After a rainy day yesterday, we drove to San Pedro to seek out any photo ops. We got plenty. It was difficult picking one of over two hundred images, but this one had plenty of action. The surf was up a little and was crashing against the Los Angeles Harbor breakwater, occasionally sending waves over the top. This shot taken from Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro. Click on the image for a bigger view.
This year we selected Yellow Ribbon America’s Rosie Christmas campaign for our annual toys donation. We’re donating some new toys that we bought at our local merchandise liquidation discount store. The destination for these toys is to the children of our deployed California National Guard service men and women. There is also the opportunity to gather up your already-watched DVDs and donate them to the deployed troops. You may also donate gift cards to the cause.
This is a great way to get your Christmas giving endorphins! If you live in California, or are going to be here in December, click on Rosie’s picture to find your nearest drop-off location.
Every few months, we head off to the Gun Show. Today, we took the drive down to the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, CA.
As most of those who attend gun shows know, there are few guns and almost everything else. We saw jewelry, crystal and optics*, polished rocks, luggage, apparel, bumper stickers, safes and just about anything related to firearms. There is also plenty of stuff having nothing to do with guns or shooting, including a couple of “Ron Paul for President” booths.
* The Swarovski Group manufactures optics for guns as well as fine crystal and jewelry. One enterprising couple has a booth where Pop is selling Scopes in one half and Mom has a nice selection of crystal in the other half.
One especially pushy sales lady was hard-selling stuffed pillows that transformed into “bed pets.”
“Lady,” I said, “do you think I came to a gun show to buy a freakin’ pillow?”
In spite of all of the non-gun stuff, we bought magazines for the new Warthog and Glock 30 pistols, a T-shirt, a “Route 66” tote bag, some silhouette targets and a thousand rounds of .45 ACP.
It was with good foresight that we decided to archive our photo files on an external hi-capacity hard drive. The dual computer crash last week could have been a greater loss than we actually experienced. While looking at some of Damsel’s old photos, I ran across this shot of the historic Point Fermin Lighthouse in San Pedro, California. Click on the image to enlarge.
Here’s some of the lighthouse’s history from the Point Fermin Lighthouse website:
Built in 1874, the Point Fermin Lighthouse was the first navigational light into the San Pedro Bay. Phineas Banning, with the support of many local businessmen, petitioned the Federal Government and the US lighthouse Board to place a lighthouse on the point in 1854. Although the Lighthouse Board agreed funding and land disputes delayed its construction until 1874.
Paul J. Pelz, a draftsman for the US Lighthouse Board, designed the Stick Style Victorian lighthouse. The design was used for six lighthouses built between 1873 and 1874, of which three are still standing, East Brothers in San Francisco Bay, Hereford Light in New Jersey, and Point Fermin. The Stick Style is an early Victorian architectural style and is simpler in design and decoration than the later high Victorian period. It is characterized by its gabled roofs, horizontal siding, decorative cross beams and hand carved porch railings.
If you’re nerdy enough to have a pair of 3D red-blue or red-cyan glasses (like me), then you might enjoy this 3D anaglyph photo I took of the lighthouse at about the same time.
These three lovely hibiscus flowers were looking very photogenic in the hazy fall sun yesterday. Our back yard still has quite a number of late-fall flowers still blooming.
Again.
On Tuesday evening, we finally were able to take delivery of our new .45 ACP pistols. Damsel got her new Para Warthog and I got my Glock 30. We went into the range and put about fifty rounds through each of our new guns.
The Glock 30 performed about like my Glock 26, but with a more robust kick and a louder report. It was a little difficult for me to get the last couple of rounds in the magazines, but I managed to do so without using the loader tool. The magazine springs will eventually break in and loading should be easier in the future.
My accuracy using this pistol will need some improvement, but first shots generally were in the black with a couple outside the outer ring and maybe one on the red bull. I’ll keep trying.
Damsel’s Warthog magazines were a little easier to load, but there is no indicator to let you know how many rounds are inside. It seemed best to count out ten rounds and then load them into the magazine.
When shooting, the pistol performed pretty well, but a couple of times the action jammed. When that happened, we removed the magazine and cleared the action back which kicked out the stuck round. At this point, we don’t know why it jammed and the rest of the time it performed flawlessly.
In my mind, the acquisition of the .45s was to have been our last. Over the past year and a half, we purchased firearms that we wanted for entertainment and for home protection. I thought these two pistols were the last on the list. But then Damsel saw this . . .
