11/19/10

On Sunday the 14^th, I was awakened by my Dingleberry at 0630 h alerting me to a message. Someone was wishing me a Happy Birthday on FaceBuick. I mentally thanked them and went back to sleep. I won't list how many others woke me up that morning but it was a few. No biggie. Eventually I got up and headed to Gregg's. I'd actually made it a day and a half with $500.00 in my wallet and didn't spend it on something frivolous. Of course as soon as I got to Gregg's I decided that $200.00 would get me up to an even $1,000.00 paid so far and gave him that. He wanted to clear out the stuff around his BMW and roll it outside. I wanted nothing to do with that project. I lied and said mom had a thing for me at 1300 h. I split after we chatted for a bit. On the way home I stopped in Cabela’s and shopped for a gun. I saw nothing I 1) couldn't live without or b) could afford. From there I went to Academy and shopped with the same results. Then I went to Blood Bath & Beyond and bought forty five rounds of Remington .410 00 buck shot, fifty rounds of Blazer aluminum case .45 Colt JHPs, and five Remington 12 gauge 00 buck shot “Managed Recoil” rounds. I'm not sure what “Managed Recoil” means, well I mean I now what it means, I just don't know how they managed to manage the recoil. Is it a lighter load of buck shot? Does it have less powder? Is it both? Hang on, I'm going to try and check them dubya-com Goober search thingies. Well, according to my “research” (AKA blindly clicking on websites until I found a sentence I think answered the question) the answer is: “Both.” There is one less ball of buckshot, 8 instead of 9, and the velocity is reduced. Having shot the Remington “Express” 00 buck in my Auto 5, and not thinking it was that bad, I think these will be acceptable. I have the gun loaded with four in the magazine and one on standby to pop in once I rack the action. It shouldn't take long to have five rounds ready for whoever is in my house uninvited. But I digress. From Blood Bath & Beyond, I went to another Academy and bought a plastic storage case for the .410 rounds and headed home. I stored all the ammo and guns and then... hmm, what did I do then? I don't remember. Well, if it comes to me I'll let y'all know. Monday I had a plan. I was going to get the license renewed on The Seven and Lil' Wiggly, buy new contact lenses, and come in to the office to make sure I wasn't blind-sided by something first thing Tuesday morning. Mom had a plan too. She wanted to come to this side of town and try out the new restaurant by the guy who used to run the Parthenon downtown. I told her my plan and we combined them. We went to the courthouse on Jacksboro Highway and I renewed the plates. We then rolled to Two Brothers Bistro on the corner of Beach and Basswood. It was just as good as I remember the Parthenon being. It was just as expensive as I remember the Parthenon being as well, but damned if it isn't worth it. We then stopped in at the railroad and I came up to my office for a few minutes. Upon learning that I didn't have anything pressing first thing Tuesday, I left. I took mom home and went to buy contacts. Well, I may have taken a nap first, I don't remember. At Luck Optical, (am I getting too many “product placements” in this thing?) I spoke to the cutie behind the counter and she said they’d have to order my ‘tacts. I paid for them and headed back home. I decided to give Elk Castle (this one is NOT an endorsement placement, I assure you!) another chance for my business on their shooting range. I took the 7.62x39 Saiga and two thirty round magazines up there to see if I could shoot them. I walked in and asked if their rifle lane was safe for 7.62x39 ammunition. “Unless it is steel core,” the guy said. “they’re Wolf jacketed hollow points,” I replied. You would have thought I'd suggested using depleted uranium, explosive, or tracer ammo from their vehement denial of permission. “Wolf is all steel!” he said, or something equally ludicrous. I shrugged and said, “Ok, never mind then.” and started walking out. “They sell other ammo up front,” he tried. “No,” I said, “I just won't ever shoot here.” and left. So, suffices to say, if I ever do get around to building in Boyd, I'm going to build a 25 yard shooting range next to the shop. As I was going home, I thought about going to the shop and cutting a bullet in half. The only reason I didn't was I didn't want to waste a round and have my inventory be all out of whack. How anal retentive is that? So I went home and began preparing myself for the return to work. Tuesday morning was the slowest four hours ever. I got in at 0755 h or so and tucked in to reading, sorting, and deleting e-mail. When I was done with that I was sure it had to be nearing lunch time. It was 0900 h! OMGWTFBBQ! I went down and goofed off with Larry for a bit then came back up to my desk to begin this tale. I'm going to stop myself there and call this rant complete. I'll let y'all know what happened over this coming weekend on Monday.