KaBoom part 2

If anyone every asks you why you should wear eye protection while you are shooting

If you ever start thinking that you do not need eye protection while you are shooting.

Just remember this picture.



This is the safety glasses I was wearing when the two hot loads went off in my M1911A1. The smudge the arrow is pointing to is not a smudge. It is a chip in the polycarbonate lenses of the safety glasses I was wearing when small shards of brass came flying out of the chamber of my gun.

In addition to the chip in my safety glasses, I also had two very small holes in my cheek and chin. But they were actually smaller than most of my shaving accidents and healed up in about a day. The glasses won't heal. My left eye, the one I aim with by the way, would probably not have faired too well if I hadn't been wearing those sacrificial lenses.

My safety glasses now have a new task. Tomorrow they will go up B Mountain with my daughter. She is going to wear them while her senior class paints the B on B mountain. I can't wear them for shooting anymore. The chip is right in my line of sight when I shoot left handed only (I blade my body and tend to not get my head turned to be square to the target. It doesn't really interfere with my vision when I'm shooting two handed because I use an isosceles stance, except that I slide my right foot just a little back from square. But it is annoying. Besides, a standard set of safety glasses aren't so expensive that I can't afford to replace this pair

KaBOOM?

I have never had a gun go KaBOOM on me before. Before today that is.

I don't know if this qualifies as a full KaBOOM. First off it wasn't a Glock that I was shooting. Secondly, my gun still seems to be intact, more or less. But I figure anything that destroys a mag, damages the remaining bullets in that mag, splatters gun powder residue all over my hands, and face, draws blood from my cheek and chin and puts a gouge in the left lens of my shooting glasses and blows apart the right grip on the gun should qualify.

I headed out this afternoon to go watch my son shoot at his Boy Scout Troop Shoot Camp Out. Since I had to drive right past the range where I shoot to get to the range that my Son's Troop was camped out at I decided to take along a few tools of my own to get some practice in with on my way home.

I watched my son and the other scouts shoot for a while. My kids is getting pretty good with a shotgun, but still has some learning to do with a rifle. After a while I headed out and stopped by the Ridgecrest Gun Range in order to break in my new Henry 357 Magnum Big Boy Rifle. The rifle shoots like a dream. After 30-40 rounds I decided I needed a change so I hauled out my Rock Island Armory 1911A1. I had 100 rnds of Winchester white box I was going to shoot, but I decided to start with the last 20 rounds of hand loads from the last batch my Father had loaded for me. I had fired somewhere between 80 to 100 other rounds from this batch over the last few months and had no trouble with them.

Things started out smoothly until I fired off the fourth round in the mag. The report sounded normal but the gun kicked oddly in my hands and the mag shot out the bottom of the gun. I don't know if the plastic baseplate on this mag broke during misfire or when it hit the concrete floor. But simultaneously the gun got a lot lighter (missing a mag and 4 rounds), and I felt something sting my face in a couple spots. Out of habit I pushed the mag release to drop the mag out of the gun, that is when I discovered that it was already gone. Next I racked the slide to check for a round in the chamber - there wasn't one.

This is what the mag looked like after the insident.



I still wasn't sure what had happened. So I laid the gun down on the shooting bench and started looking around. I noticed the busted mag and the four remaining rounds on the ground almost immediately. Then out of habit I started gathering up my spent brass. My 45 is pretty consistent in where it throws the brass - about 6 feet over my right shoulder. But I could only find three pieces.

So I took a few minutes sitting in the car and collecting my self. I finally checked my cheek in the mirror. It had a small injury that was oozing a little blood. A spot on my chin was also bleeding. But stopped quickly once I used the last of my water bottle to wash off my face and hands.

I checked out my gun pretty carefully and as best I could determine it was not damaged.

So in a minor fit of careless judgment I decided that the mag was to blame and I loaded up a second (all metal) mag with more of the hand loaded 45s. The first shot I fired acted a lot like the previous shot. This time however the effect was much harder on me. I didn't get hit in the face this time. My right hand, the one squeezing the grip got thumped pretty hard right in the palm. My hand almost immediately went numb. If I had been shoot with only one hand I probably would have dropped the gun.

This time the mag didn't fully shoot out of the bottom of the gun, it stopped about half way out. I assume that is why the grip on the gun broke, the expanding gases inside the gun couldn't exhaust out of the bottom of the mag well so they went out the side. This is what my baby looked like after the second shot.




I don't know why the mag didn't full eject out of the bottom of the gun. When I took a hold of it, it easily slide right out of the gun.

After checking the chamber for a round (and not finding one) then safeing the gun I again stepped back to do a quick inventory and see if I was hurt some more. I wasn't, the numbness in the my hand dissipated very quickly and other than a new coating of owder residue all over my hands I had no new injuries. But as I was checking my hands I did notice something off to the right of me.

I was able to determine which of these rounds was the first and second fired because the second one was still warm.

I'm pretty sure that these were the culprits in my little escapade

Culprit 1:



Culprit 2:



After this I decided to put the 45 away for the day, and I headed over to the rifle range to shoot there for a while. I have cleaned up the 45 since getting home and I still don't see any visible damage to the gun. I think I'm going to take it to a gunsmith and have him give it a once over anyway. I also called Dad and told him what happpened. He is going to check his hand loads and see what he loaded that batch with. We'll check out the rest of the batch in a few weeks.

Eight Years Ago...

Eight Years Ago....

I was 43 years old. Today, I'm over 50, feeling it, most days. I keep getting junk mail from AARP (which I don't even open). What used to be a daily list of aches and pains that annoyed me have become a regular part of my life. I have officially now lived over half my life with aching knees.

Eight Years Ago....

My oldest daughter was in 5th grade, the twins were in first grade. Today my oldest is a senior in high school. She is making college plans. She drives herself around these days. (When did that little pickup truck that I drove for 20 years stop being my truck?). The twins are in middle school and just two years short of being in high school themselves.

Eight Years Ago....

I hadn't looked at a volleyball game, or a ball for over 5 years. I had limped away from the game when my knees wouldn't let me play anymore. Today, I have been coaching middle school volleyball for 7 seasons. I am the director and a coach at my own volleyball club. This sport has taken over my life in ways that it never could have when I was a player. Eight years ago I didn't even miss the sport. Now, a week without spending time on the court with my players is a bad week.

Eight Years Ago....

I was feeling pretty good about my family's future. My wife and I were doing the right things - living within our means and saving for college and retirement. Today, I'm not so optimistic. Where I used to make plans for retirement, now the only plan I have is to hope I can keep working until I die. Because I don't beleive that our current government will ever allow our economy to recover to the point that the average guys like me will ever be able to retire and maintain any sort of comfortable lifestyle.

Eight Years Ago....

Our president was comic fodder. People made jokes about him. Called him names. Drew comical cartoons depicting him as a monkey. The media loved to ridicule the way he talked. After the 911 attackes the nation ralley around him for a few months. But then rapidly reverted to their old ways. But then some in this nation who didn't think we should fight back against the terrorist who attacked us carried things even further. They started blaming him for the attacks. Then they started blaming him for everything bad that ever happened in the world. Today, our president is an empty suited, smooth teleprompter reading chicago thug who got elected solely on the basis of his skin color. This president and his admiring throng of state controlled news media do not tolerate jokes, ridicule or derision of any kind. If you do not toe the line, smile and agree with every thing he says you are immediatley labeled a racist, a hater, or a domestic terrorist.

Eight Years Ago....

Our national debt was $5,773,172,068,291.89 that rounds off to about 5.8 trillion dollars. Today our national debt is $11,784,424,784,049.61 or 11.8 trillion dollars. (you can get those numbers here.)

Eight Years Ago....

Shortly after the 911 attacks our nation finally woke up and went to war against global terrorism. Today our leaders won't even say the word terrorism, unless it is used to describe staunch conservatives, former military, or anyone else who does not agree with them politically.

Eight Years Ago....

Our military has spent the last 8 years battling against terrorism and the despotic regimes in the world that support terrorism. The line you often here is 'Our military went to war, or nation went to the mall.' Unfortunately this has become too true.

It has been a long 8 years. Many of us swore to never forget the events of 911. I don't believe I ever will. The memories of the anger and frustration I felt on that morning mixed with the concern for the future of my children I don't think will ever fade. My grandparents used to tell me about how they heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor and how that day changed their entire lives. I feel that way about 911.

Eight years ago...

I didn't care that much about politics. I didn't follow world events that closely. I voted and occasionally read the paper. But I knew I was a little fish is a huge fish bowl. So I concentrated on just taking care of my little corner of the bowl. I didn't really believe that my life and livelyhood could be that effected by world events. I was wrong. I still concentrate on my little corner of the fish bowl. But now I watch and pay attention to the rest of the bowl also. 911 and the eight years since then have taught me one thing. I may be just one guy. I may not be able to do much to affect the big old crazy world out there. But if I turn my back on that world and don't keep an eye on it. It can, and probably will, squash me like a bug.

The Government Can

From Tim Hawkins :

Novel California Budget Solutions

As some of you may know that last weekend the State of California held a giant rummage sale in order to try and raise some money for their budget crisis.

I don't think it worked. Because there are a lot of wildfires burning in the state right now. I figure if the rummage sale idea had worked the Governor wouldn't be trying to burn down the state for the insurance money.

Semi Circle of Life

While puttering around on the patio the other day we discovered a grasshopper shell laying under the table.



Looking over and up just about a foot we discovered a spider web that had the fresh new grasshopper caught in the web.



The grasshopper was frantically trying to free itself while the black widow spider was doing her thing. We watched for a while, until the grasshopper finally stopped twitching.

Then we smashed them both with a shoe.

KennedyCare

The ruling class democrats in Congress are trying to capitalize on the death of Ted Kennedy in order to reverse the American citizen's free falling support for their rotten health care insurance scheme. Robert Byrd actually said:

"In his honor and as a tribute to his commitment to his ideals, let us stop the shouting and name calling and have a civilized debate on health care reform which I hope, when legislation has been signed into law, will bear his name for his commitment to insuring the health of every American,"

I think this is a wonderful idea. First off, this is a momentous occasion. This is the first time that Robert Byrd every supported putting a name other than his own on something.

Also, how could we possibly go wrong naming the new health care bill after a drunken fat man.

I'm a Conservative

The phone rings this evening and my son answers. He listens for a moment then walks over and hands me the phone. A pleasant sounding, polite female voice verifies who I am then says that she is from the Republican National Committee and would like to ask me a few questions. Normally this is the point where I say "Sorry I'm busy right now and hang up. But out of curiosity I agreed to answer a few questions.

First question:

"Do you generally consider yourself to be a Republican, a Democrat or an Independent?"

My Answer:

"I'm a Conservative."

The voice on the phone said "Thank you" and she hung up!

I figure this is the heart of the reason why the Republicans lost the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Since when has the Republican Party been afraid to talk to conservatives?

Senator Edward Kennedy

Senator Edward Kennedy died last night at his home in Hyannis Port. I'm sure that there are many people out there who are grieving and will miss this man. They have my condolences for their loss.

As for myself ...

well ...

Grandma always said "If you can't say anything nice ...

How Old?

I stole this from Jay at MArooned

You know you're getting old when you see a cute, approximately-teenaged girl walking down your street and your first thought is,


"Hey! I wonder if she's old enough to... babysit?"

Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R MI)

This is a little long. But well worth listening to. People keep asking who is the next great Republican leader? I don't know if this guy is it, but he certainly should be in the picture somewhere.



Oh, did you see his teleprompter? No? That's because there isn't one.

The government run media likes to talk about what an inspiring speaker obama is. Obama is a great reader. This guy is a great speaker. He blends facts, amusing anecdotes and self deprecating humor with a calm well thought out message. When is the last (or for that matter the first) time you have ever heard our illustrious leader say anything self deprecating? You probably never will. He's too arrogant and thin skinned to risk saying anything that might make him look foolish, comical or likable.

Two Faced?

I never shy away from any opportunity to point out just how two faced almost all of our elected officials in the country are. I have always had a fairly low opinion of most politicians. But some of them are just too duplicitous to believe. Take for example Texas Democratic Congressman Gene Green. From the website OnTheIssues we find that Congressman Green has twice voted against requiring voters to present ID in order to vote.

Voted NO on requiring photo ID for voting in federal elections. (Sep 2006)
...
Reject photo ID requirements for voting. (Sep 2005)

But when it comes to meeting and listening to the people who elected him to office he sings a lot different tune.

Town hall meetings are one of my favorite ways to communicate with constituents. I have held hundreds during my years of service in Congress and always welcomed everyone to attend. Unfortunately, due to a coordinated effort to disrupt our town hall meetings, we will be restricting further attendance to residents of the 29th Congressional District and verifying residency by requiring photo identification. Whether individuals agree or disagree, we must maintain order to have a civil discussion of the issues. While I regret this restriction, it is necessary for the safety and consideration of our constituents. Those who do not reside in the 29th Congressional should contact their Member of Congress to voice any concerns that they may have on issues before Congress.

The emphasis is mine.

Do you think it has ever occurred to this tool what a total hypocrite he is?

I wouldn't count on it. He probably believes that asking a constituent to prove that he really is a constituent before allowing him to ask a question is more important than asking them to prove the same thing in order to vote.

Cheeseburgers

If you like cheeseburgers, and I do like cheeseburgers. Then you need to take a look at this site:



Granted this is an advertising site for Wisconsin Cheese. But what they heck, thirty receipes and 30 days in the month. What more could a guy ask for, except maybe a triple bypass after trying all these delicious looking burgers.

Cash for Codgers

Og over at the Neanderpundit thinks that the "success" of Cash for Clunkers program will lead our neophyte president to to model his new health care program the same way.

You need a service from your health care provider you will have to trade in a codger in order to get that care. Og suspects that they fee schedule may be:

Heart surgery? Two geezers.
Colonoscopy? one geezer or two dogs.
Boob job? five geezers and a bowl of goldfish. And one abortion.
Liver replacement? One geezer and all his clothes, and a cat.

I hope the libs in congress don't read this. They may just like the idea.

More State Senate Subterfuge

If you are one of the few citzens in California who still thinks that your state assemblycritters are working in your best interests I have some bad news for you.

The CA legislature's latest stunt is reminiscent of a child breaking something that belongs to their parents then trying to hide it so Mommy and Daddy will not find out who did it.

So what happened? The CA Legislature passed a budget to heal our 26 BILLION dollar deficit. When the voters had rejected all our elected representatives ideas on raising our taxes we hoped they would fix the problem by cutting spending. Oh, how silly could we get? Sure there are budget cuts in the new budget. But the legislature is not willing to cut the things that we are really wasting money on - like welfare, healthcare and education for illegials, and all the silly green initiatives and government subsidies for green and medical research. So instead of making real cuts that will solve our problems they resorted to accounting gimmicks.

They also decided to cancel a provision to raise revenue by allowing existing off shore platforms to drill new oil wells.

That is where things got hinky.

The new drilling off existing platforms near Santa Barbara was endorsed by the county's board of supervisors last year. Unfortunately this move was being opposed by the state environmentalists and 43% of the voters.

So the same group of people who have destroyed the farm industry in the central valley and a minority of the voters in the state don't want new drilling. So our state Senate voted with the majority in the state and passed the bill last week. But when the bill got to the Assembly things went sour.

Democratic Assembly Speaker Karen Bass claimed that there were only three democratic legislators willing to vote for this bill. So the bill was defeated 43 to 28.

Then, right after the State Assembly voted to NOT allow new revenue to be generated to try and help our state dig its way out of the hole they have spent us into, Democratic floor leader Alberto Torrico motioned for a vote to expunge the record of that vote from the public record. This motion was approved by voice vote.

That's right. We are 26 Billion dollars in debt. Our legislature just voted to deny a new revenue stream from the state. Then they voted to strike the record of that vote from the public record.

Not only are these clowns refusing to do their jobs and fix the ecconomics of this state, but they are now openly hiding what they do from us.

I asked this a while back and I'm going to ask it again. Why are these clowns not standing at home in their bathrooms trying to figure out how to wash tar and feathers out of their hair?

B5 vs Star Trek

OK, if you didn't already know it, I'm a Sci-Fi fan. Some of my favorite shows have been Babylon 5 and the Star Trek series of shows. Now I am not going to get involved in a who would win argument here. As I said, I'm a fan, not a total geek. Besides everyone know that the Star Wars ships would win. OK, so I do have my total geek moments.

Regardless this is a great little fan video.

How Good is Your Passward?

At work we have pretty rigid rules about passwards in our computer systems:

Our passwords must be 27 characters long and contain:
- at least 2 capitols (state capitols, not countries),
- two special olympics contestants middle names,
- 7 numbers (3 odd numbers and 4 even numbers, none of the numbers can be a multiple of 3)

In addition we have to change this password every 4 days and the system keeps a log of old passwords. So you cannot reuse any part of a old password until your 32nd password change.

OK, so I'm exaggerating just a little bit. But not by much. There is one system I have to log into at work that requires a password change every 6 months. Since I only log into this system about 3 times a year I pretty much am required to change my password every time I log in.

All in all the password as a method of security on computers is getting ridiculus. I even have to change passwords every six months on a machine that is locked in a vault and has no connection to any other computer.

And if I thought work was bad, you should try keeping up with passwords if you do any e-mailing or online commenting or shopping from home. The largest book in our house is the one we use to write down all our online shopping passwords.

Now I know many of you (OK, all two of you) will say "Hey dorkface!, just pick one password and use it for everything, and make it clever so no one will guess it."

Well the folks at Whats My Pass? have been doing a little password homework. They have compiled a list of the top 500 common passwords that people like to use.

That list is here! (But don't click on that link if you are easily offended by seeing profanity. Apparently a lot of people are willing to type things into their computers that they would never say out loud in public. But then again I've been to our local high school and listened to the way they talk.

There are some interesting passwords on this list that show how people try to be clever, but even human cleverness is predictable. For example, look at these passwords that I found interesting:

ncc1701 The ship number for the Starship Enterprise
thx1138 The name of George Lucas’s first movie, a 1971 remake of an earlier student project
qazwsx Follows a simple pattern when typed on a typical keyboard
666666 Six sixes
7777777 Seven sevens
ou812 The title of a 1988 Van Halen album
8675309 The number mentioned in the 1982 Tommy Tutone song. The song supposedly caused an epidemic of people dialing 867- 5309 and asking for “Jenny”

“…Approximately one out of every nine people uses at least one password on the list shown in Table 9.1! And one out of every 50 people uses one of the top 20 worst passwords..”

I am pleased to say that I have not used any of the passwords on that list at home or at work. Well except one. Back when I did computer and network support I used number 96 as a default password if I had to reset someone's email password or their account password. But in my defense, that was back in the day when keyboards only had 4 numbers and 13 letters on them. We have come a long way since then.

Not A Clue

It has been a while since I last posted. The club volleyball season is over and I am just starting to get back to a normal life for a month or two. But more on that later.

Our state legislature has officially lost it's mind, gone bonkers, jumped the shark, total lost all focus, pick your euphemism of choice. These people, if they ever knew in the first place, have completely forgotten why they were elected to office in the first place.

Our state is 26 billion dollars in debt. We are spending way more money than we are taking in. Our budget was due last week, the governator is preparing to issue IOUs for state spending because we have no money. So what is our legislature working on?

They have three bills that:

1)create a commission to serve the marketing interests of the blueberry industry.
2)defines "honey" to mean the natural food product resulting from the harvest of nectar by honey bees,
3)adopts regulations establishing definitions and standards for 100-percent pomegranate juice.

WHAT THE HELL?

Why are these morons still employed? Why are they still allowed into their offices? Why are they not at home in their bathrooms trying to figure out how to get tar and feathers out of their hair?

Ignore the fact that the state doesn't need these stupid laws in the first place. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE DAMNED BUDGET YOU IDIOTS??????

He's how to solve this problem. Call the legislature into order, lock all the doors and windows, turn off the air conditioner. Give them a port-a-potty and nothing but chili to eat until they all agree on how to cut 26 billion in spending out of our state budget.

You will notice that there is no provision in that plan for raising taxes, fees, etc. Cut the damned spending! Stop threatening to cut all the stuff that people actually want like parks, police, schools, etc. Cut the waste, cut the liberal bullshit, cut the spending on illegals, get rid of all the spending on climate control garbage, etc.

Until they do, they do not leave that room!

Then once the balance the budget send them home to get real jobs. Tell them they can reconvene for one week every other month. The rest of the time they are on their own. Make them go get real jobs to support themselves.

Nationals Time

It must be time to go to the Starlings Nationals Volleyball Tournament in San Diego.

How can I tell?

Each year the landscaping in my front yard changes when it is time to go to Nationals.









Now I would never try and implicate the dear sweet young ladies on MY team of such devious behavior. But the culprit of this heinous act actually wrote their names on one of the signs.


So we are off to Nationals today. I will try and post updates over at the Ridgecrest Starlings News Site if I have time.

Wyoming Road Rage

A friend sent me a link to this little gem from Sinks Canyon up above Lander Wyoming.