Hit or Miss

The Nat'l Weather Service issued a Winter Weather Advisory for last night, after a weekend's worth of dire predictions about a mini-snowpocalypse. (Hint: eight inches of snow is widely considered a dusting, here.)

So they warned us all that "heavy snow" would play havoc with this morning's commute.

We got an inch and a half.


The storm slowed down, they say. It'll be here tomorrow, they say. Be ready, they say.

That Light That Keeps You Awake

just might be you, glowing in the dark.

According to the Peninsula Clarion:

The Kenai branch of Acuren USA has suspended operations after the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission found high radiation readings during a surprise inspection in early April.

The company is licensed to use radioactive materials when inspecting pipe welds. According to a confirmatory action letter issued by the regulatory commission to the company, inspectors walking around Acuren’s facility at 14896 Kenai Spur Highway found high readings in areas where the public could be exposed to high radiation levels.

According to a media release issued by the regulatory commission, there were no boundaries or controls in place to keep people out of the area during radiography operations and initial dose estimates suggested that anyone standing near the building could have been exposed to radiation in excess of the regulatory commission’s annual limit.

Oops.

Self-Defense: A Case Study in "How Not to Do It"

How did this guy become that guy? Let us count the ways...

An Anchorage man shot in the head early Tuesday outside his Mountain View apartment remains hospitalized and on life support, his mother said Wednesday.

In the meantime, new details emerged in the charges filed Wednesday against Talon Draper, 19, accused of shooting his neighbor, Jermaine Twiley, 22.

According to the charging document, this is what happened: Twiley and his girlfriend were yelling at each other inside an apartment at 3424 Thompson Ave. during the early morning hours Tuesday.

{snip}

About an hour later, neighbors heard the couple yelling again. The girlfriend was screaming for someone to call 911.

This time, Draper dialed 911. He also got a .22-caliber rifle out of his bedroom closet and loaded it. He went to the door of the family's third-floor apartment -- the door appears to open onto a walkway -- and saw Twiley running down the street.

"He yelled for Twiley to stop and fired his gun twice, striking Twiley in the back of the head," the charges say.

Back inside the apartment, Draper asked his family to call 911 because the man he had shot needed help. Draper told his mother "he screwed up," according to the charges.

Officers found Twiley lying facedown in the street with a gunshot wound to the back of his head, according to the charges ... 

Homicide Unit chief Slawomir Markiewicz said Draper told detectives he saw Twiley reach for something while he was in the street and shot in defense of someone else: the girlfriend in the altercation, who was still back at the apartment. Markiewicz said there was no evidence that anyone else was near Twiley, who was unarmed.

You can read the whole story at the link, but ... wow.

So he had time to load his rifle, went outside, and shot the man - who was running away - in the back of the head.

So much fail.

Blogger Doesn't Like the Mountains

or so it seems.

I took some nice pics of the mountains across the street from my building, as I stood on the roof in temps around -6 F, and got some nice photos.

I'm currently unable to upload said photos, however. I will do it as soon as Blogger quits having "internal errors".

Range Report: FAIL

My daughter & I went to the range as planned. It was closed. There are no signs or other indication of the reason. It's not on their website, either.

It is, however, operated by the State ... so I'm guessing the employees got their President's Day holiday early. It would have been nice if they'd put up a notice.