That was most of last weekend.

Saturday I had the piston rod on my lawn tractor disconnect from the piston and come through the side of the crank case. If anyone has a line on a used 8Hp Briggs and Stratton vertical output shaft I'm in the market for one.

Sunday's pistol match was really rough. 5 rounds into the first stage the trigger bar on my XD-40 breaks. Had to shoot the rest of the match with my Production gun but as Limited-10 Minor. On my second run shooting Revolver I got five misses on my last stage due to serious meat-ware malfunction.

Yeah, painful to say the least...

-Friday took GFWTR out for a nice dinner while Na'nah watch Abby.

-Saturday me and Abby hung out all day. Went shopping in the morning and that afternoon tried out my big wheeled stroller I got for father's day with a little exploring off road at an old park near our house.

-Sunday was a USPSA match at the local club. Got beat in Limited-10 by 0.38% by a high-school kid. Good match the kid and I were squaded together and egging each other on all match.

-That afternoon did a little more shopping and out for dinner with both GFWTR and Abby.

-That even cleaned guns and watch Aliens, again. I forgot how good that movie was I hadn't watched it in nearly two years.

-Monday night GFWTR and I went on a double date with the new priest and her husband, went out to dinner and saw the new Star Trek movie. Overall it was enjoyable. Felt rushed at the beginning and weak on plot but I thought the new versions of the characters were pretty good. I especially liked the new Bones.

Its time to start pressing again. In today's match I shot pretty good as far as my hits go but I was slow on several stages where I should/could have been faster. Last year I had several matches were I was pressing so hard to go fast that I was making bad shots and metal errors. Today it was just the opposite I was so focused on my plan, shooting and not making mental erros that I was slow. I need to start ramping up the speed until something breaks and then back it off just a touch. Last year I was less than 1% away form making A class in Limited-10. I have since fallen nearly 4% points from my high. Got to do something about that.

Great day today, got some sunburn, sweated a lot, and shot a match. I have shot three other matches this year with some of the stages outside but they were cold and rainy days. Today the weather was beautiful, a first this year. Hot, sunny and almost windy. You could tell my body was not ready for the heat I drank over 60oz of water and three 16oz Gatorades by the time I got home from the match.

It was my club's second outdoor match of the year. The first one was cold and raining so it was a steel match instead of a USPSA match; today was regular USPSA. It was a good solid match nothing to notable but the stages were good solid stages. Perfect for new shooters to get a good flavor of USPSA which was perfect since a co-worker came with me to give USPSA a try for the first time. For having only shot a firearm a handful of time previously and all in informal shooting sessions he did very good with the pressure of people watching and the timer running. Now I just have to get him to get his own gun. Nothing like turning your co-workers into "gun-nuts"

Abby got her first day outside yesterday. Grass sort of freaked her out and concrete almost as much. It was pretty funny though cause you could tell she was interest but sitting her down in the grass was just too much too quick. She would look around for few second and then practically jump back into your arms. Today she started on a blanket and got to explore onto the grass at her own pace and liked it a lot more.

She might have the making of being an engineer. Yesterday dad was working on his gas power leaf blower and I was holding her talking to him while he worked. She seem very interested in all the pieces parts and watching grandpa take it apart trying to figure out why it was not getting gas. She seemed to like the tools especially grandpa's cordless drill.

Well I finish this rambling post with two pictures of Abby.

Here she is helping me with my laundry.



Here she is after Na-na (GFWTR's mom) wore her out playing with her all afternoon without letting her taking a nap.

So Yesterday I shot another small indoor pistol match. First gun I was shooting my XD-45 Tactical in Limited-10. In the previous match I had a jam related to what I believe the magazine spring being too soft and the rim of the case did not slide of the breach face properly jamming the gun as the nose of the bullet went into the chamber but he back of the case was driven back down into the magazine. This wasn't the first time I have had similar jams. So before this match I replaced all six magazine springs with new stiffer springs. This time on the third stage I had a problem with a magazine that caused the round to nose up and the round jamming the action with the bullet sticking up out of the ejection port. I am pretty sure this was due to the forward part of the feed lips spreading and letting the nose of the round start too high up. It was an easy fix by gently bending the lips back together but I am coming to realize the the XD-45 magazines are not nearly as durable as my XD-40 magazines. I have had few if any magazine related problems with my XD-40's on the other hand nearly all of my problem with my XD-45 have been due to magazine issues.

For my second run I borrowed a buddies SV IMM Open gun. This gun uses a very unique barrel and compensator. The barrel is ported and has a large comp on it like most Open guns. The thing that is unique is that the first port in the barrel is only about 1.375 inches in front of the chamber. Supposedly this is suppose to make the whole gun shoot flatter. I don't know having only shot a few open gun previously. What I can tell you is this gun has a horrible bark and an amazing amount of muzzle flash. In addition to the noise and flash the single action trigger and manual safety really messed with my brain. So needless to say I did not shoot very good. To add insult to injury I zero that fourth stage when a 9mm Largo case had been mixed in the all the 38 super comp cases in the reloaded ammunition. The 9mm Largo case will chamber and fire just fine but locks the action up pretty bad. All in all I did not enjoy Open very much. I could certainly see how the good open guys sound like there shooting a sub-gun but honestly it wasn't really appealing enough to spend $3000+ on an open gun when I have as much or more fun with my $450 XD.

Josey: You be Ten Bears?

Ten Bears: I am Ten Bears.

Josey: (spits tobacco) I'm Josey Wales.

Ten Bears: I have heard. You're the Gray Rider. You would not make peace with the Blue Coats. You may go in peace.

Josey: I reckon not. Got nowhere to go.

Ten Bears: Then you will die.

Josey: I came here to die with you. Or live with you. Dying ain't so hard for men like you and me, it's living that's hard; when all you ever cared about has been butchered or raped. Governments don't live together, people live together. With governments you don't always get a fair word or a fair fight. Well I've come here to give you either one, or get either one from you. I came here like this so you'll know my word of death is true. And that my word of life is then true. The bear lives here, the wolf, the antelope, the Comanche. And so will we. Now, we'll only hunt what we need to live on, same as the Comanche does. And every spring when the grass turns green and the Comanche moves north, he can rest here in peace, butcher some of our cattle and jerk beef for the journey. The sign of the Comanche, that will be on our lodge. That's my word of life.

Ten Bears: And your word of death?

Josey: It's here in my pistols, there in your rifles. I'm here for either one.

Ten Bears: These things you say we will have, we already have.

Josey: That's true. I ain't promising you nothing extra. I'm just giving you life and you're giving me life. And I'm saying that men can live together without butchering one another.

Ten Bears: It's sad that governments are chiefed by the double-tongues. There is iron in your word of death for all Comanche to see. And so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron, it must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... or death... It shall be life. (he takes his knife and cuts his hand. Josey does the same and they grasp each others hand.) So shall it be.

Josey: I reckon so.

From: The Outlaw Josey Wales (IMDB) (YouTube link if your interested)
written by Philip Kaufman and Sonia Chernus, from the novel by Forrest Carter
emphasis mine

Watch this movie again last night while I was cleaning guns and reloading some 45ACP. I have always enjoyed this movie it has some great lines in it. The above dialog has to be one of my favorite. It seems especial poignant to me last night.

Shot my first USPSA match since the first week of last November. It's amazing how quickly the fine edge on those skills goes away. It's not like I forgot what direction the bullet go in the magazine but I certainly lost some of my efficiency of motion for sure. I had two misses on for first run (three stages, 72rds) but that was with my carry gun XD-40 Sub Compact. It was good to get back to shooting. Good to see the gang again and fun shooting.

Saturday morning I was up early and met a co-worker and a customer of ours at a small hunting preserve and spent the morning hunting pheasant. It was a cool, very wet morning. It had rain most of the night and rained the first hour and half we hunted. The field had only just received two killing frosts so the cover was still thick and tough. It soaked through my waxed canvas Filson chaps in about 10mins of walking. We were all pretty soggy by the end of it. We had two flushing dogs with us; neither had great noses but they did were eager and fun to watch work. Sometimes they would get too far out ahead of us but we still manage to get six bird between us. I got the lion's share, taking four of them. Some days the birds just fly your way?... GFWTR cooked them up for me today for dinner. They cooked all day in the crockpot with rice, milk, chicken stock and salt and pepper. Very tasty.

Sunday was the club's last USPSA match of the year. It was cool but the rain held off until just before we finished tearing the stages down and putting all the equipment away in the storage shed. I was on fire most of the day. I won Limited-10 and my run on the classifier should push me a few tenth of percent higher, probably not enough to get A class but it will get me closer. I won three of the four stages in Limited-10. On my reshoot I shot Production and my score would have won Production. I again won three of four stages. Just one more match this year over in Erie and competitive shooting will be done for me until next year.

I am presently ranked 13th in the nation in USPSA Limited-10 division "B" class. I am less then 1% away from making "A" class. To put it in perspective the follow is the number of USPSA members in the various classes within the Limited-10 Division.

Class Ltd 10
GM 32
M 163
A 462
B 1106 <- I am presently ranked 13t in this class
C 2324
D 1079
U 11453 <- most of these shooters do not shoot in the L-10 division
Total 16619 <-total active membership

I woke up at 6:30AM this morning with a mild hangover. It only got worse as the morning progress but I went to the match anyway. Figured is was my last match I would likely shoot before becoming a dad so I was determined to tough it out. It was not my most enjoyable match due to the pounding, red wine induced, hang-over/migraine head-ache. One of these days I will learn to just pass on red wine, it almost always causes a migraines in any quantity. Well I fought through the headache and manage to take first in Limited-10 (of 11 shooters). The match was our usual four stages with one of the stages being a classifier. This month's classifier was an old classic called El Presidente (CM 99-11 link to stage diagram/description (PDF)). In limited-10 I manged an 85.81% on the stage. That is Master Class shooting (85-95%). I am presently classified as a B class shooter (60-75%, presently: 70.73%). I did pretty good on my re-shoot in Production taking third place. All in all not bad given my poor condition. My theory here is the headache kept me from being overly talkative allowing me to focus on my shooting while not letting me over think the stages (it hurt too much to think). I certainly don't think I will make hang-overs a regular part of my shooting regiment but I think it does point to the fact I need to do less talking and more shooting.

So Friday night GFWTR and I went and saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Review in my previous post.

Saturday morning I slept in. I then spent most of the rest of the afternoon interviewing two priest for the position of being our new rector. I am part of an eleven member committee at church that is interviewing potential priests to be the rector of our church after our former rector retired. I have done several interviews for engineering positions at work but interviewing priests for the rector position has been an interesting endeavor. In some ways very much the same as interview an engineer and many other ways very different. The big thing is that the process is going much slower, by design, than any company would tolerate. We have been at this process for over a year now.

That afternoon I made an appearance at GFWTR first baby shower, the one with primarily her family and our local friends. Holy crap! there is a lot of baby stuff in our house now. I filled the back of the Element, seats folded up, with baby stuff, clear to the roof. I would have never thought you could need this much stuff to care for a child. She already has enough cloths that we could treat them as disposable and I don't think she would be naked for several months. Two more shower are happening this coming weekend, one with my family ,and then one at church. I have to make appearance at those too. That many women oohing and aahing over baby stuff is a scary event for a man to walk into.

Sunday I was up early and off to shoot the Gem City match. I think I shot production pretty well but with revolver I just could not get my head screwed on straight. I was shooting OK with it but making lots of mental errors that were costing me time. Lot of cursing and talking to my gun during the stages. A sure sign of either a bad gun or a meatware problem. Its a revolver and as expected running just fine.

After cleaning guns that evening I spent about two hours setting up my father-in-law and email account (he doesn't have a computer yet) and then getting his mobile phone to check it for him.