3/9/15

Well, Thursday was another, “Scooby Two has failed me again and Fiona won’t make it up the street so Tim’s not going to work,” day.  It snowed its ass off Wednesday night/Thursday morning and the hill in front of my house was not navigable… with 300+ horsepower, rear wheel drive, and summer rated tires that is.  It was quite pretty though.  I gave up on the pretense of staying dressed for work much earlier than the previous Monday.  I was comfortable by 1100h rather than 1500h the week before.  Friday was clear but it up-fucked my sense of time pretty severely.  Saturday morning, John picked me up and we went to Northern Tool and Supply to look at lights for the Chickenhawk.  We decided on six taillights and two lights for the grille.  After leaving I asked, “I wonder if they have batteries.”  We walked back in and were directed to the battery area where we chose one for Scooby Two.  I bought it as well, obviously.  From there we went to the shop where we played with the lights for a bit.  The taillights we chose are going to work perfectly!  They fit the hole in the beaver panel almost exactly… well, width wise at least.  We have a plan in mind for their installation so we moved on to the grille.  We had a look at it and decided to go to the hardware store for a pair of 4” PVC pipe caps.  We found them and brought them to the shop.  The lenses fit the caps perfectly.  I was quite chuffed.  We had a look at cutting the grille to fit the caps but the biggest hole saw I had was 3.25” whereas we needed 4”.  I headed back to the store to buy a 4” hole saw but they didn’t have one.  We gave up on that project for the day and moved on to installing the battery.  Once John installed a bracket to secure the slightly too narrow battery, we called it a day.  Oh wait, no we didn’t.  We had a look at John’s rear suspension and came up with a plan to make the shock mounts work a little better.  THEN we called it a day.  We had lunch at Mexican Inn and then I took the dead assed battery back to Northern for my core charge.  The guys at Northern were eye-fucking Scooby Two pretty hard.  Made my day.  I hooned a bit on the way home and then hung out doing nothing important the rest of the day.  Sunday, mom and I went to Saltgrass for dead cow.  I dropped her at the door and waited while she walked across the slick pavestones.  A gentleman of color offered her his arm to help her and I noticed that the lady with him works here at the railroad.  I parked the car and went in to join mom.  After we ate, I stopped by Joyce’s table to acknowledge that I’d seen her and to thank him for helping mom into the restaurant.  After dropping mom off at home, I took Fiona to get gasoline then Wal Mart to buy cat food for the railroad cats.  I had a look at their ammo selection but wasn’t about to pay $1.00 a round for .223 ammo.  I bought the food and went to Academy… because I’m a dumbass who cannot have money in my checking account for any length of time.  I perused their ammo aisle and was just about to give up when some Monarch steel-cased .223 ammo was pointed out to me.  It was $5.50 for 20 rounds but there were only two boxes on the shelf.  I considered it but then said, “Yeah, there’s a gun show next weekend.  Besides, I ‘need’ 200 rounds, not just 40.”  The guy stocking the shelf said, “Hang on, here’s a full case.”  He pulled out ten boxes for me and called my bluff.  I bought them.  I took them home and loaded up the five 40-round magazines for the Tavor.  Oh yeah, I also acquired a couple old video projector bags last Friday.  I used one to consolidate all of the Mosin Nagant ammo and parts into a convenient package to free up space in my sock drawer.  Don’t ask.  While thinking about making “Gun Kits” I had a look at that gun mat I sewed into a little pouch.  I put the SARK, a holster for it, its two spare mags, and the holster for them in it as my “car gun kit.”  Oh, I loaded all the magazines as well but will have to do an “Israeli Draw” if I ever need to use the thing.  “Israeli Draw” is where one racks the slide upon drawing because the gun is holstered without a round in the chamber.  I just don’t trust single-action guns with one in the pipe.  Yes, SARK is a double/single-action but it doesn’t have a de-cocker and lowering the hammer on a live round is just asking for a negligent discharge.  I’d rather take my chances with the “Israeli Draw” thankyouverymuch.  Anyhoo, I will probably use one of the other projector bags instead of… or maybe in addition to, the sewn rug thingy to be a little less conspicuous.  We’ll see.  So, I guess that’s about all I have for y’all today.  We’re talking about considering the possibility of looping-back to the idea of maybe adding a weeknight to the shop schedule again.  I’m planning to see just how long it takes me to get there after work on Wednesday to see if it is even possible.  I’ll let y’all know Thursday.