Happiness...

...is a warm gun.

The .45 on the left, I bought just a few weeks ago. This one was made by Para, a company based in N.C. I'd always wanted a M1911-type 45 auto, but never had a good excuse to buy one until a friend of mine opened a gun store. So I bought it to "help him out," or so my excuse went.

The .45 on the right is a Ruger P-97. I bought it maybe ten years ago. It's a double-action with a decocking lever, meaning it has no actual safety. Rather, the first trigger-pull is long and heavy, just like a revolver's. Subsequent shots are single-action, meaning the hammer gets cocked back by the slide's movement, just like any other automatic. The decocking lever is for when you're done shooting, and you just want to drop the hammer again without the gun firing.

Of the two, the Ruger is a more modern design. Because it has no actual safety, I figure it would be the quicker of the two to get a shot off. However it's based on the century-old design of the M1911, as are most pistols. So, it's not really all that different. Also, the M1911 is a single-action, meaning the hammer starts out already cocked. So, because the trigger doesn't have to do much (just drop the hammer) it has very little play in it. Probably because of that, I thought it was a little easier to be accurate with the M1911 than the Ruger.



Sixteen shots, with the Para M1911. This isn't all that bad, but it was my best group all day. I'm a good shot with revolvers, but I find automatics a real challenge to shoot well. I had to concentrate very hard on properly squeezing the trigger straight back, while keeping the sights on target. It sounds easier than it is: whenever I tried to just shoot instinctively, many of my shots went so far to the low and left they missed the paper entirely. (Helpful hint: if you're shooting and not seeing any holes appearing in the target, bring it really close and shoot a few rounds. Then you'll see what you're doing wrong.)


Anyway, if some dude attacks me, I'll end up blowing off some of the toes on his right foot. That'll show him. :-)




Cleaning time...

Why Smart Executives Fail

I first watched this video about a year ago. It takes a few minutes for it to get going, but I found it pretty interesting.

Atlantis, from Cocoa Beach

I made the trek over to watch this. Apparently I wasn't alone: the radio said about 300,000 people made the trip to the area. It was the most-watched shuttle mission ever. I watched it from the Bennett Causeway in Cocoa Beach. I would have very much liked to have gotten a bit closer by going up to Titusville, but the traffic going that route looked to be murder. As it is, I made it to this location just about an hour before the launch. I chose it as I saw hundreds of people already parked along here. I figured that at least some of them knew what they were doing, and they did: you can't tell from the video, but NASA's giant Vehicle Assembly Building is visible in the distance, as are a number of launch pads.

When it launched, I was pointing my camera in the general direction, but looking through my binoculars at what I thought to be the shuttle. That distant weird object wasn't the shuttle, so I had to hurry and drop the binoculars, put my glasses back on and look for the thing. I think you can actually hear my saying "shit" at that point.

I just watched the rest of it through the lensfinder of my camera, which has a wider field of view. Later on, you can hear my announcing the sound of the shuttle arriving. The little mic of my camera didn't really do it justice though: it was a low rumbling, like constant thunder. I think it arrived at least a minute after launch.

There are no bathroooms out there. I had to go swimming just to take a leak. It worked out okay though, as I had been planning to go the world-famous Ron Jon surf shop anyway. I bought a pair of swim trunks there, so I wouldn't have to drive home wearing my wet jean shorts.

All in all it was a good day. There are two more shuttle missions. Next time, I'll try to get a ticket to watch from the visitor's center. If I can't get that, then I'll definitely wear swim-trunks next time, so I can take a sneak-leak in the intercoastal waterway without it being a problem!

Also, I'll take enough food and water to camp out there for a good four hours. Traffic out of there was murder. Even after having lunch at a restaurant, and buying my shorts, traffic was bumper-to-bumper out of Cocoa Beach.

B&W Copenhagen Diesel

Seventy years old, this thing looks like something out of the movie Metropolis. It powered Copenhagen for forty years.

I love the smoke in the air. It smells like...victory.

Herbert von Karajan

Probably the most highly-regarded conductor of the modern era. There's something truly inspiring about seeing someone like this in action.

Holst: Mars

This is the first part of his The Planets.

STS-130 pics

They did much of their work up there at night. It was pretty convenient for me to watch, as it would be on NASA TV when I'd get home. I saw much of this mission, including the pictured part below, live.

Here, they were readying that cupola when they had a sunrise. Sunrises and sunsets take only a few seconds each; due to the speed of their orbit, they have one or the other something like every 45 minutes.












I watched an ungodly amount of this mission: three hours of one spacewalk, and four hours of another. I also watched when they were using the "Canadarm" (cute word, that)to move the Harmony node, cupola, and pressurized mating adapter to their final homes. (I swear, the last one looks like a duodenum.) It was pretty mesmerizing, as NASA tv has no commercial interruptions.




Canada gets a lot of exposure from those arms. There's one on the ISS itself, and one (or two?) on the shuttle.





Harmony node, attached to the ISS, with cupola and pressurized mating adapter. The PMA is the dark thing on the right. The shuttle can dock with one of those. I don't know if I'd want to go through one though, as its appearance gives me the mental image of being squeezed through the alimentary canal.

One thing I liked about watching this mission, was that it allowed me to watch educated, intelligent people doing interesting work. Not only was this a nice antidote to the "normal" news coverage of dysfunctional people doing stupid things (like flying planes into IRS offices) but it gave me hope that I could someday be involved in something similarly rewarding.

Just watching mission control in Houston was pretty uplifting. Check out how most of the displays are just flat-panel computer monitors. The consoles are quite unlike the purpose built consoles of yesteryear.



Also, if I can say so without sounding too stalkerish, the chick in the middle row is cute as a bug in a rug. I can't quite read the plaque on her console, but from visiting the NASA website, it looks like she's sitting at the ODIN console (Onboard, Data, Interfaces and Networks). I guess that explains the viking helmet!