HERE

Interesting, Innit? 

Forget Chevy vs Ford (Dodge, actually, is the correct answer, BTW)

Forget GLOCK Vs 1911 (Y’all know my answer to that one).

The real question we have here today, the one that matters,  the one that chooses where you stand, what your lifestyle is, the one that makes us all take sides in life and choose our friends and all that….The one that defines WHO YOU ARE and WHAT YOU STAND FOR….:

Creamy or Crunchy peanut butter? Smooth or chunky?

I’m withholding revealing my choice at this time, but please, feel free to say your preference in comments.

I’m still not sure if she really felt threatened or if she was just trying to make trouble….or was truly batshit.

So I am in Home Depot shopping for supplies for an improvement project at the shooting range this weekend…..

My shopping list is on the back of a used NRA 50 foot Slow Fire pistol target (hey, I needed paper, and if there is one thing that a range has plenty of, it is used targets, right?)

This woman is walking down the aisle, sees the target and asks if it is a “gun target”.

“Yes, ma’am.”. I reply.

“Are those BULLET HOLES!!!!(eleventy)?”

“Yes, Ma’am”….”it’s a used target…..recycling you know”…

She actually complained to management…that I (or the target, at least) made her feel “unsafe”… Who were very unsupporting of her “feelings” (and polite to me),  but who did assist me in finding everything on the list to get me (and really, I think, her) out of the store as quickly as possible.

I was tempted to ask her if the fact that I was carrying a pistol under my shirt was important to her, but the poor employees at Home Depot were stressed enough from dealing with her, so I didn’t let her know…although it would have been fun to see if her head exploded from anxiety or something……. Plus that could be taken as “brandishing”, so I didn’t……

But really…A paper target makes one feel threatened? 

So in the last weeks of fiscal 2017, assorted government agencies spent the last money in their budgets.

50 Billion dollars. In less than 2 weeks. If they don’t spend the money, they lose it. So they spend it.

Fifty Billion in arcade games, unneeded autos, shuffleboards, advertising, Fidget spinners and paddleboards.

Even TheDonald’s office flushed their budget before they lost it.

Remember that next time they claim budget cuts will destroy their ability to do their jobs. 

Re: the Kavanaugh “investigation” by the FBI.

What can they come up with, and write a report about, in a week? (what can they really investigate, period, that hasn’t already come out and been testified to?

And the biggest issue: Can we trust a politicized FBI to be fair and honest and truthful? If we could say that about the FBI, and trust them, Hillary would have been in jail before the election.

In Chicago the motto is “Vote Early, Vote often.

Early voting has started.

Expect busses to be lining up at cemetery entrances soon….

So, the dude who let me fly his ’66 182 is 82 years old and has been having issues rolling the plane up the ramp into his hangar some days. (the 182 weighs 1600 lbs empty and, while it rolls easily, can be a bit of a chore to move up the ramp when full of fuel)

So, when I was talking with him after we had put the plane away, he said he wished he had a method of hooking his towbar to the front of his garden tractor that he uses to mow the grass around his hangar so he could let the tractor do the pushing (apparently, he told me today, he slipped last winter and banged himself up pretty good in the fall)

“Not a problem” I said. “Lets see the tractor”.

So I got a tape measure and measured the front frame rails and made a sketch and went back to my shop.

I made him a plate to fit the front frame rails and a bar he can hook to his towbar which will allow him to use the tractor to push the plane up the ramp. Simple to cut a bit of scrap metal and tack it together with the welder. I figured it was the least I could do since he wouldn’t let me pay for the fuel we used last time…. I’m a pretty good fabber if you don’t mind that it ain’t pretty….

Today, he was at the hangar, so I was able to meet him out there to test fit the plate and mark some holes in the frame so I could finish it up and full weld it together. A pretty nice piece of design, considering I made it from the pieces I had available, if I do say so myself.

As it was about 11:30 when I got there and it took about 40 minutes to mark the holes and fit everything else, he asked me if I wanted to have some lunch.

“Sure, where would you like to go?”

“Rochester” he replied. “I know a place”. (About 55 miles away from where we were)…”Up for a flight?”

Since I didn’t have any plans that afternoon that I could not change, I agreed.

We pushed the plane out of the hangar and preflighted and I started to get into the right seat.

“You don’t wanna fly?”

So I climbed into the left seat and started the engine.

Winds were 210 so we used 18 and I flew us to Rochester. about a 30 minute flight. I’ve been there before, so it was a sorta familiar route. He has a Garmin 430 and an I-Pad with ForeFlight, so navigation was easier than paper charts. First time I have simply taken off and flown without a real flight plan though.

3500 feet and MAN that is a nice, easy to fly airplane. Climbs at over 1000 FPM with just the two of us, and cruises at a bit over 140 knots (He is still breaking in the new powerplant, so we didn’t cruise at over 65%).

Winds at RCR were 180 at 12 gusting 15 so I chose 110 as the runway (110/290) and I did a straight in approach as there was no one else in the pattern. Did a nice, if not great crosswind landing and taxiied to park on the grass near the restaurant, which is near, but not on the airport property.

Lunch was good, and we walked back to the plane, preflighted, and taxiied back to the end of 11.

Took off and climbed to 4500 feet and set course back to home.

AWOS said winds were 250 when we were 20 miles out, 240 at 10 miles out, so I began setting up for a downwind for 27, but then were at 220 at 5 miles, so I instead entered the downwind for 18 and did a bounced landing due to a slightly late roundout and gusty wind at touchdown. Added a bit of power and stabilized and then set it down….Not my best landing, but not too bad either. Not a hard bounce, but still, a bounce.

Taxiied in and pushed the plane into the hangar.

Since everything fit right the first time, I will finish welding the pieces and do a bit of grinder work on the edges and such and then paint it this weekend. He will have a towbar and a more or less permanent hitch to hook it to. No more slipping and falling on a slippery ramp when he is by himself….at least not when pushing the aircraft back into it’s hangar.

I should have it done when he gets back from his trip next week.

He still won’t let me pay for even my share of the gas though. I did buy lunch.

As Aaron puts it….1.1 and 2.

I gotta find one that I can buy.

So, despite trying to NOT watch the Ford/Kavanaugh debacle, the media has pushed it into my face.

Radio, TV, even the internet.

However, if there in one thing that this debacle has shown it is that at lest some of the women who inhabit the DNC are exactly what many men think they are. Helpless, tiny, foolish, easily controlled, and duped creatures who should not be allowed out without a keeper to make sure they are safe……

The Geese are forming up into Vees, teaching the adolescents how to formation fly, and retraining those older members as well.

‘Tis a month or so early, but they seem to know something….Perhaps we are in for an early winter. 

I wish the media could learn the difference between “Flood” and “Flash Flood”.

The flooding in the Carolinas due to the rain from the hurricane is not a “flash Flood”. It is a “Flood”.

Flash flooding is when the water rises rapidly in a f=riverbed or other waterway due to accumulation of rainwater from a large area funneled through a very small waterway or streambed….generally with a downhill component. mostly caused by a thunderstorm or downpour, often miles away. Water can rise by FEET in a matter of minutes.

A flood, like the folks in the Carolinas after this last hurricane, is cause by too much rain falling faster than it can drain off. This water does not rise at nearly the same rate…..and it is, generally, predictable. Often, it is hours or even days to rise to flood level. I strongly doubt that anyone with more than three working brain cells is surprised at the areas that are flooding in the Carolinas….further I doubt that the rates were anywhere close to more than inches per hour.  If you are trapped by the flooding there, then you are apparently not paying attention.

But, to the news folks, any flood is a “Flash” flood.

But there IS a difference.