So tired. There were some down limbs and a few dead trees the woman wanted taken care of so I busted out the chainsaw and cut them up into fire wood. It's not very good wood so we stacked it back by the neighbour's property line. Hopefully they'll see it and think to have a bond fire night and invite us over. It's plenty good enough wood to burn in a fire pit.

Lunch today was me trying out my free sample of Valley brand prepper food. It's supposed to be (more) natural than other freeze dried foods yet still have a 25 year shelf life. It cooked up OK, although I should have reduced it a bit more to make the sauce thicker but I didn't want the pasta to get too rubbery or fall apart. As it was, it was al dente and correct. Maybe another 2-3 minutes wouldn't have hurt it but trying to find a balance is not something you'll get out of the first try.

In any case, it was edible and the 2-serving pack was enough for 1 person. All of the food storage companies lie about servings and it's annoying. Yea, you can get a years worth of food for $5 if you only eat 1 tic tac a day, and calling that a "serving" doesn't make it right. To compare companies on 'value' you have to figure out the number of calories per dollar and ignore servings/days/etc. The woman says this food isn't as bad as the other crap I've tried to make her eat, so we'll call that a win. They have a 1 month kit, but it looks pretty stripped down. The 1 month "premium" kit actually looks like a month's worth of food for 1 human but it's 2x the cost. More research is needed.

Dad and I tried to go to the range today, but it was so packed we couldn't even get into the lobby. I've never seen it so busy, so we gave up and left. Bummer, I wanted to try out the medium back straps on the Glocks.

Yesterday the woman and I went up to see the Occoneechee Speedway. It's now a park, but in the 60s is was the 2nd NASCAR track they ran. You can imagine it wasn't my idea to go see an old track. There is a preservation society that rebuilt some of the buildings, the flag stand, etc and keep it cleaned up so it can be used as a jogging trail and a picnic spot. There are more current pictures linked from the main page.

I got creative when making the soup crackers for Thanksgiving and made some spicy ones using the "Dillo Dust" that came with my LaRue AR upper a bunch of years ago. Why exactly does a gun company ship a shaker of spices with gun parts? Who knows, but I used it to make tactical crackers. Nifty eh? I made them round using the ravioli press/tool/thingy.

For Thanksgiving itself we had a bunch of people over: Eric and Renee, Jonathan and Blair, dad and Stella (the woman's riding coach). Mom is up in Ohio helping her sister recover from knee surgery, or maybe hip surgery, or something. Anyway, she missed the huge spread we put on.

Because we were doing the wine braised turkey breast instead of a roast turkey there was no way to make gravy, so I got gravy from work. They were doing this thing were you could order side dishes from the cafeteria so I ordered gravy and a pumpkin pie. Not sure they were worth the cost but they were good.

Today I braved the Black Friday crowd and picked up the concrete mix, rebar and a trowel at Home Depot so dad and I could pour the concrete for the trash can parking pad. It was faster than I thought to mix/pour/smooth the slab, and if I did the subsequent steps right by tomorrow we should have a nice little spot to put the trash cans that doesn't look bad. If it does, well, it's a trash can parking pad. How good does it have to look?

Since it was nice out today the woman and I went to return the extra bag of concrete mix to Home Depot and then went for a little hike in a park in Fuquay. It wasn't very big, but we were the only people there.

Tonight I went to the range to work on my anti-flinching drills a bit. Burning through a lot of ammo but there is some improvement. Also, I'm going to cheat a bit next match. No more G19... I'm going to compete with an actual competition gun. Gen 4 G34! It's the MOS version so at some point I can upgrade to a red dot optic or something if I really want to get serious.

Another batch of crackers, but this time I used regular flour and put shredded white cheddar cheese in the dough. They look pretty much the same, but taste like cheeze-its! Pretty amazing. I used the pasta roller as planned to roll the dough out and it made much more uniform crackers. One batch I forgot to put the little holes in and they got a little puffy, so that's actual evidence the fork holes help and aren't just decoration.

Something that didn't quite work was me putting a glass of ice and rum in the freezer. I didn't get a chance to make my adult beverage on Friday so I just stuffed the glass in the freezer thinking that it wouldn't actually freeze and the ice would just not melt. Turns out... it melted into a water/rum solution then froze solid. I tried to just dump coke on top of it and got this nonsense. Eventually it melted, but I'm saying myth busted. If there was a myth saying rum didn't freeze, or at least water/rum mix won't freeze. Thought the alcohol would at least act like antifreeze.

Yesterday we went to the gun show (dad, myself, Jonathan) but I didn't get anything other than a few $10 ammo cans (which I cleaned and painted and are downstairs in the stash now). Dad got an actual gun belt and a holster for the VP9, Jonathan came away with nothing.

Also yesterday evening we went for "board game night" over at Jonathan's house. Met his wife and another couple they hang out with. Kinda odd now we know 3 other couples of our age without kids. Not sure what's going on, either we're finding each other because we're all active in stuff other than kid-centric activities, or there are just a lot of people without kids here. Generally people seem more friendly as well. I guess the lower stress lower work pressure environment gives people time to do something other than work work work and try to "get ahead". No one is rich, but everyone is doing OK for themselves.

Pictures from Friday's escape from suburbia as I went back into the neighbourhood to rescue the poor Prius that was forced to sleep over there. Ugh, I can't believe that people pay extra to live like that.

Some dumb ass kid (15, no license yet) managed to fly off the road and hit a power pole on the main road. He must have really been flying up the curves because the wreck is way, way past where stupid kids usually crash. They blocked the road so I couldn't get home after class and had to park in the neighbourhood next door and cut through Stacey and Mike's back yard to get home. Around 10pm they dropped the power everywhere to repair the pole. We walked up to see what was going on at that point and I tried to get some pictures but the lighting was... well... bright.

Pre black Friday sale netted me some $20 Glock mags, with reasonable shipping costs even. I guess I can't be all bah-humbug about the holidays coming up. Naaa... I can still not like it even if it's saving me 15%. Starting to get quite a collection, and these are just the ones not already in my range bag. I should be set for the next ban in 2017.

Sean sent me this picture on Saturday, it's sunset somewhere that he's with the land cruiser club off 4x4ing. They've been out the last few weekends, he and his woman really like camping.

I cleared a spot, built a form and busted up some of the scrap brick we had to use as a gravel substitute underneath a concrete slab. Next weekend I'll get the actual concrete and see if I can successfully pour a little slab to put the trashcans on back behind the bushes off to the side of the driveway.

Got the bike inspected and paid the registration, so that's settled for another year.

Last night I got together with a few of the guys from the shooters forum to watch the UFC fight on pay per view. They were trying to find a bar we could go to, but it was easier to just go over to the suppressor guy's house and watch there. He had his fire pit going (and I brought a load of firewood so we had enough for the evening) and brought a TV outside so we could enjoy the evening and the fight. I mostly had no idea who any of the fighters were, I just wanted the show. I had no idea the main fight was a chick fight, but did appreciate the upset. Wasn't happy getting home at almost 2am, but as long as I don't make it a habit I'll be fine.

Today we got to Target first thing for our annual health screening. Since I don't actually have a primary care doc here we just used the walk-in clinic. It's kinda strange getting medical treatment at Target, but we're not talking rocket surgery here.

I cleaned the gutters after we got back from Target and breakfast at Berry's (using the leaf blower, so it was 10x faster than usual after I figured out the technique) and then I went and washed the Prius and hit the driving range. A small bucket was enough to stretch out my back and arms, then I went to my parents house to have mom try to fix the phone case she made for me.

I also cleaned out the garage a bit and test ran the generator for 15 minutes.

Once back at the house I decided to make some crackers before dinner. For a first effort they turned out 100% legit and edible. Some might even say they were good. I'm thinking I'll make these for Thanksgiving day to serve with the appetisers. Maybe just these with cheese and salami or something. I might use the pasta roller to roll them out to ensure they're uniform thickness. The woman said it's good some are thick and some are thin, makes them more artisan. Yea.

Biscuit looks like a crazy bird, and peep appears to be in the witness protection program with her face all blurry.

Getting crafty with the empty bullet trays before they head to the recycle bin. These Prvi trays are way more fun than the CCI or Speer trays.

Last night we went to Bombshell Brewery for their "music bingo night". It's basically what it sounds like, they have bingo cards with songs on them and they play song clips and if you know the song and have it on the card you mark it. We sucked at the song ones mostly but then when they did TV/movies it was mostly 80s stuff so we rocked that and the woman won a beer glass. Then they did 80s music and we did well but didn't win anything. Sean and Julie were also there so it was a fun couples night thing to do. And free. :) Except for the beer flights (and I can't say I really like more than 1 of their beers).

Art is up!

I've also been spread-sheeting the ammo stash. Just the 9mm section is kinda scary, and that's only the full sealed cans. Doesn't count the few cases I've got laying around waiting for use.

Woman picked up the artwork from the Virginia trip from the framer. Looks pretty good, I just hope that green matches. She says the frame matches the wood on the furniture and the fireplace mantle perfectly.

Forgot to mention that I finished the wind blocker frame thingy for the coop. I ended up putting the tarp on backwards, I wanted the frame to show and the brown side of the tarp to show but the way I did it if you see the wood then you get the silver side of the tarp showing. The woman didn't care enough to warrant taking it off and flipping it over. She said that if it's cold enough to have to use it that no one will be seeing the coop at that point anyway.

Just got a text from Ellen... looks like our little intern in getting married.

Last night we went to a Grand Prix jumping show. At first just the woman was going to go with the people from her barn, but then my mom wanted to go so then I went and then dad had to tag along. I think everyone actually enjoyed it though, I know I thought more of it than I anticipated. Watching horses jump 2' stuff at a dumpy schooling show is boring. Watching Olympic level horses jumping over 5-6' stuff at breakneck speed is actually interesting.

I tried to get a few pictures of the action but as magical as the 6S camera is, it couldn't catch the action as the horses we moving pretty damn fast and the lighting was weird. Still, on the background shots it did pretty well.

Still working on my flinch cure. I used the dummy rounds again and mixed them in a bag with live rounds and loaded the mags without looking. This forces me to concentrate on the trigger break because you never know if the gun is going to go *CLICK* or *BANG*. When it does click, it shouldn't move it at all. If it does, you're flinching and that's bad. I'm not sure how many times I need to do this drill, but I'm honestly thinking that I should just do that every time I go to the static range. No reason not to mix a few duds in the mags to ensure I'm doing things right.

Also, because the dummy rounds were being cycled so many times the bullets were starting to set back into the brass a bit. I can't just crimp them harder as there is only so much neck tension you can put on the brass, so instead I got the idea to put a little spacer inside there to hold the bullets forward. I was going to use screws and just cut them to the right length, but then I noticed the broken arrow shaft I've had sitting on the bench for about a year and thought this might be a good use for it. The carbon cuts really easy with the dremel so I just made some appropriately long little sections and dropped them into the brass and it works just right. One I made too long and when I went to seat the bullet the seating die smashed the crap out of the nose of the bullet so I know the carbon shafts can resist a lot of crushing force. That's good.

Driving through some dink town in the middle of SC I saw the east coast version of La Fogata. Here is a picture of the "real" one in Watsonville when dad and I went by in 2004, and the sign for the one I saw here on this coast. The building wasn't labeled, not even "restaurant". Just a shabby old diner in a strip mall.

On that same trip I got my best MPG for a real segment. Just over 100 miles getting 58.8mpg. I probably should update the fuel cost when I fill up because I'm paying $2.10 or so here in NC and was filling up on $1.79 gas down in SC. $3 seems like a distant memory.

Stayed at my boss's house again on my way to the event the next day, and saw this. I think he's just a little too damn early for the holiday.

The event I was going to was a customer appreciation day at the BMW factory in Greer, SC. We didn't get a factory tour, but we did get to beat on various cars including Z4s, M3s, some stupid SUVs and my personal favourite the i8. If they can make an i8 for $30k I'll happily lease one when the Prius is done. At $150k though I'll have to pass. :)

There was a timed autocross portion that my sales rep kept saying he was "looking forward to showing you how a real driver drives" or some crapola. He thinks because he has an M5 (and now a 3-something I sorta saw last time he showed up at a customer site) that he can out drive me because I drive a Prius. Guess I should have told him that I've actually raced before? Meh, why spoil his taunting when after the racing was over it was I who was holding the coveted little foam cone that they wrote "1st" on. Not sure why the notes at the bottom have my time with Raphael written next to it because it's my time as you can see on the sheet.

Hospitals are funny places. They have 56k modems in their data center (this is just spare sitting outside the rack but I don't want to open the rack to take pics of the live one) but then they have these little robots wandering around. Some of the robots are sealed like this one and claim to contain lab samples, drugs, etc and others are open style just carrying around unlabelled blue storage bins. They don't talk or beep when something gets in the way and they try to re-route and they're not particularly fast, but they are creepy when you find yourself in a hallway with no other humans and just these robots wandering by.

Saw this at Krav, thought it was amusing. New high-res camera means you can actually read it. Oh.... Ahh...

Halloween themed food in the cafe on Friday. I was crazy busy so I only had time to grab a slice of pizza... which was black. They said it was only food coloring and that they were making up some fresh pizzas without it because people weren't eating it but I risked it. No ill effects that I'm aware of.

Saturday we finally got the woman to the pumpkin patch and got her pumpkins for the season.

I didn't take a picture for some reason, but we had people over for dinner and made pizzas for everyone on the grill. And since I don't really have a grill I put my camp fire cooking grate over the top of the patio fire pit and just cooked over the open flame. I made a batch of prepper bread first just to see if I could cook with unregulated heat and it turned out well. The pizza dough was pretty much perfect although we did end up finishing up the cheese melting using both the oven and the grill because we were running out of space and time. Making 6 pizzas serially takes a while.

I whacked together the frame for the wind blocker for the coop and the woman is busy painting it before I attach the tarp. I needed it to be just about 1" over 8' long, but the scrap boards I had were exactly 16'. Rather than cut two boards and have to pieces of drop I just connected the boards on the "inside" on one end but the "outside" on the other making the entire frame 1.5" longer. Perfect and all it required was about 3" extra length on one of the end pieces.