1/5/09

I do not deserve friends like John and Pat. But I'll get to the reason why in a little bit. First off, I want to finish telling about my gun purchases. Remember I told y'all about the Smith & Wesson SW9M pistol I bought? That was the little concealable one with nothing external to catch on a pocket or whatever. Well, I really like it. I'm calling it Slick Willie by the way due to (tee hee, I said doo-doo!) the lack of external accouterments. I took it to the shop and stripped it for a good cleaning. Being a “cheap” gun, and having no external catches, Juan has to knock out a roll-pin to break it down. Fortunately, it came with a roll-pin removal tool (a punch) which doubles as an alignment dowel thingy to line the slide up when re-assembling. I got it all cleaned up and re-oiled then reassembled it. I still like it. John, Pat, and I met up at the shoosting range one afternoon, Wednesday the 31^st I believe. I had all of my guns but didn’t even take the Space Gun out from behind the seat of Fifi. I let John shoot Slick Willie. He turned to me after the first shot and asked, “Are you sure this is a nine?” I said, “Kicks like a mule, doesn’t it?” I still like it. I'd gone to the gun shop where I'd bough the Space Gun to see about spare magazines for Slick Willie. They didn’t have any but the dude had a look at the one which came with the gun. He took it in the back and fiddled with it then manually cycled some ammo through. It worked flawlessly for him. In fact, it has worked pretty flawlessly for me since then as well. I bought a holster from him for it but it turns out it is left handed. I'm not going to sweat it though as I think I have a plan. If ever I “need” to carry holstered guns, I'll carry that one on my left hip for a left-hand draw. I've been shooting it left handed and I'm accurate enough, on center mass. It would be a backup to the backup anyway. In front of that holster, also on my left hip but turned for a right-hand cross-draw, would be the Judge’s holster. On my right hip I'd carry the Hebrew Hammer’s holster in a right-hand draw position. Oh, I also bought a sling for the Space Gun so it would ride on my left shoulder ready for a relatively quick swing up. Bring on the Zombie Apocalypse! Anyhoo, jumping back to the December 31^st trip to the gun range story, after we shot for a while we stood around and discussed the shop situation. Here’s sort of what we kind of came up with. The south side of my garage will get cleared out enough to move Shichi home. Pat’s rental space at Shoreline will get rearranged to be “the warehouse” where we’ll store spare parts and stuff. We’ll probably leave enough room for a car as well. My small space will get emptied and that much rent will be removed from my plate. The shop will get cleaned up and reorganized. All spare parts and those lofts and shelves will get moved to either “the warehouse” or the dumpster. The machine shop area will be better delineated and organized. John and Pat will start paying me rent for a bay each. We’re still cipherin’ and figgerin’ on whether or not we’re going to take down the paint booth walls. I think this plan will work out since it reduces my financial burden but if/when one or both moves out I won’t get stuck with an increased burden like I would have with the place downtown. Besides, it means I don’t have to move either! Ok, having said all that, now I can ‘splain why I don’t deserve friends like John and Pat. They came over Saturday morning and we cleared out the south side of my garage! I now have Shichi parked at the house! All of my licensed, insured, and drivable cars are at the house! I have a choice of four cars to drive whenever I want, at the house! I don’t have to go to the shop to get Shichi anymore. I'm so happy. I've found myself using the garage to leave just so I can see Shichi sitting there. Of course I've used the garage to come in the house for a while, but now I'm using it to exit as well. I have a feeling John and Pat have a bet as to when I'm going to get a garage door opener for that side. I think mom and I are going to replace both doors and get another opener this spring. So there. And with that, I think I'm going to call it a rant for the day.