Just Don't Drop the Remote

 

Tuesday Evenings

Dear Rev. Paul,

We know you blog, and have referred to a Facebook account, but how do you spend the rest of your time?

Signed, Curious

Dear Curious,

On Tuesday nights, I indulge an old habit:

But that's nothing new:

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away (and many pounds lighter)

Shopping Fun & Other Things

So yesterday we did our usual weekend shopping. Let's see ... there's the initial stop at Wally World ("Home of the Reavers"), then its twin across the road. That's the really big store, where if 20 rolls of bathroom tissue are good, then you'll love their 120-count barge o' TP.

We moved on the big natural foodmart in mid-town, where hippies gather in all their mismatched clothing and abnormal hairstyles to discover how many ways producers can print "organic" on a package without mentioning what exactly makes their 13-bean Euro soup mix any better than anyone else's.

A brief stop at the spice store, where all temporarily reverts to normal - and smells good in the process.

Then the Southside Dodge 'Em Cars, where supermarket shoppers have the opportunity to establish two-way traffic with their full sized four-door 1-ton pickup trucks. Those trucks are the ones which usually pull in at a 30 degree angle across two spaces, and still make other drivers swerve into the oncoming lane in order to avoid impaling their cars on the full length beds and the trailer hitches (never used) which stick out into the too-narrow driving lanes.

On a side note, I actually saw some using a pickup to haul a load of brush away from a job site. Who knew those trucks could actually hold something besides barking dogs? :)

Gas dropped to $2.46/gallon, so I topped off my tank even though it wasn't down too far. When prices get this low, everyone starts getting twitchy as we await the inevitable 30-cent hike.

Then we stopped at the local Carl's Jr., which is the parent corporation of what were known as Hardee's burger joints in the Midwest. And just our luck: it was "let your kids run around and scream like wild animals day". Never let it be said that the dozen or so little kids running amuck didn't add a certain atmosphere to the meal.

It's one we're not anxious to repeat, however.

Still no snow in the forecast, either, which is a little strange now. We usually get lots of flurries and snow showers by mid-October, but our temps are stuck in the upper 40s to around 50. A number of drivers got spooked by the 3" snowfall in late September and had their studded snow tires mounted already. Most of us try to wait until there's snow in the forecast, to preserve both the studs and the pavement ... but of course that leads to long lines at the tire shops as everyone wants said tires installed at the same time.

Ah, well, that's life in snow country. Speaking of which, we took the plunge and bought studless winter tires for the new Escape. We'll see how they do. I slid through too many stoplights, without them, to ever want to repeat the (ahem) fun of playing slalom in a 3-ton SUV again.

But today it's rainy and in the mid-40s, so the fun is of a different sort. And before I forget, happy birthday to Younger Daughter, who turns 20 today.

Thanks for stopping by, friends.

A Winter's Day: Visiting Merrill Field

Merrill Field, Anchorage's first commercial airport, is located east of downtown, in an older part of town. For those who've driven here on the Alaska Highway, it's the airfield you passed while heading toward downtown.

As a follow-up to an earlier post, here are more of the aircraft we looked at ... and in.

Somebody had a REALLY bad day

You don't fly these; you wear them

WASP engine

A post-war Taylorcraft - I understand the Army Air Corps used these as trainers. This one was subsequently flown to the Midwest by a friend.

Fox Island Dinner Cruise, Seward, AK

We decided to take a weekend cruise out of Seward, one fine summer weekend about five years ago. Seward is only a two-hour drive south of Anchorage, and Resurrection Bay is beautiful, so what could go wrong?

We rain into rain about three miles south of home, and it rained from that point on, until we were halfway back home last night. To add insult to the rain-soaking, it was coming down at a good clip in Anchorage as we pulled into town. (grins) Just another day of cool summer weather - and given what we see on the weather map in the Lower 48, we'll take it!

A bit of the "ghost forest" - trees killed when submerged in the salt waters of Turnagain Arm during the 9.2 'quake in 1964

Still on the road (another view)

More of that Alaskan sunshine (ahem)

One view of the Seward marina

The Chugach, our excursion vessel

Underway in the mist, drizzle and fog (attorneys at law?)

Still raining

Fox Island appears from the mist

Arrival at the dining hall

Me, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine ... heh

h/t and thanks to Younger Daughter for the photos

Anticipation, or I Can See Clearly Now

No, not a bunch of '70s songs.

One of the things I received from the LTW* is a set of peep sights for the Marlin Model 60** .22 rifle I picked up, a couple of months ago. At 25 yards, the factory front sight completely obscures a 1" bulls-eye. A friend who is now leaving Alaska suggested these as a replacement.

front post sight - very narrow from a distance

The rear peep sight, adjustable for windage & elevation, with detente locking

The view from the shooter's position

I've not been able to adjust the depth of field on my digital camera, and so this last photo is the best I could do without spending a very long time experimenting. I'll work on that, for future efforts, but this will have to do.

Installation was quite easy, involving only two screws, and only took two minutes. The front sight replaces the factory sight, and the rear piece clamps onto the existing scope rail. The new sights also lengthen the sight radius by about six inches.

All that remains is a trip to the range to adjust the sights, and a report will follow in due time.

Other items of shooty goodness include a roll-up shooting mat (you can only lie in a snow bank in subzero temps for so long before a mat sounds like a great idea), and gift cards for ammo/sporting goods.

Have a great day!


* Lovely, thoughtful wife
** Fits the Model 795, also

Range Report

Younger, Dad, Older from left to right

This won't be a long post, but it's a good one. Older daughter Melanie & I bought matching .22 rifles, just for fun, and took 'em to the range for sighting-in, and then a bit o' practice.

Both shot low and to the right, out of the box, but those are easy things to correct. After 10 shots, each were putting shots where we wanted. Well, more or less, considering inexpensive iron sights, but still.

Mel's proved to be quite finicky, with frequent failures to eject, along with a couple of misfires. Mine had a few FTEs, as well, but no light strikes. I had oiled the slides on both of the semi-auto plinkers, but clearly it was not enough. Jenny, who came along for the fun, had some Remington gun oil in her range kit which worked wonders. Mel's had only one additional FTE thereafter, and mine worked flawlessly.

We had ammo from Federal, Remington*, and CCI; my rifle ate whatever I put in it, but Mel's didn't like anything but the Federal "Champion" ammo.

Younger daughter Sam was the star of the show, though. Using Jenny's .scoped 22 and shooting off-hand with the CCI mini-mags, she put 10 shots into a cluster only 1 3/4" across at 50 yards.

I haven't shot this well without a shooting rest since moving to bifocals two decades ago. (grumble, grumble)

* One note: the Remington ammo was very inconsistent. Some rounds fired without much more sound than someone snapping their fingers, and others produced a louder report and sharper recoil. As you'd expect, the accuracy was horrible. Now I know why it was the least expensive option at the store.

One Last Post About The Week

A sad week, of course, but ending on a happy note the night before I flew out:

There are worse ways to spend a Wednesday evening. Just sayin'.

More From Merrill Field

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, here are more of the aircraft we looked at ... and in.

Somebody had a REALLY bad day

You don't fly these; you wear them

WASP engine

A post-war Taylorcraft - I understand the Army Air Corps used these as trainers.

Fox Island Dinner Cruise, Seward, AK

We rain into rain about three miles south of home, and it rained from that point on, until we were halfway back home last night. To add insult to the rain-soaking, it was coming down at a good clip in Anchorage as we pulled into town. (grins) Just another day of cool summer weather - and given what we see on the weather map in the Lower 48, we'll take it!

A bit of the "ghost forest" - trees killed when submerged in the salt waters of Turnagain Arm during the 9.2 'quake in 1964

Still on the road (another view)

More of that Alaskan sunshine (ahem)

One view of the Seward marina

The Chugach, our excursion vessel

Underway in the mist & fog

Still raining

Fox Island appears from the fog

Arrival at the dining hall

Me, enjoying the fresh air & sunshine ... heh

h/t & thanks to Younger Daughter for the photos