December 2007

San Pedro’s Red Cars

Last week we took a drive to the harbor area; while we were there, we stopped at the 22nd Street Red Car Station. Damsel took a photo as this holiday-decorated trolley pulled into the station.

red car

I have a special interest in the Red Cars, since my Grandfather was a motorman during the 1930s and 1940s. On a rainy day last year, we took a ride on the red car.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Monuments

From APOD:

Mars and Orion Over Monument Valley
Credit & Copyright: Wally Pacholka (Astropics.com)

Welcome to The World At Night. Sharing the night sky seen around the world, this view from Monument Valley, USA includes a picturesque foreground of famous buttes. Buttes are composed of hard volcanic rock left behind after water eroded away the surrounding soft rock. The two buttes on the image left are known as the Mittens, while Merrick Butte is on the right. Recorded just last week, planet Mars is at the left of the skyscape, a glowing beacon of orange that is the brightest object in the frame. To the right of Mars lies the constellation of Orion. Betelgeuse is the reddish star near the center and the Belt of Orion and the Orion Nebula are farther right. Finally, the bright blue star Rigel appears above Merrick Butte in this stunning view of The World At Night.

Please click on the image for the full-sized view of this magnificent photo.

Happy Birthday to Damsel

Happy Birthday Damsel

Yep, you guessed it – her birthday is Christmas eve. Here are the rules if you have a similar situation:

  • Keep the two occasions distinctly separate.
  • Make sure the gifts are distinctly separate.
  • Optional – have an unbirthday for her around the June-ish timeframe. Get her a present then too.

The Trouble with Reloads

dingUnless you reload them yourself (and we haven’t started yet), you take your chances when purchasing reloaded rounds.

Today, for the second time ever, my Glock 30 .45ACP pistol jammed on this round. Evidently, a dent in the bullet got caught on the edge of the barrel as the round was on it’s way to be fired.

A closer look at the other reloaded rounds revealed a lot of dings and dents on the bullets. Most of the brass is also dinged up especially on the rim.

As readers of this site know, Damsel can’t shoot these in her Para Warthog. The good news is that her pistol jammed only once today using new ammo.

Red Meat

tenderloin mealEven though the weather has been wetter and cooler here over the last couple of weeks, it was nice enough today to barbecue up a couple of beef tenderloin steaks. This delicious meal didn’t take all that much time for us since the sides were left over from a previous meal.

I cooked the steaks on the grill with no seasoning other than olive oil (to keep ’em from sticking to the grill) and some fresh cracked pepper – seven minutes each side on a hot grill.

For the side dishes, we had some mashed potatoes with spinach and braised, chopped Brussels sprouts and bacon bits. As mentioned before, these only had to be nuked in the micro for a couple of minutes.

Damsel and I walked it off afterwards.

Tomorrow, we’re cooking in the crockpot since we’re going to the shooting range. In addition to the time at the range we will be cleaning up the equipment for an hour after we get home. Not enough time to prepare a conventional meal – not to worry though, tomorrow’s recipe is for Hungarian Goulash.

Lifecycle of a Paper Shotgun Target

When we go to the gun show every couple of months, one of our usual stops is at the paper target vendor. We buy several large-sized silhouette target tablets with about 10 targets per tablet. (We gave up on buying the targets where a bad guy has a woman hostage – she never seems to make it through the ordeal.)

Anyhow, when we put targets up at the range for the shotguns, they seem to get used up rather quickly.

In this video, I send five rounds through the target and then Damsel administers the coup de grĂ¢ce when she unloads another five rounds from our 12 gauge Remington 870 security gun into the target.

She says, “If it’s still movin’ then I’m still shootin’ at it.”