I took this perspective photo of the business end of our Remington 870 security shotgun a couple of weeks ago.
We’re off to the gun show in the morning. We’ll have a report afterwards.
August 2008
Vacation Flashback
Almost three weeks after it was over, I still go and look at the vacation pictures. I stitched together a group of photos to produce this nice panoramic view of Grand Canyon from the Watchtower near the east end of the National Park. Click on the thumbnail to open the large image viewer.
Moving Day
I have been reassigned to another job in another location. I hate to move. All that packing up, making arrangements to transfer the services, etc. Even with the aid of an administrator, changing job assignments where a physical move from one facility to another is a pain.
That having been said, the job change is a good thing. It takes me out of the ‘doghouse,’ a less-than-desirable ‘Dilbert’-style cubicle facility and puts me into an office tower in a well-known beach town. My office will have a door that closes and locks and walls that go to the ceiling. There are two windows (a corner office) with a view of a local park and a shopping mall.
As for the old job, the product line is a very good thing. Decoupling from that fact, the skill set for the job I was doing required little other than some fundamental knowledge of computers and a little analysis. Not to brag, but it was not much of a challenge and didn’t take full advantage of my experience.
The new job is similar to systems that I worked on in the past. My domain knowledge and skill set dovetail perfectly with this project. Literally, a return to the true definition of ‘aerospace engineering.’ I could tell you more about it, but then . . . well, you know.
Fairyland
“Fairyland” is the nickname for this view from the top of Bryce Canyon. I cannot disagree with that . . .
Click to see the ginormogantic size.
Off to the Range
Sunday we took these guns to the range. My two Glocks, a .45 ACP G30 and a 9mm G26 are in the left side of the Pelican 1450 Case. Damsel’s .45 ACP Warthog and 9mm S&W 908s are on the right and her .357 magnum S&W 686 in the center.
The case hasn’t been this crowded since before our vacation when Damsel sent the Warthog to the shop. Although you can remove small cubes of foam to customize for a particular item or items, we haven’t removed any because the guns we take from week to week are not always the same. Besides, the foam compresses and the fit is snug. The snug fit keeps the guns firmly separated during transport.
The Warthog is Back
As we reported last week, the Para Warthog is back from the service center. The “work accomplished” section of the paperwork indicated that they installed a new recoil spring assembly and firing pin stop. They also adjusted the trigger pull to the factory spec of five pounds. When they received the gun, the trigger pull was only 3.5 pounds or so. They test fired the gun after the work with 40 rounds of ball and hollow-point rounds. They reported all functions OK.
Today, we test fired the gun with an estimated seventy rounds. Most of the time, all ten rounds went through without incident. There was one time when the round did not cleanly enter the chamber and jammed. I’m not comfortable with doing the tap and rack when that happens, so I ejected the magazine, cleared the round from the pistol, put the unspent round back in the magazine and reloaded. The gun properly functioned after that. I also paid attention to making sure that the gun got a little lube every 50 rounds or so.
I watched Todd Jarrett’s video on how smaller people should hold and fire a short-barreled .45 pistol. In the video, I believe that I’m firing the gun using the proper technique with wrists and strong-side elbow locked. In the video, you can see all ten rounds dispensing without problems.
We’ll have more to report in the weeks to come.
Panoramic Reprise – Vacation 2008
This is a quick and dirty Flash with some of the panoramas from our recent vacation. Maybe I’ll have a better one when I get some time.
Meanwhile, enjoy these views from the American Southwest.