What's In the Water In Omaha?

Soooo, they've had some shootings in Omaha. The Davis County and Omaha city governments response?

Why, lets have a 'Violence Prevention Week'. It'll be better than having a 'die-in' or candlelight vigil.

We can all hold hands, sing Koombayah, and practice tolerance. All at the same time. Yay!!!

Lets not go after the cretins who perpetrate this kind of violence or anything. That would be like, hard, and stuff.

As Say Uncle noted (with a twist): Call for a Violence Prevention Week; it's what you do instead of something.

More Like Him, Please

Picked this up today perusing the Algorians intertubez.

Seems the great state of Arizona got a little ahead of themselves recently. Used some shady deals to try to get a conviction and got slapped down for it.

Well, the target of prosecution isn't taking it lightly. He's filed a lawsuit seeking damages to his reputation and run through the ringer by a system looking to pin the gun problem in Mexico on someone.

I say go for it. Maybe when it starts hitting these people in the place it hurts most, the pocketbook, they will think twice about ruining someones life before they go off and demean them to the pubic at large.

Straight Out of the 'Only Ones' Files

Comes this little tid-bit from NY about a couple of firefighters who thought they had the magical powers of true 'Only Ones'.

(H/T to David Codrea of War on Guns for his Only Ones files.)

What A Day!!!

Today has been an interesting day, not so much for me, but for my wife.

First the good news. I took my wife down last week to apply for her CCP. Here in SD, it's $10 and a little bit of a wait. They tell you 3-4 weeks, but.....brace yourself for it......hers took exactly one week from application to permit arrival. Can you say 'Damn, that was quick!'?

Now for the great news. Right after I handed her the envelope with her new permit in it, she gave me something better. We are now expecting Little Hazmat. Due date is mid-November. Can you say 'Day-Um!'?

Can You Say 'Crappy Week'?

What a week. Outside of my wife's birthday and subsequent present, it was 'One Of Those Weeks'.

Started off a week ago yesterday by throwing my back out at 9 a.m. Kind of fun needing help to get out of chairs for two days.

Monday started at 5 in the morning with a 3 day exercise. One day of briefings and two days of play. Of that 60 hour period, I got about 15 hours of sleep. I didn't know what day it was until late Wednesday afternoon. Which, coincidentally, was the wife's birthday.

The rest of the week was going so-so until Friday when we discovered that the sofa-recliner I bought a couple of weeks ago was infested with bugs. So I sit here typing this on camp furniture.

Consulted the wife and we decided that we would get a brand new couch this time. We didn't think twice about the last one, as we've bought used furniture before and never had an issue. Before anyone asks, I didn't go down to the store and get up in their faces about it. I bought the couch knowing full well that it hadn't been professionally cleaned, hell it was discounted because of that fact. I did however, go down and let them know about it, just as a warning to be on the look out. They didn't offer, and I didn't ask for, my money back. I wouldn't have taken it anyway, as I bought the couch knowing full well that it hadn't been cleaned. I have lost a lot of things over the years, eyeglasses, ammo, even my wallet a few times, but not my integrity. In my opinion, something that important has somehow been lost over these last twenty years. (I will say that our carpets are so clean right now, you could probably eat off them.)

So. We go down to a reputable store to look for a new couch. We find it, it's great. It's got cup holders, a magazine rack built in, and it reclines to a nice comfy 'swallow you up and not let you go' angle. Plus, it's got what my wife refers to as 'butt magnet', whatever that means. To me, it's either comfy or not. She's got a whole formula worked out.

Anyway, we go to the salesman and go about buying said couch. He goes through and finds out that 'We don't have that model in stock'. Which elicits a double take from me. What do you mean, 'Not in stock'? It's sitting right over there on your floor and you don't have it in the back, all boxed up and ready to go? I can see having something in a sales circular not being in stock, national chains do that all the time. But not having something that's sitting on your own showroom floor? That's too much of a stretch for me. But, I'm trying to be a nice guy here, so OK, fine, how long are looking at here? It's in Denver, a couple of days, a week maybe? Nope. Better than that. One to three weeks, depending on when they get their next delivery from the head warehouse. Great. We get to sit and watch TV for the next one to three weeks on camping furniture, flippin' lovely.

Two upsides here, I guess. They're going to deliver the sofa to the house and put it wherever we want it (for an extra $40), and we get a 5 year warranty that covers any stain we can't get out (meaning they'll come to the house and clean it) for another $40.

Now that it's all said and done, between taxes and 'extras', I paid $800 for a new couch that was on sale for $678, $83 off what retail was.

Maybe this week will be better. I'm expecting my next Form 1 any day now. That would definitely makes things a little better.

The Big Surprise-High Standard Edition

As promised, I had a surprise to offer.

What was that surprise? Well, back at a funshow in January, I picked up a High Standard Crusader Compact. It was slightly(?) used and was in reasonably good condition.

After test firing it to ensure it everything was in somewhat good working order, I had some modifications in mind. Some were necessary, like replacing the recoil spring and rounding the bottom corner of the extractor to help in this department, as when I test fired the pistol, it had issues with getting the last round in battery.

Unlike the Delta, this one didn't need many mods. I had to replace the recoil spring, as I said above, but I also wanted to replace the grips and trigger. My thoughts of putting a different mainspring housing on it were dashed when I found out that the two I bought were each different in size than the factory original.

Some folks may like a parkerized finish, but not me. So, using the last little bit of DuraCoat I had left, I set about refinishing her. I will tell this, the pebble texture on the frame was pure-D-accident. I mixed the DuraCoat too think and it came out in globs. After I found the reducer, the consistency was much better and the slide was a snap to paint.

The only thing I had to send out was the barrel. There's a Wilson Combat pistol down at the funstore that has probably the coolest muzzle crown I've ever seen. So I had my smith put a 30* crown on the barrel. I mean, why pay $3000 for a Wilson Combat pistol with a really cool crown, when I can have the same thing for the cost of shop labor? (Which was $40, by the way.)

So, you may ask, what's the big surprise? Well, this little shooter is not for me. No, this little beauty is a birthday gift. For the most supporting, loving, and caring person I know. My wife.

(In the interest of full disclosure, since she puts up with me, this makes her the most caring and loving person I know.)

P.S. In case anybody's wondering, she absolutely loves her new little heater.