04.01.07

Armed and cluttered

Posted in Life, Family, Hobbies at 8:21 pm by Stoner

Busy weekend, it was. On Saturday, after getting called at 05:30 by our C3 org (they monitor the “big board” in the NOC and call in help when needed) I decided to stay up, brew a pot of coffee and read a bit of Dune. After Denise got showered and dressed, we went to Pancake Day in Winchester and ate breakfast with the whole damn town. Seriously, the line to get in stretched a quarter mile. It moved along at a steady pace and soon we were sitting down to short stacks and sausage links. It was pretty good, all things considered.

After filling up, we drove to the Home Depot and bought some knobs for the kitchen cabinets - 22 of ‘em. We also picked up a few odds and ends and headed over Circuit City. We picked up a Netgear 2.4 GHz Wireless-G PCI card and a new Sony Handicam to replace our ailing digital camera (it will no longer focus without zooming first - very annoying.) Spent a cool grand for all that (oof!)

After mounting all the knobs to the drawers, I headed to the basement and tore it up completely. Took out the Dell running Windows XP Home, moved the desk into a different corner and put my Gateway running Gentoo on it. Rerouted all the power and network wires and made a big mess in the process. Fun. I installed the Netgear wireless card in the Dell and put that upstairs in the “yellow” room. Now Denise doesn’t have to pester me about wanting to use the computer to play Neverwinter Nights 2.

On Sunday, the C3 woke me up at 05:45 to take care of a problem. Again, I stayed up and brewed a pot of coffee. I set in the recliner and read some more of Dune. Well, that recliner is so comfy, I just nodded off until around 10:30. Nice. So I got up and showered and headed out the door.

I met my buddy Looee at the gun show at Dulles Expo center. Saw a lot of cool stuff, rifles, pistols, revolvers, knives, swords, sub-machine guns, .50 caliber sniper rifles - you name it, it was there. Almost went in on a pair of 10 year old black powder revolvers (with consecutive serial numbers) with Looee. $200 a piece wasn’t too bad of a price. Instead, I picked up a model 1911-A1 .45 by Springfield Armory. My first pistol. Sweet!

I wanted a model 1911 because when you hear “.45 caliber pistol” - the image that comes to mind is the model 1911, guaranteed. It just looks cool. The weight is nice. It fires a big bullet while making a big bang. The slide is a bit stiff but a few hundred rounds and some good cleaning+oil will take care of that. I soo want to go to the range and start putting holes in some targets but I really need to clean it, remove the excess oil and “get to know your firearm” before slapping a loaded clip in to the magazine.

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