Double post...

Since I wrote out a big ol' AAR of the Pistol-Training.com class I took here the weekend before last, I may as well cross-post it here, too...

AAR: AFHF Indianapolis, October 20-21, 2012

This fall's AFHF was my third class with Todd here in Indy.

My goal was to... well, mostly it was to not be Todd's "Special Needs" pupil again. Learning something would be awesome, too.

Class got off to a prompt start on Saturday morning, and the initial round of shooting tests was reassuring. (I'm sure I'm not the only person who, during the opening strings of fire in a class with strangers, is surreptitiously glancing around to see if That Guy has enrolled in this class.)

My first FAST drill of the day, although painfully slow, was shot clean and only a half-second off my best time with a 1911 back in 2010. Considering that I'd only been using the M&P for a little over a year now, this was encouraging.

Due to a couple of late cancellations, the class was fairly small, which meant that students benefited from a little more one-on-one instruction than is normally possible. The smaller class turned out to have an added benefit in that Todd was dealing with a bout of laryngitis, so thank goodness for not having to shout to be heard by the students in the back rows...

Todd remarked on how much my shooting had improved since last time, saying that it was obvious that I'd been practicing, and then proceeded to show me all the jillion and one bad habits I had that were keeping me painfully slow, such as reaching for the gun at a pace that could be measured with a sundial and a reload technique that was almost, but not entirely, exactly unlike what I should have been doing, even if we didn't take into account trying to stuff a handful of my cover garment into the gun as well.

No Chili's at the end of Day One, in the interest of Todd having some vocal cords left for TD2.

TD2 started out cool, and we did Dot Torture and worked on low-percentage targets in the morning; with the air temp in the high forties and low fifties, I was feeling pretty clever about my choice of thermal underwear. After lunch the temp crawled into the low seventies and we started doing SOTM stuff, and suddenly I didn't feel so bright anymore.

All in all, I was very pleased with the class and came away feeling pretty good about my progress. Last year I was having so many problems just hitting the target with what was, at the time, an unfamiliar pistol that I was unable to make use of a lot of the instruction I was receiving. This year I was upset when I missed, rather than surprised when I hit, and that allowed me to concentrate more on minutiae like reload technique and suchlike.

We closed out the weekend by going to Longhorn steak house which was a Totally Awesome Idea and whoever suggested it was a flippin' genius. And modest, too.

(Not to clutter up a software type post with gun nerd hardware-type stuff, but I truly believe I owe a lot of my shooting improvement to having a front sight that I can find rapidly, in this case, an orange Ameriglo I-Dot Pro. Recommend. Also, I disrecommend my holster, a Blade-Tech OWB with the most infuriating adjustable one-size-fits-most belt loop thing in Christendom. Further, the Amish dude that made my belt and the people at Blade-Tech have different opinions on what constitutes 'an inch and a half'...)

Apologies for any errors in this AAR, as I ain't much on fancy book larnin'. Thanks to JohnN for hosting the class and Todd for coming out and helping make me a better shooter.

Happy Halloween!

Neatest thing I've seen yet today.

"Quick! Get out there and look concerned!"

Indiana, like most states I presume, has dispatched its Rapid Deployment Force of rescue workers and power line repair dudes and whatnot to help take a mop and a bucket to the parts of the eastern seaboard on which Ma Nature took a dump.

This is going to be the annoying part of the disaster, where everybody's busy busting arse as hard as they can to fix things, but the weather has calmed down enough to let all the politicians and wannabe-politicians get out from under cover and, along with their flappers and sideboys, get all underfoot trying to look officious'n'concerned where people are trying to do actual work.

In a perfect world any politician, from president down to dog catcher, that showed up would be handed a mop and told to get busy. If they could not figure out how to operate the mop and demonstrate a minimal level of competence with it, they would be booted from whatever office they held.

Scared.

Today is the day of the appointment at the dermatologist where they will be doing any scraping or biopsying or whatever, and presumably I will know how bad it is shortly thereafter.

Forgive me if I'm not just a big ol' bundle of levity today.

A frankenpost cobbled from comments and Tweets:

In comments, someone noted:

Did anyone else notice that LA, Cairo, Berlin, and the rest of the world has apparently shut down out of respect for the suffering of the U.S. East coast. Watched FOX for about 20 minutes this morning and nothing about the rest of the world. Mighty considerate of them.

To which I replied:

Dude, this hurricane is hitting the navel of the news media universe.

You are talking about the most solipsistic people on god's green earth; they will summon back [the] drones covering dull events like civil wars and economic collapses to defend against this assault on the hive.

...and expanded further:

What I do know is that severe weather events panic the news media, because panic sells. When severe weather panics the news media in Shreveport or Walla Walla, only the local residents hear about it, because it's only local news media.

When severe weather panics the news media in the NYC-DC axis, the whole world has to hear about it, because that's where the world's news media dwells. 

(Of course, it's not necessarily fair to say that only the locals will hear about it. If there's godawful weather to be found anywhere in the U.S., NBC will generally make Al Roker go stand out in it for the amusement of Today show viewers.)

Headlines You Won't See: "Hurricane Sandy Only One-Tenth As Deadly As Joplin, MO Tornado!"
— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) October 30, 2012

Overheard in the Hallway...

RX: "Doesn't [TV Personality Redacted] radiate 'I'm a smarmy little creep'?"

Me: "I'm betting he spent a lot of his middle and high school..."

RX: "...lunch money on porn at the newsstand?"

Me: "I was going to say '...years getting his head flushed down toilets', but yours works, too."

Barack! A-ahh! Savior of the universe!

First was the joke about the SEAL movie where the new leader, call sign "POTUS", shows up and whips the wacky misfit boys (and girls, because this is Hollywood) of SEAL Team 6 into shape so that he could lead them on a daring mission to take down Osama.

Then came Snarky Posters providing smuggled stills from the imaginary movie.

But, lo! Harvey Weinstein actually made it happen!

Perhaps dismayed at the dilatory post-election release date of Zero Dark Thirty, he is determined that Americans get a chance to see their Dear Leader bravely taking down Bin Laden before they head to the polls on the first Tuesday in November. No word if Barry actually fast-ropes out of a helicopter with a knife in his teeth at any point in the movie, or if there's footage of Romney-financed Halliburton operatives trying to sabotage one of the helicopters...

Cue Pat Robertson in 5, 4, 3...

In the last seven years, hurricanes have flooded both New Orleans and Atlantic City.

If one floods Las Vegas, I might start going back to church.
.

Overheard on the Phone...

So I was talking about the hurricane on the phone today, because I don't want anybody to think I love America less than our president...

Shootin' Buddy: "...No, I've already heard this storm blamed on climate change."

Me: "Yeah, but what caused all those hurricanes back when the climate was static?"

SB: "Dinosaurs driving around in their SUVs..."

Me: "Right, yeah, but what caused them before..."

SB: "Before Karl Rove and Dick Cheney invented SUVs?"

I did not know that...

Meanwhile, I realize that this is a very large-diameter storm, but it's still a Category 1 with an eleven-foot storm surge. Don't Panic: I think in Florida they call that "September".

Fetch my Reynolds Wrap yarmulke...

You know the old saw about how bad weather at election time favors the GOP because, I don't know, only Wall Street fat cats can afford umbrellas and warm coats these days or something?

And remember how George Bush used his evil HAARP technology to cause Hurricane Katrina because he hates black people?

Well, I'm just sayin'...

Maybe it's a coincidence and maybe it's not, but we've got motive and means, here. I think it's safe to tentatively hang the blame for anything bad that happens during Hurricane Sandy on Dubya.

...and weather is what you get.

The top of my Weather.com landing page shows the current WX at Roseholme Cottage, Nerd Ranch, and Castle Frostbite.

Oddly, Castle Frostbite, in the Kingdom of Upper Cryogenica, is currently five degrees warmer than the ranch in the desert and ten warmer than the cottage in the flatlands. Must be that tropical weather they're about to get. You might have heard about it...

I swear, it can rain ten inches a day on Mobile or Pensacola for a week straight and barely get a mention between AAA baseball scores and the latest goings-on in minor cadet branches of Clan Kardashian, but let a Manhattanite's mousse get mussed and they're issuing directions to the island's denizens on how to safely have your neighbors for dinner should the subway be down for more than an hour, and the rest of the country is compelled to watch.

Mini Gear Review #1:

RCS Vanguard 2 w/Glock 19.

The photo above is of a Glock 19 in Raven Concealment Systems Vanguard 2, which is like a holster, only smaller.

It's basically nothing but a little clamshell guard over the trigger, and a belt loop. Its biggest downside is that there's no real way to "reholster", should you have to draw it for real. You'd have to remove the holster from your belt, pop it back on the gun, and stick the whole assembly back into your waistband.

On the other hand, for administrative on-and-off purposes, removing the whole gun and "holster" assembly from your trousers is as simple as popping one snap (or un-threading one belt loop, depending on where on your belt you carry; whichever is quicker).
 
It also comes with a piece of string that you can substitute for the belt loop and strut arrangement; you tie it off to the hole in the bottom there and then loop it 'round the belt. 

Using a looped shoelace to make a "holster" is sometimes referred to as an "OSS holster", since back in WWII, our guys running around behind enemy lines would tuck their 1911s and Victory Models inside their drawers that way. If needed, they could toss the gun and not have an incriminating holster left on the belt for the bad guys to find. We still have guys in the Army doing stuff much like that, but they don't often carry 1911s or Victory Models anymore, hence the genesis of the above holster.

While not a general-purpose everyday carry kind of holster for me, I've found it perfect for days when my errands are going to take me through No-Toting Zones, since it goes on and off almost as quickly as just stuffing the pistol down your trousers, while giving the security of a belt loop (as opposed to clips or J-hooks, which just don't give me the warm-'n'-fuzzies.)

A day in the life...

Shootin' Buddy showed up and we headed off to Zest for brekkie before heading off to Iggle Crick for some shooting, as well as to present a major award.

After the range we went down to check out Beech Grove Firearms' new facility, which was neat, clean, well-stocked, and jumpin' with customers.

On the way to drop me off back at Roseholme Cottage, we stopped at the new sushi bar in Broad Ripple, appropriately yclept "Sushi Bar".

The sushi is better than Naked Tchopstix, and it has an advantage over Broad Ripple's other sushi bar, H2O, in that it's open more frequently than alternate Tuesdays after 5:37PM. I tried a "dinosaur roll", which was alternating unagi and smoked salmon on the outside and a tasty core of tempura scallops. Perfect combination of flavors.

Walking back to Shootin' Buddy's truck, a little MG TD came blatting up to the stop light. It added a certain Broad Riparian flavor to the day...

Export versions had their compression ratios bumped up to 8.0:1 since they didn't have to burn crappy low-octane leftover wartime British petrol. Thus fortified, they thumped out almost sixty horsepower (SAE gross) and could accelerate to sixty mph in less than a fortnight. (And sometimes beyond it, too!)

...but not so much as when, 200 yards down the road, a little BRG-with-gold-stripes MGB went zipping into the Kroger's parking lot as we were preparing to depart.

The charmingly eccentric MGB retained the undersquare all-stone peat-burning inline four of its ancestors and archaic "knee"-type dampers (or, as the Brits call them, "spanners",) but added shocking luxuries like wind-up windows. Later versions were saddled with the new US emissions controls and hideous 5-mph safety bumpers that each weighed about as much as a WWII Matilda tank of Monty's army. Never has such a painfully bog-slow automobile still been somehow miraculously fun to drive. You've got to hand it to the Limeys for that.

You might be are a redneck if...

...on the weekend after Thanksgiving, you and your sweetie reverently move Dale and the mallard wine bottle holder off the mantlepiece to make room for your remote-control light-up porcelain miniature Graceland-in-Winter that plays Elvis Christmas songs...

Hunnert bucks at Lowe's. Hurry before they're all gone!

That might well be the single most thunderously gauche thing I've seen in my entire life; it's so tacky that it misses circling clean back around to cool by bare inches. I think it's the silhouette of the Young Elvis on the remote control for the music box that puts it over the top.

808 State... I'll wait.

So Windows 8 debuts to a resounding chorus of "meh".

Remember: Microsoft releases a functional OS only on every other attempt, so if history is any judge, this one’s doomed from the jump-off.

(Myself? I ran 98SE until I switched to XP in '02, and then clung to XP up until I bought this laptop earlier this year. Windows versions are like Star Trek movies: Every other one's a dog.)

For you kids who are fortunate enough to be too young to grok the graphic: Behold the suck.
.

Blogmeet & Blogiversary...

Roomie, who just celebrated her fifth blogiversary, has put together a snazzy graphic for Sunday's blogmeet:

"Drop-In" (Yes, those are scare quotes.)

Erin Palette writes:

...any product with instructions that require you to use a power tool is not what I would consider "drop-in".

Remember, the claims on the packaging are actually in code:

• "Drop-In" really means "Some Fitting Required". (Either that, or it's so undersized you could drop it in from across the room.)


• "Some Fitting Required" really means "Take it to a gunsmith."


• "Gunsmith Fitting Recommended" ...and bring money.

Obamacare is safe now.

A post at Indiana Barrister reminded me of one of my favorite Futurama quotes...

Fry: My girlfriend had one of those. Actually it wasn't hers, it was her dad's. And she wasn't my girlfriend, she just lived next door and never closed her curtains.

Leela: Fry, remember what we said about ending your stories a sentence earlier?

So, about thirty-seven seconds after they get sworn in next January, the GOP-dominated House passes a bill to repeal Obamacare, whereupon it goes to the Senate and... and... Good frickin' job, Mourdock.

I'm going to miss those Donnelly ads that painted Mourdock as a radical who wanted to abolish the Department of Education; I'd cheer when they called him a Tea Party Zealot. "Yeah, and...?"

It's gonna be all-rape, all the time from here on out.

Future political historians (assuming there are any writing by candlelight after the complete fiscal collapse) will point to this as The Sentence That Saved Obamacare.

Overheard in the Hallway...

Me: "...and they're very comfortable shoes."

RX: "I thought you said they were gloves?"

Me: "That's what they're called. Merrell calls their barefoot shoes 'gloves' because they're like gloves for your feet."

RX: "Do they also make a shirt for your butt? Do you people even know how to dress yourselves?"

Intermission