11/12/08

My shotgun ammo arrived yesterday! I'm still laughing about those 000 buckshot rounds. There are three, 0.36” lead balls in each shell. For you metric types, that’s 9.1 mm. That’s like firing three 9 mm bullets with one shot! So technically, my Judge with five 000 shells actually holds more shots than John’s 9 mm! Oh yeah! We’re going to the range tonight! I'm still curious as to how many balls are in the #4 shot shells. #4 shot is 0.13” in diameter and there is ½ oz. of it per shell. I've been firing #6 shot, since that is all I can find locally, and there are a metric butt-load of those 0.11” balls in ½ oz. I can tell you. I told John they had arrived and mentioned going to the range. He wants to stop at Wal-Mart for some .40 caliber ammo and I want to look for a range bag. I'm tired of carrying my Judge and ammo in those plastic “Thank You for Shopping with Us!” bags I've been using. They are so very ghetto! I “smuggled” them out of the house this morning in a “gimme” bag from the Lotus Owners Gathering held here in Fort Worth a few years ago. They actually fit pretty well in there but I need a better ammo containment system. I'll price a bag while we’re buying ammo. Larry says he bought his bag at Wal-Mart a few years ago so we’ll see what’s what. I just went back and re-read yesterday’s entry. I mentioned a “penultimate cylinder in the Judge” but then didn’t tell y'all what happened with the final one. I loaded up three Cowboy rounds and fired them, the end. Ok, so I really didn’t need to tell that, I just wanted y'all to know that I know “penultimate” in that context meant “next to last” and not “the last.” Ok, with that out of the way, I'll tell y'all about the possible new home for Dimlight Racing. I got a call Monday morning from John telling me about a shop he’s looking into. It is 5,500 square feet indoors for $800.00 a month! There is probably enough room for all our shit inside. Pat and I met John there Monday after work and had a look around. The landlord let us in and we grokked it pretty intently. I like it, I don’t love it. I like the size and the price, I don’t like the neighborhood or the oil soaked, black stained, broken concrete floor. Ok, I don’t dislike the neighborhood, it is two blocks north of the fire station where I used to work before being transferred to BNSF, but we did have a homeless problem and I worry about being seen pulling in and out of the shop in Shichi so it is not an ideal neighborhood. I'll be armed whenever I'm there, that’s for sure! The biggest issue is how the rent should be divided. I had gone in thinking “Our Shop” and therefore was thinking an even split of the rent. When John suggested a “more shit=more rent” payment plan, I apparently made a face. Here’s the problem: I don’t really want it to be “my shop.” My shop will degenerate into a mess. I know me. It is inevitable. Another problem with it being my shop is once they are through with their projects and take them home, they have no reason to continue to pay rent. I know eventually I'm going to get stuck with this place, and the whole $800.00 a month rent, unless we make it a community commodity. I have an idea which still puts me paying the most but could make a profit for the place. Of course it depends on how many cars we can get inside and still work around them. I'll need to bounce the idea off of Pat and John because it does make them more like “partners” in the place than just co-renters. In fact, I think I'm going to shut up for today and send them an e-mail outlining my thoughts on the matter, with a spreadsheet, and twenty seven 8x10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was! Have a day.