4/6/15

Well, hang on.  I need to go back and see what I had to say last time before jumping into a new story.  Ok, I’m up to speed.  Obviously AOHell worked and Spiderman received the rant last week.  Huzzah!  I did make it to the courthouse and bought new tags for the Seven.  The place was packed but they managed to shuffle us through pretty quickly.  Friday’s plan was to have lunch with mom then spend the afternoon at the shop with the Seven… that fell through on a couple fronts.  First off, “lunch with mom” turned into: pick up prescription, go to post office, go pay water bill, fill mom’s car, and THEN go to lunch.  I was a tad irked when this was revealed as the plan… at 1045h!  I silently went along with it thinking John would be fine without my company or a few more hours.  When we got home from all of that running around, I realized the battery in my phone was nigh dead.  I decided to waste another hour charging it before heading to the shop… since I was “late” already y’see.  Eventually, I shuffled cars and got the Seven out of the garage and headed to the shop.  “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!!!!!!” I yelled when I arrived to find the gate closed and locked.  It was then that I decided I might want to check my phone to see what John had to say about the day’s plans.  There was a text from him, time stamped 1245h, which read, “In case you’re curious, Cross Plains hasn’t changed much.”  I debated opening up the shop and going about the plan but decided to go home instead.  When I got there… wait, that was when I decided to take an hour to charge the phone.  Yeah, I remember now because when John called in reference to my text, “Cross Plains?  When did THAT happen?” I had to hunker down to talk while the thing charged.  Anyhoo, my NEW plan for the afternoon was to go shopping for another Ruger 10/22.  I don’t see that I have ‘splained this idea so I guess I need to do so right quick.  See, I had two 10/22s, one in a stock which looks like an FN PS90, and the other with an ATI Tacticool collapsible stock.  I thought, “Hey, if I had another 10/22 in a plain-Jane stock, I could lay the three of them out and ask, ‘So, which of these guns is one of those evil “Assault Rifles” of which you are so scared?’”  This, of course, was enough impetus to force my dumb ass into getting another 10/22.  I began with an ad on Texas Gun Trader asking for a used 10/22 receiver, bolt, and trigger group since I have a spare barrel and stock.  No one has replied so I decided to go shopping.  I began with pawn shops.  Neither one near my house had one.  Panther City Firearms didn’t either.  Academy Sports and Outdoors had one for $199.00 that I thought about but decided to keep shopping.  The pawn shop next to Elk Castle had one as well.  It was a very nice stainless model with a bull-barrel and Hogue stock.  I wanted it very much.  It was only $285.00 so I gave it some serious consideration.  I decided that I’d check EC first though… since it was right next door.  They had the same wood-stocked model as Academy for $245.00 as well as two with synthetic stocks.  In a monumental case of, “Tim is too stupid to have access to money in a bank account,” I justified the synthetic stocked model thusly: it is cheaper than the one next door, it is new, and I can put my wood stock on it if needs be.  I bought it.  Saturday I swapped trigger groups between the new gun and the Tacticool Takedown so I could a) fit the thing in the Seven, and 2) file the titty off of the new bolt hold-open.  See, Ruger, or more likely Ruger’s lawyers, insist on selling 10/22s with a BHO one has to manually release.  It is a pain in the ass and everyone hates it.  There are replacement BHOs which fix this issue but upon looking at them, it is just one little titty which needs filing to make the thing automatically release when the bolt is pulled.  The TG in the Takedown has already been done; I needed to do the TG in the new gun.  At the shop, John got to work adding “Hockley” to the driver’s seat of the Seven while I got to work removing the zorst.  With the muffler on the bench, we managed to get the center section out only to discover that the factory packing was NOT blown out as I had expected.  We repacked it with pink fiberglass insulation anyway.  With it back together, we fired it up.  It is much deeper sounding and definitely quieter… for now.  We’ll see how long it lasts.  After we finished doing all we were going to do, we went to Mexican Inn for lunch.  I drove the Seven without earplugs for the first time in years.  It was quite nice.  After lunch I went for an hour hoon to see if the added “Hockley” helped.  It did… unfortunately it is kind of moo since my bladder is only good for about an hour anyway.  At least now I’m in a different kind of pain causing me to stop hooning.  Sunday was a total waste so I’m not even going to go into it.  And that gets y’all caught up… oh, except for the LTD wagon.  Ok, first off I told y’all about the wrong wagon.  The one John and I found was a 1973 with a 400 small block, not a 1977 with a 460 big block.  I did see a ’77 big block somewhere but… well, not important.  Thing is, John has talked me down from that cliff edge.  What we’re going to do now is de-Hello Kitty Scooby Two and try to sell it.  John is not going to let me touch the money.  We will then find a cabover van to buy since that is what I really want.  Oh, we’re also going to sell the Spitfire since John has sold the engine we had in mind for that car.  Probably for the best.  And THAT gets y’all caught up.