RIFLEMAN'S JOURNAL - JUNE 2005

Hm, this place is very near the Big Electronics Store, that could be dangerou$. Well, I still have some willpower.

Sis emails, it'll cost her $485 but she'll get her Cadillac back. The minivan lady's insurance will pay the other $2,915. This strikes me as unfair to Sis, but suing somebody would probably be more trouble than it's worth.

Interesting article on Gunfolk in Reason, the libertarian magazine.

849 - Thursday, 2 June 2005: Okay, I guess it'll do. Packaging, and some computer work, kinda like the Infamous Shampoo Warehouse, but already more than that place ever got ‘round to paying me. Lousy commute though. Should net about $280 a week, that'd get the rent paid by the 17th, and with steady income everything else should be back under control not long after.

8am to 4:30pm, half-hour lunch. So a half-hour less traffic.

850 - Friday, 3 June 2005: Shrug, work. Slow day, released about 4pm, beat the worst of the traffic. Fifty-four miles daily round-trip commute. Corolla seems to get good mileage though, and local ARCO prices creeping downward, $2.23 yesterday, $2.19 today.

Okay, as if I didn't have enough stress in my life - the cable company calls in response to my job application, they want a phone interview! And I dial the number given - and I get a "disconnected" recording.

Extra-mega :-/

Phone neighbor who works there - no answer. And now it's 5pm on a Friday. I'll talk with her about it this weekend and try again Monday.

Now, rifle practice for the weekend? Yes, I think so - back to the bench to eliminate equipment failure as an excuse, I think I overreached last time. Was flinching by the end of the session. Fortunately I didn't use much ammunition then. So, 25 yards to see what the bayonet does to the FR, then 200 and 300 from the bench with the Mosin and Albanian.

Later, neighbor calls from work, gets the scoop, researches, calls back - digits were transposed. Called, left voicemail.

851 - Saturday, 4 June 2005: Zzzz....

Paycheck, sixty bucks for a day's box-heaving. Groceries.

Vegging on library DVDs.

852 - Sunday, 5 June 2005: Rifle practice! ...Or not. Cowboy Match today, and a bit of rain, and I still need to conserve things like gas money, hm. Wimping out. Garand Match next Saturday - will try Sunday the 12th.

Clockwork Orange again: UK's Socialist ("Labour") Party wants to ban beer glasses, because they can be broken to produce sharp edges. I guess rocks and sticks are next. This story is linked through a British Resistance site, browse around and see the other useful stuff he's got. They'll probably burn his flat down any day now.

Gresham's Gun Talk, on California's plan to put serial numbers on bullets. People are actually taking this seriously? Back in Kipling's time, the bad guys would hammer projectiles out of telegraph wire. I really must get some molds and a melting pot.... What, are they gonna make lead a controlled substance? All one has to do is hop over to Nevada and stock up (instant black market in ammo smuggling) - hm, they'll probably end up controlling California's northern and eastern borders more rigorously than the southern. Zillions of illegal immigrants are okay, but law-abiding citizens exercising their Constitutional rights are baaaaaad.

853 - Monday, 6 June 2005: Today is the 61st anniversary of the Normandy Invasion. For those unfortunate public-schooled souls who can't figure out what the fuss is about, I recommend Jospeh Balkoski's Omaha Beach.

Off work early again - I think they're not used to having someone who actually Makes an Effort and are surprised when the Work Gets Done. (Like I haven't seen that before.) Rush back to hovel... and the cable company has not left a message for a phone interview. :-\

Mail - sis sends money. (I sincerely hope this is the last time that will be necessary....) That plus the 10th's paycheck will cover rent, and the 17th's check (assuming I work a full week at the box-stuffing place) will cover car insurance and new phone bill.

Decompress a bit, phone cable company rep - voicemail.

Later, $20 gas - one Portland ARCO $2.15, others still $2.19, everyone else higher. Corolla seems to get quite good mileage, has maybe a 15 gallon tank.

Big SCOTUS ruling against medical marijuana - and "eeeeevil arch-conservative" Clarence Thomas dissents, having actually read the 9th and 10th Amendments (Go look it up). Anyway as it stands now, it's a chilling ruling for anyone who likes privacy and the idea that they can do or make or have anything in the privacy of their own homes. The commerce clause in Article I, Section 8 of the federal Constitution is being stretched way out of shape. With this ruling as precedent, Congress can regulate damn near anything, anywhere. And that's a Bad Thing.

Meanwhile, Dino Rossi calls it quits in the Washington Governor's race debacle. Also meanwhile, the mayor of Spokane, mired in gay-sex and office-misuse allegations, is being called on to resign by... fellow Republicans. See the end of entry #481 for my previous comment on such situations and how the two parties handle them. If the mayor was in a heterosexual scandal instead, a leftie mob would've torched his house by now, but the gay angle must have them all confused.

854 - Tuesday, 7 June 2005: Again no word from cable company. That job was probably filled by someone who didn't already have a day job and could therefore answer the phone. Applied for two more, just posted today - or I would have if their site didn't barf. -Later, done.

855 - Wednesday, 8 June 2005: As Keanu Reeves would say, Whoa! Messages from the cable company and the second temp service! Latter first - some kind of position in Forest Grove, even further out than where I'm working now, and via a worse freeway. Now the cable rep - schedule interview for Monday morning. Early Monday morning, as early as 6am, ick, but if they hire me it's gotta pay better than stuffing boxes. Will leave message with cable rep tomorrow to make appointment after arranging with box-stuffing job to get the day off or to come in later.

Meanwhile, Big Traffic Problem on I-5 southbound hours after a truck lost a Big Roll of Sheetmetal. Left early again, and on a different freeway, avoided.

GGYYAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! Stress! Job interview anxiety. At least I'll have the weekend to prepare.

There's a radio at work, and someone usually tunes it to the Alternative Rock station - which, during their morning show, has the Jon Stewart report, which of course it blatant leftist drivel. I've started tuning it to a Country station, 'cause I'd rather listen to Rednecks who love America than a bunch of slacker, junkie, commie punks who hate it.

856 - Thursday, 9 June 2005: Looks like most of my box-stuffing days will trend toward seven hours. Hm, pay vs. traffic. OTOH I have an interview Monday with a job that has to pay more, and will have a much shorter commute. Arranged to come in late Monday, left voicemail setting interview 6am on the 13th.

New Clark Rifles newsletter - I am officially listed as taking 2nd Place in the centerfire autoloader division of April's Plate Match. I'll take it.

857 - Friday, 10 June 2005: Called into manager's office at box-stuffing job - slightly freaking that I might be leaving. Well, gosh, I've only been there seven working days and I'm driving 54 miles a day in an old beater car and here's a possibility of having a job that pays lots better and is much closer to the hovel. Hmm.

Ugh, Friday afternoon traffic.

Mail - ouch, $75 late fees for rent. Paycheck, $123.68, that'll take care of the base rent but the late fee will have to wait for the next paycheck. Enclosing a note to that effect.

So the supermarket has these pouches of high-end juicy cat food in the clearance bin and I get a couple. And Fuji's gravity feeder is empty before I chuck him outside for the day on my way to work. And I get back and he's all a-quiver at the door naturally and I decide to give him one of these pouches as a treat. And he licks up all the gravy and scatters the meat bits all over the floor. Weirdness, thy name is cat.

No word from cable company, I guess the interview is on.

858 - Saturday, 11 June 2005: Eh, looks like he went back for the meat chunks later.

Zzzz. Deposit paycheck, mail rent check, off to Barberton. The usual there of course. Deal O' the Show, genuine Springfield Inc. M1A (synthetic stock, no bayonet lug), $550. Cruffler lurking vulture-like over the happy purchaser, whose hands it never left. I bought, for $5, three MTM 20-place cartridge carriers, .308 size, flip-top with belt clips. Got surplus hot dogs.

Rainy. No shooting today, with the Garand match on the 300-yard line that I want to use - might wimp out tomorrow too and try next weekend, when I might justify the expense of some .323 and even .312 projectiles to load for the VZ and the Mosin.

Topped off gas, Vancouver ARCO $2.13, Portland $2.15. Some individual ARCOs a couple cents cheaper.

For the Mauser I think I'll go with 150gr again, to keep the recoil down. (With sis' Caddy trouble it looks like she might not make it to the PIG after all - eh, there are other matches, like the Allies vs. Axis, 19 November.) Out of Accurate 2230 powder but have a full can of IMR4064, some W748, half a jug of H380, and lots of data. Later I'll work up a 175gr load. 150gr for the Mosin, to duplicate the Warsaw Pact stuff I've been using. Sierra Pro Hunter for both. Yes, wimp out this weekend, buy bullets Friday, load test batches that night and try them on the 18th/19th. Woops - Cast Bullet match on the 18th, but the 19th is open according to the newsletter. Hm, handgun plate match on the 26th, and I've learned that factory FMJ is allowed on the steel targets used in the match (though still not on the small practice plates on the regular handgun line). Might be able to blow $30 on a UMC MegaPack by then.

At the show I saw some USGI holsters, original and/or reproduction. One table had two, one marked "US" and the other "USMC". And that's good, certainly. ...But I'd kinda like to see one marked "CS".

859 - Sunday, 12 June 2005: Zzzz.... Watching the second season of 24, not bad at all.

Methodically freaking out about job interview way-too-effing-early tomorrow. Gaaaaahhh.

In the news: An editorial in The Washington Times, describing the decline and fall of Switzerland; a nice column in defense of the 2nd Amendment; a JPFO alert on recent blueshirt behavior; even more Clockwork Orange; and the prize, a gun club in Sacramento is following Ronnie Barrett's shining example and banning blueshirts and their totalitarian kind! Out-by-gods-standing. I'm gonna bring that last one to the attention of my own club. Backlash, baby! Unfortunately the new president of that club appears to be in that county's sheriff's department, hmm.

Slacking on email again.

Studying the old double - aha, I can make firing-pin return springs by cutting down the spring from a ballpoint pen. Protrusion somewhat reduced, will have to live-test to make sure I still get good ignition. Fortunately I have some low-power smokeless loads already made.

24's main character's (fake-)blond daughter gets herself into more improbable predicaments than C3PO. It begins to wear. The rest of the story makes up for it though, with plot twists and betrayals and who's-on-which-side and what-are-you-willing-to-do. And leftist bias is conspicuously absent! I'm amazed this sort of thing is on broadcast TV, I can see why Limbaugh and Savage like it.

860 - Monday, 13 June 2005: Speaking of blueshirts, the local ones seem to take a perverse delight in running their "woopity" sirens all through the night, dusk to dawn, as though they were deliberately trying to disrupt people's sleep. The neighbor who works swing shift has considered keeping a log.

Up far too early, trim beard, pick out nice shirt and best pair of jeans. Gaaaahhhhh. Off to cable company. -Survived interview, too stressed to have any objective idea how I did. Made it to box-stuffing job on time, another 7-hour day there. No messages waiting at the hovel.

American Rifleman - article on new IMR Trail Boss powder, for Cowboy Action loads in high-volume cases, might be just the thing for subversion loads.

861 - Thursday, 16 June 2005: Work, bleah. No word from cable company. Will phone the man who interviewed me on Monday if I haven't heard by then.

Just realized I'm late on storage rent. Barely six hours today - one of the big routine customers has gone away and there's Even Less to Do for someone used to getting things done. And again I'm going two or three times as fast at Most Things as Most Other People. (Eh, I'd still get everything done in six hours even with that other customer. At least I'm beating traffic.) Manager of the place praises my work, says my immediate supervisors are very pleased and want me to stay, manager is upset I might have a better job. -Anyway with effectively-reduced hours I'm getting less money, and with the late fee for hovel rent, presumed late fee for storage rent, and quite possibly some parts needed to address the grinding/scraping noise the Corolla makes when braking (I hope it's just brake pads, but I can't afford anything at the moment and it'd be pointless to even look ‘cause I'd still have to drive it to work), things will still be tight for a while. Should squeeze through though.

And Independence Day is coming. Fireworks stands being erected. Have some leftovers from Cruffler's place last year. Was kinda thinking of going up to be with the family, not least SuperPatriot brother-in-law, but between car and money I'll likely end up at Cruffler's again. Eh, he grills a decent burger. -Um, gotta make another stack of the Declaration of Independence, for the local library's brochure shelves and various other places. Might have some leftovers in fact - ah, found 'em, maybe a hundred.

Nifty article on MensNewsDaily.com (I found it linked through Cox & Forkum) on what John Stossell said about capitalism and liberty being the cure for most Third World ills.

Watching I, Robot via library. Even less resemblance to the original story than Starship Troopers.

862 - Friday, 17 June 2005: Another 6-hour day. Paycheck, 35.5 hours last week, $260.10 net, 27% taxation. Car insurance, hovel late fee, storage rent, food, fuel, sigh. (At least gas prices are still dropping, now $2.11.)

Starting John Ringo's latest, Into the Looking Glass, yum. Some plot similarities to Stargate at first glance, but written by a certifiable anti-commie who also happens to write pretty durn good. First in a new series. In the stack, Warp Speed and sequel The Quantum Connection by überegghead Travis S. Taylor, technical advisor for ItLG and on whom one of that book's protagonists was plainly modeled, judging by the About blurb. (All Baen of course.) (Speaking of Starship Troopers, another of ItLG's protagonists, a Command Master Chief SEAL, reads it "once ritually before every overseas assignment". I like Baen and the people he publishes.) In hold queue, Never Call Retreat, Gingrich & Forstchen's conclusion to their alternate WBtS trilogy (Gettysburg, Grant Comes East).

Work: it's hard, these days, to find people who can read and count. Reading comprehension, problem-solving abilities, plain sense, are alarmingly and increasingly rare. As is a grasp of the American language. :( And computer skills? Fuggedaboutit.

And gods, I'm getting sick of boxes.

Not enough $lack to buy projectiles, no loading, no practice this weekend after all. Eh, zzzz. Besides the car's making noise and demands attention.

Ringo writes better than Weber, stylistically. Cleaner, more economical. (Not that I'm going to skip the next Honor Harrington or Prince Roger installment, or even the Hradani for that matter.) Meanwhile, his Opinions are showing, and I share most of them. As for the story, it's a page-turner.

Random: a couple weeks or so ago Ted Nugent was on the Sean Hannity radio show on location and The Nuge said "Being born American is a gift from God." And the crowd cheered. Theological details aside, I reached the same conclusion in #839. Sure, I'm in a bad way with money and all, but most of the pitiful peasants in the world would swap with me in an instant.

Meanwhile, Kevin Starrett of OFF is following up on the Incident last month. If I ever get a good, steady income again, I'll send OFF twenty bucks every month ‘til I escape to Wyoming.

...Which at the moment seems as far away as Monticello. :(

863 - Saturday, 18 June 2005: Zzzz.

Snrk. Must look at car. Jack it up, remove right front wheel (I think that's where most of the noise is coming from) - nothing obviously wrong, though the brake pads look rather thin. Other wheel - aha. On the left front, the whole span of the brake disk is shiny, and the pad is noticeably thicker than the right. On the right, the pad is really thin and only half the width of the disk looks properly scrubbed. So, new brake pads (for both sides of course). Schuck's appears to have them in stock for $18, I can $queeze that out. Haynes manual shows what seems like an easy-enough installation, but requiring a large C-clamp I don't have - hike six blocks to hardware store for that, eight bucks, eh, there's been times I wanted a really big C-clamp. Carefully drive out, get parts, follow instructions - installed - test drive - seems okay. Slight damage to right-front disk where the pad wore all the way down, worry about that later, check rear brakes later. New pads vastly thicker than what I pulled off, had a little trouble getting the calipers back on. Now I feel better about that 54-mile daily commute to the box-stuffing job, now that I'm not grinding metal every time I put my foot down. Might try the trek to Everett for Independence Day after all, dunno. Cars, gaaahhhhhh. But it's just so good to have one.

Topped fuel, $2.09 at a particular station. I have also learned that this car can do that 54-mile commute, plus library and such, for a whole week on a single tank of gas. Gauge still acting funny but works properly below 1/2, shrug.

Ripped through Into the Looking Glass, extra-yum for Culture Warriors (our side - even something for Cruffler (who cordially detests science fiction), cameos by Barrett (go buy one 'cause Ronnie deserves gunfolk's business) .50s and a .577 T-Rex and a 20mm Lahti), looking forward to next installment. Starting Taylor's Warp Speed, also yum.

Caught up on email, I think.

864 - Sunday, 19 June 2005: Somehow I don't think it's coincidence that Gay Pride rallies occur on Father's Day. It's a millennia-old tactic, going back beyond the Romans, usurping the date of an established religious or cultural event to overwrite it with a new one.

Zzzz.

Ripping through Warp Speed as well, which also contains tasty Culture War stuff. Protagonist, obviously modeled on the author, explicitly pro-RKBA in one action sequence. (Later, Clinton is specifically and directly bashed on foreign policy.) Some preaching, too, on various topics from health care to meteor defense, but what the heck, I'm in those choirs (unlike the sermons of S.M Stirling...). Writing style slightly unpolished perhaps, but that's nitpicking (eh, it's written in first-person, call it a style exercise like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress), great story, hard to put down. Planet-wrecking scale too. Baen & Co. are culture warriors, gleefully using their entertainment medium as a weapon, ramping up particularly in the last few years with Ringo, Flint, Weber, and new-guy Taylor. Glad they're on my side. Starting sequel.

Big thunder-and-lightning show this evening, right at sunset. The whole sky was red.

865 - Monday, 20 June 2005: Phone cable company from work - the person who interviewed me is on vacation. :-/ Will phone the first person there who called me tomorrow, didn't have that number handy.

Corolla's air conditioning works after all.

Halfway through Taylor's The Quantum Connection, not sure I like it as much but still can't put it down. Technical writing-style nitpicks fading.

866 - Tuesday, 21 June 2005: Phone other person at cable company - "won't know anything for at least another week." :-\

Boxes. Making boxes, filling boxes, opening boxes, stacking boxes, heaving boxes, sometimes it feels like every other job I've ever had was with BOXES, BOXES EVERYWHERE, BOXES FROM EVERY ORIFICE, BOXES IN MY DREAMS, GOOD GODS I'M SICK OF BOXES! [twitch]

Ah, finally Fuji's asking to go outside again. With every turn of the seasons he seems to forget there's a Big Litter Box.

Finished The Quantum Connection. Entertaining, but somewhat dissatisfying - there was some essay on science-fiction writing, where the heroes of the stories fit certain categories, like having access to overwhelmingly superior technology - I have the same reservations about TQC as I do about the Skylark series, past a certain point it's kinda like playing a game with all the cheat codes and then what is the point? Ringo's Into the Looking Glass was more my flavor. Starting Interstellar Patrol II, Baen (of course) reprint of Christopher Anvil edited by Eric Flint - which may be more of the same, really. In the stack, another Baen/Flint reprint, Imperium by Laumer, his multiple-timelines universe (intro by Harry Turtledove). ...Aaaand, now I know where the Sci-Fi Channel ripped off Sliders from, right down to the CroMags.

And about Sliders - there was a show that started out pretty durn good, and got crappier and crappier with every season and almost with every episode.

On second though I'll read the Laumer next, I always have liked his stuff.

867 - Wednesday, 22 June 2005: Gaaahhhh! Message waiting from cable company - call back - second-stage phone interview, gaaahhh. They'll be going over the files and selecting people "in a couple days."

Cruffler officially invites me to his place for Independence Day, tells me to bring strung-together fireworks.

Laumer's Imperium has it's moments:

"Civilized man," [an alternate Manfred Rittmeister, Friherr von] Richthofen [who in the Imperium's home timeline is chief of the Imperial German Intelligence Service, part of the Anglo-German Imperium founded, not least on the basis of cross-temporal travel, 1 January 1900] said, "has a responsibility. His is not the privilege of abdicating the position he holds as leader in the world. His culture represents the best achievements so far made by man in his long climb up from primordial beginnings. We have inherited the fruits of the struggle to master hostile nature, to conquer disease, to harness natural forces; we are less than true men if we allow these achievements to be lost, to leave vast areas to the ancient enemy, ignorance, or worst of all, to lose by default our hard-won position, to retreat before the savage, the backward in the name of enlightened social ideas. We have a duty to perform; not to narrow nationalistic policies, not to false ideas of superiority based on religions, social position, untenable racial theories, skin color; but to mankind, that all shall benefit from the real superiority of our western culture, which is bringing man up off his knees into the light of his glorious future."

This was published in, and set circa, 1961AD. Frankly, I like Laumer's version better than Kipling's. The protagonist, an American diplomat plucked from his native timeline because he's the alternate of a rapacious dictator of a hostile timeline who's making war on the Imperium's timeline(s) (hijinks ensue), had this to say:

It sounded like a campaign speech, I thought, but I couldn't argue with it. I'd seen enough starving babies during my duty in the Orient to feel no patience with the policy of letting backward peoples suffer under the rule of local bosses, just because they were local. "Self determination of peoples" they'd called it. A lot like self-determination of kindergarten kids dominated by a bully. I preferred a world in which every human born had a chance at the best humanity had learned, rather than being sacrificed to the neuroses, hatreds, manias and over-compensations for inferiority of petty provincial leaders.

What we lacked, back in my world, I thought, was a sense of responsibility, and the courage to assume the burden of leadership. Here they hadn't hung back; right or wrong, they couldn't be accused of vacillation.

I don't much like President Bush; some of my reasons are Constitutional, like the PATRIOT Act, others are conservative, like illegal immigration and foreign aid. But at least he's stepping up and doing something.

Slacking on email again.

868 - Saturday, 25 June 2005: Sis visiting this weekend! Got her Cadillac back, happy. More Greyhound (and Tri-Met) horror stories.

Up to Clark Rifles - .22 and .357 practice, sis has talent. Not enough time before the PIG for her to develop a tolerance for highpower, though she is considering a Mosin (and who wouldn't, they're dirt-cheap and Russian-tough and surprisingly accurate). (Might get her ready for the Allies vs. Axis in November.) One of her friends I met up there already has his, I'm sending my 7.62x54R NO-GO headspace gauge back with sis for him to use - probably it'll be fine, Century Arms generally checks them for headspace before distributing them (and the Soviet arsenals they were refurbished in no doubt did the same), but it's always nice to be sure. (Tip: Dremel a notch in the side of the rim of the Mosin headspace gauge to clear the extractor. I believe someone is marketing a disk- or washer-style headspace gauge for rimmed cartridges like the Mosin's, which if I recall correctly also has such a cutout.) Sis tried my Mosin again, did very respectably indeed for someone who doesn't have the recoil tolerance I spent months developing. Sending my copy of Fred's Guide back with her too. (BTW, we used some of the Hungarian yellow-tip heavy ball instead of the Albanian. At only 25 yards it seems to have about the same trajectory, but a different point of impact of course, in this case quite a bit left. Firearms must be sighted-in for the particular load they will use, duh. My 91/30 is presently zeroed for Albanian light ball.)

Shopping for various stuff, stopped at Sportsman's Warehouse - they didn't have .311" Sierra Pro Hunters in 150gr! They did have 125s, I might go back for those later and make an even lighter-kicking load just for competition (and even a 125gr Sierra soft-point, at Mosin 91/30 speeds, should be plenty for deer - Sierra's data for that weight mostly tops out at 2,700fps for ~2,000fpe, one maximum load (with H380) goes 2,900 for ~2,300, all of which beats the snot out of any .30-30 Winchester load in the book, and .30-30 has always been considered adequate for deer). Besides my Mosin has a Mojo MicroClick sight, so I don't have to duplicate any particular government's official trajectory. Got one box of 150gr .323" for the VZ, will develop a 175gr elk load some other pay period. Will load up some during the week and test them next weekend, probably with IMR4064 if the Lee bench-mount powder measure works properly with it. Gotta start practicing for the PIG, and rebuilding my own recoil tolerance, which has slipped some. And there's always MidwayUSA for mail-order projectiles. Meanwhile I still have more than enough Albanian for practice and the match.

SW was also out of Speer plastic bullets and plastic cases for .38 practice loads, low-power primer-only stuff which can even be used indoors - featured in the Speer #10 manual, which also gives plans for making a cardboard-and-rubber bullet trap. They did have an empty space on the shelf for them, and .44s in stock. These plastic things might also be quite useful for subversion - $ome other time. Didn't notice if they had the new high-volume Trail Boss handgun powder, which sounds perfect for the subversion loads I have in mind, will look next paycheck.

Hm, Sierra's data for the Mosin with 125gr shows a starting load (with IMR4064) at 2,500fps with 1,735fpe, which matches the energy of .30-30 maximum loads in the same book. And it should be easier on my shoulder than the Albanian stuff I've been using.

In email, other sis invited me up for Independence Day (and gave job-interview tips - she's in HR with her company) but, since the Corolla still needs some work (and since Cruffler has offered a bribe in the form of a fireworks subsidy for my popular progressive pyrotechnics) I'll probably be going to Cruffler's place instead of trekking 200 miles in holiday-weekend traffic to be with the family. If the car were in better shape and I weren't still recovering from a bad round of unemployment I'd probably make the trek, brother-in-law reportedly puts on quite the show. Will swing by Cruffler's after work next week for the subsidy and start stockpiling, try to avoid the last-minute thing this year. Stands open for business, like, yesterday. Some still setting up.

Gas prices spiked for the weekend - local ARCO $2.09 Thursday, $2.15 today. $2.13 in Vancouver on the way back from the range. -While sis filled her Caddy there, met a former co-worker from the Infamous Shampoo Warehouse, who is now doing Better. Wish I could say the same, but there's the cable company, that'd be a 25% raise over box-stuffing just for the trainee position.

869 - Sunday, 26 June 2005: Sis on her way with more targets to brag about. (Later, email, arrived safe.)

Gresham's GunTalk today, and guest host for Larry Elder on Friday, callers to both shows predicting "a thousand little Wacos" resulting from the recent SCOTUS ruling against property rights. (In fact GunTalk talked about little else for the whole show.) Same topic also burning up the gunfolk mailing lists - lots of crossover between gunfolk, tax protestors, property-rights advocates, and the like. This is bad, bad, bad. With this as a precedent, combined with the recent medical-marijuana decision which grossly distorted the commerce clause, nobody owns anything anywhere unless the government says so. Great Jefferson's Ghost, this is bad!

[rant] New neighbors, since about one week - leaving a bicycle and a baby stroller in the driveway blocking my Toyota, tossing used diapers over their porch rail in the general direction of a large cardboard box (okay, they've stopped that for the moment), and frequently Raising their Voices at each other. Also some loud music. And... they're black. And society today has reached a state where anybody who says anything critical, for any reason, however blatant and repulsive the behavior being criticized, about anyone who isn't white is immediately burned at the stake. Bill Cosby is right to point out that blacks are now the ones perpetuating racism, by their own examples - and with Jackson and Sharpton and the like waiting in the wings with torches and pitchforks, and the welfare/nanny state propping them up, and Affirmative Action preventing them from getting fired even if they burn down the workplace, and constant multi-culti hate-whitey crap giving them a completely unrealistic worldview, there's no incentive to act like civilized beings. [/rant]

Speaking of examples - Run, Condi, Run. For gods' sakes please run. For the sake of the nation, for the revered memory of the Founders, PLEASE, CONDI, RUN! All my voting life I've been voting against candidates or measures - Condi would be the first person in my memory that I would vote for. But she's said she won't do it. Eh, it's still three years off. And I would still want to know more about her stance on issues other than RKBA (i.e. taxes, immigration, foreign aid, the UN) - but I'd vote for her on that one issue alone. And so would lots of gunfolk on the lists. Eh, she's probably too smart to take the job.

In the stack, L. Sprague de Camp's The Ancient Engineers, nonfiction. Thumbing through - and this is the third time, with Kelly's Gunpowder and Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, that I see the development and study of gunpowder and firearms having a Significant Influence on science and knowledge and human progress in general. Our Industrial Revolution was started by names like Remington and Ithaca and Whitney and Colt. Gunfolk are responsible for the development of mass-production and assembly lines and interchangeability and ever-higher technology. A world where guns were never invented would be a "nasty, brutish" place indeed.

Oh, at the range yesterday, met the guy who had the early-production Olympic Wolverine .22 pistol, who reported that it functioned fine after "about 250 rounds" break-in.

870 - Monday, 27 June 2005: Work, bleah. On the way back, stopped at Sportsman's Warehouse, got 125gr .311 Pro Hunters. 150gr in stock now but 125gr cheaper. Didn't see Trail Boss powder, will ask about it some other time, they do carry the IMR line. Okay, stop spending money now.

871 - Tuesday, 28 June 2005: Extra-snarled traffic this morning, jumped off I-205 southbound at Oregon City, took Hwy 99 to Canby & surface streets to I-5 northbound to arrive at work in Wilsonville from the opposite direction only five minutes late. Radio was talking about a 9-mile backup and hour-long delay. Fortunately I keep maps in the car. Then, an actual full 8-hour day, my first there I think.

President's speech on radio. Wanted to elbow him off the stage, turn the teleprompter up a notch and take over. :-/ And do a little editing while I'm at it natürlich. :-\

No word from cable company. At least I have some income now. A couple paychecks from now I need to get a spare wheel (w/tire) for the Corolla, and a balance job. Rent should be cool for a change.

Still slacking on email. Always wasted after the long commute, and today I didn't get out early and was in the thick of it.

872 - Thursday, 30 June 2005: Slightly longer days at work, vastly worse traffic. Expect worse still tomorrow, holiday weekend. In email denial. I'll get to it eventually, really.

Finally, after months of procrastinating, all Mauser brass fully processed. Tomorrow (or so), will load 20 rounds each Mauser and Mosin, starting loads from Sierra V with IMR4064 in both: for the VZ, 45.1gr under 150gr Pro Hunter for 2,400fps & 1,918fpe; for the 91/30, 46.1gr under 125gr 2,500fps & 1,735fpe. (I note that Sierra V uses .308" bullets in their Mosin loads, shows .308 in the cartridge diagram, and makes no mention of varying bore diameters. Hmm. IMR's 2004 .PDF rifle data... doesn't list either 7.92x57 or 7.62x54R. Speer #10 (1979) starts at 47.0gr for the Mauser, at 2,700fps - and also doesn't list the Mosin. Lyman #45 (1970) lists a 130gr jacketed for the Mosin starting at 47.0gr for 2,631fps, and does discuss bore size - Sierra's 2003 starting load should be safe with a .311" bullet.) Practice Saturday or Sunday, from the bench at 100 yards just for groups. Then, if that's decent, another 20 & 20 rounds in the next session, zeroing at 100 and getting elevations for 200 for the match. Since I haven't been practicing, my recoil tolerance has slipped some and I don't want to beat myself up with a single big 80- or 100-round session. Besides I'm not sure when I can $queeze out more projectiles and I might need the last sixty in each box for the match.

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