ohhh, willy's fired up

seems that the talking heads over at CNN have pissed off our shipmate WillyShakes.
can't say i'm surprised. hey Willy, has that network really ever given you any reason to believe they would act any differently towards someone that threatens their paradigm? (hint, see my previous post)

hahahahahaha

this is too freaking good. i couldn't have written this any better if i'd tried.

let's see.
the dems didn't put a woman on the ticket. the republicans did.
there's no way the dems can use the relative inexperience of the veep, since their presidential candidate is guilty of inexperience as well. any traction they might have gotten is completely blown out of the water.
hahahahahaha
crap, i love politics. this is a great participatory spectator sport.

and she carries a gun, and knows how to use it, according to a news program i watched about her last year. how cool is that?

pretending to be a gunsmith

i picked up a new Ruger MKIII Target back in March, and crowed a little about it the day i took it to the range and fired the first 100 rounds through it.

so here it is, August, and i finally got around to tacking on a couple of goodies. i'm not sure if i'm done with it yet, but there isn't much more i can do to this sweet little pistol that i haven't already done. maybe get a pistol scope to use when i get bored with the holographic sights.
so in a nut shell, here's how to install a new target trigger, sear, hammer, and bolt release. those were purchased from Volquartsen. i bought the Accurizing Kit for the pistol, rather than individual parts. cheaper that way, and you get everything you need. my only bitch was that it took what seemed forever to my terminally short term patience. something like 2 weeks. don't know what i'm bitching about when ordering parts from a custom house, but when i order stuff for work, its usually delivered the next day, at no extra charge.
but i digress.
the kit comes packed in ziplok bags, and has an excellent two sided sheet of instructions.
you will need the Ruger manual supplied with the gun, but these can be ordered from Ruger if you have lost it. you really, really need that book.

TIP #1: take volquartsen's instructions, and go through the gun drawing in the manual. the instructions call the parts by their part number, so find each one in the table and then write it down next to the part on the exploded diagram. seriously. or you can find the drawing number for each part and write it down on the instruction sheet. either way will way way more than save the time it took to do in the first place. it really sucks trying to flip back through the manual to the parts table trying to figure out what the hell the instructions are trying to tell you. especially when you have spring tension trying to scatter parts all over the place as you disassemble the gun. seriously, take the time and label the exploded diagram.

next, watch this video. it's linked off of the Volquartsen site, and is almost indispensable unless you really are a gunsmith. i watched it through 3 or 4 times before beginning the process on my own gun.

first, you have to field strip the gun and remove the grips

click for other image size options

then, take a picture of what the guts look like before you start popping pins and scattering all the parts everywhere. i really didn't need it, but it was there, just in case

then, push pins, shake, rattle, and thump until all the parts you want removed are removed. follow the published instructions. it's almost impossible to screw up. unless you lose one of the tiny parts, like the safety detent. keep a close eye on that sucker. it's very small, and can easily become MIA.

reassembly following the instructions is easy, especially if you watched the video. personally, i brought the gun into the computer room, clicked on the video, and put it together at the desk. nice thing, the pause button.
here's the final product

on one of the customer reviews i read at Midway USA, the reviewer bitched about the bigger, wider bolt release. since i put Pachmayr Signature grips on a couple of weeks ago, i was really happy to have the bigger release. the stock release was just too small, and was a bear to operate once the new grips were put on. here's a view of the original release

see how small it is? it just disappeared into the Pachmayr grips
i like the new bolt release much better with these grips.

here's what my Ruger MKIII looks like now

besides the volquartsen accurizing kit, i've installed a set of Pachmayr Signature Grips, and a TruGlo holographic sight from MidwayUSA.
all in all, i think this will become my favorite go to plinking gun. i took something that was pretty damned good, tweeked it, and now it should be really pretty damned good.

every time my wife raises her eyebrow at one of my little purchases, i always tell her, "honey, i could have a 1967 Camaro SS sitting in the garage. then imagine the money i'd be spending. come to think about it, i WOULD like to have a 1967 Camaro SS, or maybe a 67 Z/28. naaah. i think i'll stick with guns. they are way cheaper....

seems a bit late in the season for robin chicks

but out in the backyard, up in the magnolia tree, we have a robin's nest. in it are at least 2 and probably 3 1 to 2 week old chicks. i always thought they were a springtime event. must be all that global warming.
anyway, they are a loud bunch, raising hell if they don't get fed often, but really squawking when one of the parents shows up with a tasty treat like a cricket or worm.
i climbed up onto a ladder to take some pictures. since the nest is up a ways, and snuggled down into the branches, i couldn't get a straight on shot without disturbing the nest, which i wouldn't do.
so here are a couple of shots taken the other day, showing at least one of the chicks, and a parent.
as always, click picture for other size choices

look between the leaves to see the chick's head

feeeeeed meeeee

feeed meeee NOW!

Mom's back, with snacky treats!

Mom's not too sure what to do about the voyeur

imagine a perfect day at the range

when overhead you hear a seriously loud flapping noise, some cursing, and then see
a parachutist crashing into the trees along the edge of the 100 yard range.
My local rifle/pistol range is the Yolo Sportsman's Association. it's located at the end of the local airport, which sports a huge contingency of parachuters during the weekend.
it is a bit disconcerting to have the huge shadow cross over you as you are lining up for a shot. but it must really bug the hell out of the jumpers knowing they are coming down over an active gun range. dunno. seems to work for everyone.
here are a couple of shots i took during the day.
as always, click for more size options

"Pissing for Science"

i read this article a couple of weeks ago, and had a laugh. the thought of all those lab rats and workers collecting their urine for use in developing a viable space toilet and waste processing system struck me as downright clever. since there is a lot of particulate and ionic material in urine, as well as the varying pH and conductivity, cooking up a lab version of urine would only give the researchers a "ballpark" soup.
why i laughed, though, is that it reminded me of boot camp.
yes, boot camp. August 1972, Great Lakes IL. our morning routine included more that the shave, shower, brush your teeth drill. i don't remember now whether it was a phara company, or a hospital that ran the program. they always brought a couple of sterile 5 gallon poly carboys in and set them on a stainless steel pan outside the company commander's office. as we were heading to the head for our morning ablutions, we stopped at the jug, and emptied our bladders. it was strictly voluntary. in boot camp, if the company commander wanted you to do something voluntary, you were automatically volunteered.
seems they needed "pristine" piss, uncontaminated with drugs or alcohol byproducts. it was used to extract a tiny tiny amount of some hormone or chemical that was used to manufacture a blood clotting agent for hemophiliacs.
i wonder if they still do that to any extent, or if they've finally managed to either synthesize it, or found a substitute.
so there you go, too much information, but i pissed in a jug for science just like these researchers. only 36 years earlier, and for a different reason.