Not that I have monthly inspiration awards, but congratulations to this lady for working through and achieving her goals!
Hooah, and best of luck!
For all you action/techno thriller fans, go see it.
I don’t care if the so-called experts hate it.
“Disobey, and you die.”
Well, let’s see if I can get this all knocked out this time!
I know…other than a short blurb, I’ve been out for a while.
Well, the week after Chip’s birthday weekend it was work as usual…until about mid afternoon. Several of us at work heard a quick boom that had the lights flickering. At first we didn’t really give it much thought. Given the Texas weather, it wouldn’t have surprised us if a blanket of thunder clouds just covered the sky and it was starting to thunder and rain. Then it happened again, in a staccato and rapid succession. This time, my brain entertained the possibility of gunfire…except that the lights were also flickering, which didn’t make sense. Well, I went into full alert and quickly proceeded across my building out and outside to see what could be going on. Ramon pointed it out to me first as he peeked out…a power line was laying on the ground, and lines that were connecting to an adjacent building were popping and throwing sparks. We quickly started to secure power over into my building and shutting down sensitive information. Things worked out and I quickly raised the nearest bay door and called 911, quickly reporting what was going on. Go Navy training!
Sure enough, my building went dark and the power lines violently ripped themselves of the building, igniting insulation and starting a fire. The fire department quickly arrived and the fire was quickly put out.
The magnitude of rebuilding did not set in until much later. That was back in August and we are slowly closing out September. The immediate affected building has had new power distribution architecture installed, the side building rebuilt and a newer and larger capacity set of power flowing from the grid to the building. My building was an affected casualty, as it was originally drawing power from that building. We had made some creative adjustments and had brought some power into about half our plating shops from adjacent buildings and have some machines running. However, most of the shop and my office are still dark and it’s been fun running around. It’s going to feel weird when things return to normal. The plan is to have a pole installed nearby and draw power directly from the grid. No pole yet, but the power architecture in my building is pretty much set and ready to go. All we now need is power coming from a newly installed pole.
So that’s about it with work…as work encompasses most of my life. The rest of my personal life I don’t really say online much anyways…though I have been getting very busy. I will be glad when all my tasks are over, it’ll be nice to breathe easy again!
Though one aspect of my life is shooting…and there was much of it during this time period. The first prominent event was when Christine coaxed her best friend to go shooting. While I was present, Christine ran the show. She taught Jennifer how to run the gun, how to shoot the gun, and keep bullet holes from appearing on her body and the bodies around her. She did very well, and was definitely better than most on the range that were doing all sorts of strange behavior, that is sadly so common at the range these days.
As always, I like shooting by like-minded people as well. Had gone shooting with Tony a couple more times, so he could get some range time tucked into this belt finally. Christine and I also shot with some similar minded folks using a borrowed carbine and our pistols. I know Christine was one of the popular people there for that.
A few months ago, I got approached by Benjamin to do some photo/video work for a team sniper match. I guess people think I take good pictures! I did agree to after checking my schedule for an all clear and did that this past weekend. The weekend before was a whole lot of fun of enjoying family time and some good food! A churrascaria, small Greek restaurant and countryish cafe were all targets of my belly…and we had such good weather too! So I had been in a very light mood despite wearing patience of events at work.
After some hiccups after work, I met up with Benjamin and a few friends that recommended a restaurant. After a beer and some food and introduced to new friends, we headed out over to the range. We did some small talk and I tried to get a feel for the match. We got in late at night and got situated at a bunk house. No sooner than I eased into a bunk that Brett came from somewhere. After a little bit more chit chat, it was taps for me!
The next morning, I arose with no problem and got ready to rock. Just as the sun started peeking over, the vehicles started rolling in. One by one, people started coming up in line and registering before heading back to their vehicles and unpacking all their kit. Anyone who tells me the economy is going down the drain needed to be there. I have to say about a third of the guns out there had a Schmidt and Bender scope on them. Those that don’t know, those are scopes that will sometimes cost more than the rifle itself…even the little scopes!
The match was a WHOLE LOT OF FUN! Which I have to emphasize, because Christine was groaning about her weekend. But NOT ME! I HAD A WHOLE LOT OF FUN!
FUN!
FUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!
The match blew away my expectations. There was some precision long distance shooting, but there was also a lot of dynamics. I think a good number of people were quite ill-prepared. I’m sure everyone in the match was good at laying steady and shooting at a distance. By the afternoon, I was wondering if I could register myself. I would completely fall on my face over 400 yards…but there were many courses that required a spotter’s precise carbine shot, or both pistols. Some people were out of shape, having a hard time running over a hundred yards going from one scenario to another. Each team had to run it once, I had to run it multiple times following team after team with camera or video. It was very exhausting, but I had to keep up. A good number of these guys didn’t have me trying to hard. There were steel and paper targets, a shoot house, shooting from a tower…it was incredible.
By Sunday, some adjustments had to be made to allow the match to fly through as quick as possible. Finally, the scores were tallied and everyone had a good lunch followed by an awards ceremony. Lots of great prizes, the most expensive being an $2,400 gift certificate from a riflescope company…a top of the line one at that.
As quick as it came, it was over just as fast. I had an absolute blast even though I was tired, sweaty, dirty, burnt in about ten different shades of brown and almost dangerously dehydrated. There was lots of shooting around me, lots of adrenaline had good food and met some new friends.
I haven’t been this euphoric since my time in the Navy…and that high eroded away as I realized the “real” world was back upon me. Gotta get ready for work tomorrow, do laundry, clean up, yada yada. I hope I get another chance to do something like this again. So these past two weeks have been great…and now I’m busy again, but hopefully I’ll have power soon and one weight will be off my shoulder.
Anyways, that’s what’s happening in a nutshell!
Regardless of whatever your political beliefs are, Sarah Palin is a big factor for the current moment.
One of the results of this is a sudden fanbase for her. One of these, are the Palin Facts. This is pretty much in the same comedic bout that you see Chuck Norris Facts and Jack Bauer Facts (and if you’re Sean, Chris Hagad Facts).
Well, Christine, bored out of her mind in one of our nation’s fine educational institutions (and I say that with great sarcasm and my eyes just simply cannot roll around in my sockets enough…) had one come from her head and text me.
I did a Google search for it, and did a semi-thorough search through the Palin Facts with no hits.
“[Sarah] Palin doesn’t hunt moose. They run up to her and shoot themselves.”
Who knows, this may be the first time this is posted…if not, oh well. We’re not crazy…just a thought!
This one could be something Sean says about me, so it’s gonna be a Seanism.
Seanism, go!
So yesterday at work, I was filing away some work orders and I had to write down the date. I found myself, every singe time on every single work order, having to deliberately write in “Aug” as I was feeling myself about to write “Oct”…
Weird. And some of you already know what happened to me last October. Two more months to go.