Hotel - are you catching a trend here? But what happened to Roxy Music, Brian Eno, and others? It was the Age of MTV and videos - and I didn't have cable-tv either, I missed it all...

1986* - Sledgehammer.

1987* - Walk Like an Egyptian* - a seriously guilty pleasure and I was starting to feel too old for it.

1988* - Hazy Shade of Winter and a better version than The Pretentuious Turtlenecks of Smedley and Farglebargle.

1989* - She Drives Me Crazy - whatever happened to the Fine Young Cannibals? We bought the house condo.

1990* - Roam caught me back again with that voice. A decade lost and gone since Graduation and all that crap that happened back then - where was it all going? Unemployed after another round of layoffs.

1991* - Wicked Game - my God, the man still has all that hair...

1992* - Nothing there: Achy Breaky Mariah Carey George Michael & Elton John Celine Dion Nirvana. Bah.

ENOUGH! I think this is the year I stopped listening and lost track completely. I was not any part of the target audience of anything anymore. I was 34 and totally out of it. Unemployed again after another round of layoffs I had to make another directional change and try to begin a fifth career.

1993*
1994*
1995*
1996*
1997*
1998*
1999*
2000*
2001*
2002*
2003*
2004*
2005*
2006*
2007*
2008*

Metal Mech Wardrobe Malfunction

I am a learn-by-doing kind of nimrod.

Mere book-reading and verbal description is insufficient, but it's enough to create chaos as I adamantly jam round pegs into square-holes and splinter square pegs on the anvil of round-holes.

Beware my mad Exacto-knife and Dremel grinder cutting skillz!

Both of these splendid pieces of kit are great and marvelous innovations, but as individuals they simply lack the chemistry for the blind-date that I arranged. They aren't gonna come away from it well, elbowing each other for space on the rail.

I shy away from putting the QD grip on "backwards" because then the lever points forward and becomes a potential hook, and as for rail space there's the sling dangling there already.

Currently with both items located in "best positions" they physically interlock each other - which might not be a bad thing, but it's not what I was looking for and takes away the Quick Detachability factor.

The Tango Down QD grip needs to be thinner at the top so it can share rail-space with a light-mount and still function as a QD item.

I can not find a light-mount of TD manufacture in their catalog, one that is designed to allow that clearance.

The VLTOR Scout mount might do it or the Daniel Defense Offset Mount - both require furthner experimentation.

The Viking Tactics light mount is pictured working best with the standard and thinner-at-the-top TD forward grip.

I am beginning to understand a reason for the combined light/grip mojo-hoochie besides selling $500 flashlights...

UPDATE: I flipped the mounting mechanism so it releases from the weak-hand side and re-attached the VTAC light. It fits better and I can reach it better with my thumb.
One thing I came to recognize is that rail dimensions are different enough to make all practical dimensions variable.
Still I ordered the Danial Defense offset light-mount from my local good-guys at Bay Area Gun Vault. For one thing it is (or apears to be) an all-metal mount, with greater offset. We'll soon see...
Meanwhile the new position is good.

Tactical Truck of Vikingness

The Brown Tactical Truck of Viking-Happiness swung by and threw Santa-Me's last Christmas present onto the doorstep, and best of all it's Army-Man green!
As far as I can tell for the Surefire G2, the Viking mount works best with the small ring-insert removed - Doh!
And then you get to choose at what O'-Clock you're gonna put it on the rail...and which rail - and then where does the grip go?

It's clearly a process of getting to know your gear.

The Tango-Mojo with the quickie-hootchie is a short and stubby little fellow that takes a surprisingly generous amount of hand to grip. It's a voluptuously full-figured grip. Oh baby!

Then you have to figure out which digit (or portion of one) will activate the tail-switch, and what combination of articulations and contortions you must finally achieve to reach it.

Looking through the Ninjawebz and observing the Tactical-Tumors for insight here's Viking's own sling demonstration showing the light butted right up midway past the grip. It's a grip that with my big mitts means a thumb press for lights-on. Their VFG however is a also bit slimmer and maybe the operator is double-jointed.

Getting the light-switch midway back on the vertical grip like that only works if I reverse the side with the quickie-lever because otherwise the QD lever gets in the way...

And once you do THAT it faces forward which gives me pause and second thoughts:

1.) It can't release because it has the fail-safe push-button catch, but 2.) pointing forward it's not low-drag anymore - it could catch on something.

So I put it back with the lever in the way and 3.) in order to get the thumb up there the light has to slide back and be tightened down so all the beautiful tactical things on the rail are in a bit too-close proximity, and kinda get locked-up together. The point of the quick-detachability is D = detachable and Q = quick.
Maybe the LaRue VFG is slimminger?
And once I figure everythign out I have to take it apart and LocTite everything.

UPDATE: Flipping sides with the light brings up its own set of complications...

Guerilla Gardening

Our Gardening Service dudes are mainly just leaf-blower immigrants, and are not set to much more difficulty in their tasks than contending with noise, vibration, and boredom. They're personable muchachos and I wave to them when I see them, and sometimes in the hot summer I'll pass them bottled waters from the cool garage.
If a pruning service comes it's at the wrong time, scheduled late by the money-grubbing management guy we mistakenly hired (and may soon be fired), who looks at our assets as a personal treasure to be mined. Then because he got them on the cheap, they do a bad job and simply "top" the trees, screwing up their further leafy prospects.
I like doing a bit of pruning actually. The plum tree off our balcony grew thick in the fall with a lot of sucker-shoots - "waterspouts" my dad calls 'em - that constantly threaten to over-foliage the slender branches and tear the tree apart. We greatly value it for its purple canopy of shade and privacy. So yesterday with my 16-foot extensible limb-lopper I had at them in the last hot sun of the afternoon.
The New Year for us brings with it a bit of skin-shedding and cleanup, and we have filled a couple boxes with Goodwill materials. Some of them are direct-transfers of Christmas presents simply given in error - no harm no foul, just not us. Along with that effort came to light some old toys, souvenir-things from the long-past-tour, toys from distant places that I might remember without them, but as minor touchstones brought back direct visions: a little box of curious special cardboard and paper, with a miniature thatched-roof house and a waterwheel attached from the Pan-Am flight days in '67 Japan on our way overseas. That and such things similar were re-boxed and put back in the cabinet of curiosities. Others that simply failed to take-hold or were actually not at all "real" are destined to more appreciative fingers. Out with the Old. Still time (and room) for more cleanup and letting go.

Howdy

Welcome Ill Spirit. I have a lot more f you Gunblastic Bloggerados bookmarked than I do blog-rolled, so if you feel left out just let me know and I'll fix that okey-dokey smokey. And to support my local Merchant of Tac-tickles I got me a Tango Quick Mojo forward thingy - Merry Christmas at last!

Hau`oli Nuevo Jahrzeit!

Waking up about 8:30AM with the familiar nudging I bumbled into the dining room for some coffee and Cheerios. We made a short list and the yearly ritual began: cleaning.
Not a lot of cleaning but the draperies and some vacuuming, and the old drape-rod was to be replaced with a fresh one that has a big Monstera leaf finial. The drapes went into the wash and out came the ladder, and in between this-and-that various other things were found to need further cleaning.
After some lunch at Sono Sushi and a new calendar from the hippie/spiritual bookstore down the street we returned home and paused for an Nespresso from our D-90, the cheapest of the cheap hand-crank operated (nearly) purchased with a 20%-Off coupon from some humongous bedding retailer (Ha-ha! I laugh at the Amazon price!).
And then to fart around on the 'puter where I discovered that I'm #1 for "irony of rich communists on Google - from Visitor #58,719, Jan 1 2009 8:58:03AM. The initial " helps, there's no one else... Since August 2004 to here, 58K+ - should I care? Naah, but I enjoy you-guys' company.
Hau’oli Makahiki Hou! The Bamboo Room is OPEN.

Pronounced: How-oh-lay ~ Ma-ka-hee-kee ~ How !