Why The F Are Simple Things So F'ing DiFFicult?

So, I bought this Lenovo laptop recently, it has been very nice, except for a couple of annoying things, the speakers aren't that great, but I can live with that, the most annoying aspect has been the ridiculously flakey touchpad. It will suddenly go into what can only be described as 'drunk mode', in which it stops going where my finger is going and jumps all over the page, sometimes not moving at all. No idea why it does that but this is why, generally, I tend to keep the mouse connected.

So, moving on...

I am typing along two days ago and the F key suddenly pops off. Ooookay, no biggie, I click it back into place, keep typing, when it flies off again. WHAT THE F, F KEY?

Okay, this happened on occasion with the Toshiba I used to have, but not until about 3 years into owning that one, a key failed here and there, I replaced it, no biggie. Except this has been what, 3 months? Should be covered under normal use in the warranty. So I go to Lenovo's website and get a phone number and call it.

"If you'd like to bla bla bla press 1, if you'd like to bla bla bla press 2... " on and on for like 18 different choices, I picked warranty, and got pushed into another automated query, picked another choice, then another automated message, this time telling me to go to a website. BLARGHHH!!!

Hang up, redial...

I hit zero immediately, boom, I'm talking to someone in a sweat shop in Asia. I hang up.

Try again, this time I pick sales, because I know damn good and well that companies are not stupid, they always have real good old Americans doing their sales, unless they are stupid in which case they also outsource their sales to some warehouse in Asia too.

Sure enough, boom, I'm talking to an American. I start explaining, tell him I don't want to talk to someone in Pakistan, he says "Sure, I'll get you to the right person" and boom I'm listening to the automated message telling me about the website.

BLEEPITY BLEEPITY F BOMB G D F BOMB!!!

Call back again... I pick parts for Thinkpads, and I end up speaking to someone with a heavy Indian accent yet again. *@#(*$@, oh well, let's give it a shot. 30 minutes later, we've finally done 30 seconds worth meaningful conversation, and I find out that, per the Lenovo warranty, they will not send out a keyboard unless I send my keyboard in to them first. WTF??? I don't need a god damn keyboard, I need ONE KEY. Plus the keyboard will likely be refurbished, not new. My keyboard is like 3 months old, so basically it IS new.

"Ve'll solly sor, ve can nut just send vu vun key, ve must send vu da keyvoard"

Now, I can replace the keyboard myself if I so desire instead of sending it in, but they put what basically amounts to a lean on my credit card until I send MY keyboard back into them upon replacement, unless of course I send my entire laptop in per the warranty instructions, which could take 6 to 8 weeks. Yah, like that is going to happen. Neither is acceptable to me. I will not give them my credit card number, nor will I go without my laptop for 2 months. At this point he is just reading verbetim from the screen so he gets hung up on.

SERIOUSLY? ALL I WANT IS AN F'ING F KEY!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

So I call back, this time I want to talk to a manager immediately. I am put on hold, guy who answered comes back, manager not available but he has CHRIS on the line. The guy who answered was helpful, Chris on the other hand sounded like he had 100 better things to do than his job. So they talk back and forth, bla bla bla, what if he wants to do this, bla bla bla, so on... I finally put them on speaker phone, and then they finally settle on some website where they say I can find a local service center, again Chris sounds like he's been smoking weed all day, and I can hardly hear him, finally I tell both of them I found the website and I hang up on them.

So, the premise here is that I can have the local service center order the keyboard, I just stop by, they take my F key and replace it with the other F key. Viola, simple, easy, right?

Wrong, call the service center here in Omaha, they take forever to answer, I get put on hold, they finally come back and take my info, they say the same thing, no guarantee that I'll get a keyboard that isn't 'refurbished', then they say they have to research it and they'll call me back. They do call back 40 minutes later, and oh what good news they have... *insert sarcasm here* "Sir, per the terms of your warranty, all service must be done on this model on a mail in basis only, we're sorry!"

WTFGD@*(#(#*$(*@#$(&@(Y(YW*GQWEUBPWUIOGHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

IT IS ONE KEY, IT IS THE F KEY!! ARE YOU F'ING KIDDING ME?????

So, "F" it, I went to ebay and I bought a complete keyboard online for $19, shipped from, where else?? ASIA. Hong Kong to be specific. No shipping charges it says, but I'm sure I've likely been fleeced of $19, despite his superb trader rating. We shall see.

Seriously though, ALL I WANT IS THE F KEY. WHY do things have to be this difficult!!??? Even car dealerships aren't this stupid. This would be the equivalent of replacing the entire motor because the spark plug needs replacement.

So, anyone got an F key for me? Because I can tell you this much, Lenovo and their warranty can certainly go _uck themselves.

Testing 1 2 3

Trying a post from the cell phone. Ze intornet on ze fone ist gut!

That is all for now

Going To A Concert!!!!

I recently celebrated a birthday, and belly decided to get me tickets to a concert. Creed with special guest Staind. Yes, I'm a closet Creed fan. I don't go around promoting it, but I do enjoy their music. Belly knows this, and so when Creed announced they were getting back together for a reunion tour and new album, I was pretty excited. She had to let me know before my birthday that she bought the tickets because I was going to get them myself, I felt kinda bad but that's better than having an extra set of tickets.

We drove into Counciltucky and headed over to the Mid America Center, I was hoping to find a fast food place, wasn't all that interested in Burger King but that was all they had to eat around there that was quick, and we only had about 45 minutes so we quickly ate a couple burgers/fries and headed on over to the auditorium. Our seats were 5 rows up from the front, on the side, and they were excellent.

The opening band was called "Like A Storm". They were decent, better than most opening bands. Sounded Australian, the best description is an emo breaking benjamin. Pretty good guitar, vocals are so so, lyrics are pretty sophomoric but they are young so they'll get better. After their set they came out and hung out in the crowd, I thought that was pretty cool, and a good way to develop a following. From watching a couple of their songs on YouTube this morning, the comments for the videos seem to show that their approach is working.

Then they cleared the front of the stage and set up for Staind. They kicked off with "Fade", which is my favorite Staind song. Vocalist Aaron Lewis sings like he's in pain, and I have no idea how the lead guitarist can continue playing the guitar the way he does (bent way over then coming back up) without having to see a chiropractor after every show. He was going up and down so fast that I thought he was going to smash his guitar a couple of times. It is interesting, I like Staind but I don't have any of their albums, so as I sat through their of like 8 or 10 songs I was thinking "Damn, these guys have more hits than I thought".

It was during the Staind set that an irritating group of young people sat down in front of us. I don't think they had tickets for the seats they sat in, but despite how stupid they were acting I just left that alone. There were about 4 or 5 fat emo looking girls, one skinny girl, and the most annoying of all was this 16 or 17 year old skinny douchebag. I don't know if he had mental problems, was on drugs, a flaming homo, or what, but he kept standing up and turning around, blocking the set, yelling, lifting his shirt in the air, general asshattery and such. He had a Hollister shirt on too, and for that reason alone I wanted to do a flying kick from my row and lay a boot on his skull. Thankfully they left after Staind, no surprise there, there were a lot of really emo looking kids up front for the Staind set. I hate emo morons.

Then they stripped down the stage once more and set everything up for Creed. That took about 10 minutes, then the lights went down, and this large black sheet fell from the ceiling and Creed opened up with "Bullets". That was kind of surprising, I figured they would pick one of their new songs or maybe "Are You Ready?", but being a big Weathered fan, I was glad they went with Bullets. They used a bunch of pyro, with massive flames firing off behind the band. This is the first concert I have ever gone to that had pyro, the big arena concerts I went to in the 80's all used the huge laser shows. Even though we were probably 40 meters or so from the actual pyro effects, each time they blasted off the heat wave was blistering, it must be insanely hot on the stage itself.

They followed up Bullets with the new song "Overcome", then "What If". Another new song after that, I think it may have been "To Whom It May Concern" but I'm not sure. Then "Say I", "Torn", "Are You Ready", and "Never Die". "My Own Prison" followed that, then "Faceless Man", and the final hit song from the My Own Prison album, an energentic performance of "One".

After that, "With Arms Wide Open", then Stapp talked about losing someone close and sang "What's This Life For?". Then they did bows and set the guitars down and walked off the stage. At this point I was like "WTF???" because I was fully expecting "One Last Breath", which is my favorite song. No concert would be complete from Creed without that song, in my opinion.

But they weren't done, they came back out and set up in a close group on stools and did their first concert performance of the new song "Rain", and then broke into "One Last Breath" much to my happiness and apparently the rest of the crowd. After that they finished up with "Higher", a song I had completely forgot about.

I think that basically covers everything. It was certainly weird seeing Stapp without his hair. They played with a 5 piece set, with a touring rhythm guitarist named Eric Friedman. The extra guitar gave a lot of the songs a bit more punch, and being a guitar rock fan I actually liked it. It was also good to see Brian Marshall back in the band again, and they did a lot more guitar solos than I ever saw in any previous live shows (never in person, watching on video). That was good, as I know in the past that Stapp had pissed off the other members by trying to force them NOT to do the guitar solos then arguing with them about it after shows.

All in all, awesome show!!! I don't know what to make of the new music yet, but I remember it took me a good year to get into Weathered after I bought it years ago, and therefore this may be the same thing. Even if the album is half as good as Weathered I will still probably be pretty happy with it.

Ted Kennedy The "American Hero"???

You'd likely have to be living under a rock on some 3rd world island at this point to not know that Ted Kennedy is dead. And while I haven't posted often lately, I find myself needing to post up due to the overwhelming amount of nonsensical garbage that the media is trolling out as 'news' when it comes to this fat drunken bluthering idiot. I don't even know where to start, nearly every article that pops up seems to be inflated with artificial information. The media is desperately trying to apply frosting to a turd, or sugar coat a lump of crap, for lack of a better term, and the hilarity of the entire situation is unbelievable.

Where do I even begin? The first thing I read the day he died was on Yahoo:

"A Torch Extinguished: Ted Kennedy Dead At 77"

Oh, forgive me, I was rolling my eyes at the first three words of the article's title even before I opened the article up, and the article itself was no better, basically a collection of references to the other Kennedy brothers, as though the last name would make up for Ted's failed legacy.

CBS News, however, takes the cake with this bit of nonsense from the article (thanks to blackfive.net for this):

"Ted Kennedy — The Last Brother"

Once again, even in the title they have to link him to other people to justify his 'greatness', but it gets even worse in the article itself. According to one Kennedy aid:

"He's gone to the funeral of every soldier who's come home from Iraq in a casket, whether it's up in Massachusetts or at Arlington Cemetery. And it's hard. But he knows it pays respect for giving the last full measure that these young soldiers have given."

96 Massachusetts' soldiers have died in the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts, and following this news piece, Blackfive received a flood of emails from readers, describing specific funerals that Kennedy did not attend. So the idea that he attended all these funerals is total bullshit, just like 90% of all they nicey nicey things being said about Kennedy.

The article also states that Kennedy was 'drafted' into the Army. He was NOT drafted. After he was kicked out of Harvard for cheating, he ENLISTED into the Army in June of 1951. He requested Army Intelligence training, but (big surprise) he was dropped from the program. He then used his father's political connections to avoid deployment into the Korean War, instead getting a peach gig at European installations for the remainder of his 'service'. The article also states he served 'three years'. He was discharged in March of 1953. He didn't even make it to two years.

Why are they trying so hard to make this failure into something else? Tripping over themselves to eulogize this idiot with frivilous nonsense. Regardless of how much the media twists the facts, it does not change what Ted Kennedy was. A worthless drunken fool who spent 40 years playing off of his family name, and showing just how stupid the people of Massachusetts are for continually voting him into office.

This nonsense isn't limited to the media, unfortunately. I showed up for work yesterday to find the flag at the camp at half staff, and I felt like throwing up. Sure enough, Obama ordered military installations to put their flags at half staff for five days. WTF??? Kennedy's military service was at best sub standard, what a slap in the face to find him being honored at military installations. And worse he will be buried at Arlington, which is just disgusting. Another tug on the coat tails of a failed legacy, using his family name one final time to get ahead, in this case to insult every fallen soldier buried at Arlington National Cemetary.

Do I even need to bring up the "Chappaquiddick Incident", where Kennedy skated past a manslaughter charge and again used his family name for a "leaving the scene of an accident" conviction and suspended jail time?

The only decent article about Kennedy I've read thus far was written by Time's Jeff Israely, titled:

"After Kennedy's Death: Silence from the Pope"

Per the article, when President Obama visited the Pope in July, he delivered a sealed letter from Ted Kennedy, and the presumption is that in the letter, Kennedy was asking for a papal blessing, given his failing health. As the article stated, "Kennedy should have been asking the Pope for forgiveness." An unnamed Vatican official asked why Kennedy would even write a letter, given his failure to follow Catholic teachings? THANK YOU, for a moment of truthful reporting in a sea of rambling stupidity.

Of course, Time ruins this with another article entitled:

"Ted Kennedy's Quiet Catholic Faith"

The title of the article left me chuckling, because despite author Amy Sullivan's nonsensical description of Ted Kennedy 'making peace' with the Catholic church, he in no way lived his life in a Godly way. Therefore the word 'Quiet' in the title is all you need to really pay attention to, his faith was silent, or, more accurately, non-existant.

I understand that in death, the facts are often glossed over in a favorable way out of respect, but stomping on the facts repeatedly is a little much. I'm just thankful no one assassinated this moron, God knows it would have been difficult for the media to stupidly idolize him any more than they already are, but I'm sure they would have found a way.

More Time

As most people know, I grew up on a farm. Our house was just across the country road from the farm itself, but for all practical purposes, it was just like living on the farm itself, as we were so close. My earliest memories are all from the farm. Crossing the fence at the other side of the road to walk across the cow pasture. Playing with nuts and bolts in the back of the old blue air compressor on the other side of the pond, in the junkyard. Playing in the hay barn, cleaning the back of the dairy barn, riding my bicycle all over, all these memories from birth, through grade school, college, until now. But to say 'the farm' isn't exactly the correct terminology, because as kids we always referred to the farm as 'Grandmas'. We're going up to Grandmas, because my grandmother was always there.

The farm itself has been in my grandfather's last name, same as my last name, from the beginning, in the 1860s. During that time we always had the dairy, until just this last August when they sold the dairy portion of the farm off in order to focus on the agricultural portion of the farm. But for decades, Grandma was in that barn, morning and night, 5 to 8, then helping with calf chores, cooking meals for everyone, cleaning, painting fences, upkeep all around the farm. Because of all of that, she was so visible, she was the backbone of the farm, and therefore the farm became "Grandmas" and was referred to as such by all of us kids, and even by the cousins in the family that would come to visit the farm. I would tell my friends I was going to Grandmas. Grandma always wanted to meet anyone I was dating, never to express a displeasure with anyone, but because she loved meeting new people, especially those interested in her family.

I have never known anyone who works as hard as Grandma worked. I found myself thinking that she is the strongest, hardest working woman I have ever known. But that statement isn't fair, because she is the strongest and hardest working PERSON I have ever known. She never asked for anything for herself, only put forth the effort to help others. There was no paycheck for her, no salary, no bonuses, no time off. Nor did she ever ask for any of those. As she got older, she would head in early from time to time, maybe start a little later, but you could always count on Grandma beyond all others to be in that barn, milking those cows. Afterwards she could be found in the house, cooking, cleaning, welcoming the constant number of family and friends who would visit. She may have married into the farm as it existed, but make no mistake, she was the farm, more so than anyone else could have been.

Grandma was incredibly bright, she could name the capitals of all 50 states in America. There are 93 counties in Nebraska, and on vehicle license plates they are listed by number as the starting prefix, and Grandma could name every county based on the plate number. When us grandchildren had problems with homework, she would help us. If we had a spelling bee to prepare for, she would listen to us spell out the words, and without checking she knew if they were right or wrong.

In the last 1990s, Grandma was in her early 70s, and still she could be found, morning and night, in the milk barn. Her knees were failing her, her arthritis made it difficult to move around, every other word she said was "WHAT?" as her hearing began to fade, but her mind was as sharp as ever. She never let any amount of pain stop her from whatever she put her mind to. We were able to convince her to finally stay away from the barn following a stroke she had, but how does one fill such shoes, how do you replace someone who gives all and asks for nothing in return? You cannot, and in some ways it left a hole from which the dairy never recovered.

Over the following few years, Grandma focused on her lawn, on her cooking, she spent less and less time outside, her hearing got worse, the television got louder, until she finally let go of her stubborn nature and accepted wearing a hearing aid. Her health gradually got worse, but her mental state always made one think she was healthy, that her tenacity and willpower could overcome anything her body would throw at her. In 2007, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Thankfully it was found early, and through treatment the cancer went into remission. Once again, Grandma fought back and overcame another challenge. Once again, Grandma was back at the farm, once again we could go up 'to Grandmas' to visit.

Over the next 18 months, my sisters would work hard to try to get everyone to the farm once a week on Sunday afternoon. Each week was the phone call asking us to come down, and odds are I had work, or I was too busy with something with the house, or some other excuse to not make it. Last Sunday the phone call came, but this time to tell me that Grandma was back in the hospital. Over the course of four days in the previous week, the pain had gotten so bad that Grandma could not even sit up in bed. Once at the hospital, they ran some tests... the cancer had returned, and was in most of her major organs.

Despite this devastating news, somehow deep inside I felt that she was strong enough to withstand the cancer, that somehow we would have more time to spend with her. They ran an MRI, and thankfully the cancer was not in her brain. This was good news, but only a little. She was still in a lot of pain, but they were controlling it with medication. We thought maybe when she came home we'd have to have someone to watch over her, or perhaps she and Grandpa could live in an assisted care facility of some sort. Bell and I were able to stop in and visit. We dropped off a photo of the three of us from Wisconsin. Grandma got to see lil N', but they were taking her for another MRI and we were only able to stay for a little bit, but that was okay, we'd stop in again, when there was more time.

Then Friday morning I received a text message while at work. "Things are worse today, you should come to the hospital soon". I drove as quickly as I could, to find that Grandma likely had a heart attack, a mild one, but with her current state of pain, and the medication she was under, that they weren't sure if she'd make it through the day. I went in to say "hi", she opened her eyes momentarily, but I could not tell if she knew I was there. I went into the hallway, there were so many family and friends around, I didn't want to crowd the room. My mother took lil N' in to see her Great Grandma, and I didn't find out until later that Grandma had actually leaned forward and momentarily smiled at lil N', the only time she had smiled all day. I was so relieved to hear that, because it let me know that Grandma knew we were there. Late that night, with all of the family around, she passed away.

While I kept my composure at the hospital, as I drove home I found myself just angry. WHY, why did this happen so fast? Why couldn't we just have had a little more time? Then I had to stop and realize how selfish this was, that Grandma was in so much pain. She had likely been in this amount of pain for quite some time but because of the type of person she was, she would not have told anyone, because that was not the type of person she was. I went upstairs, it was around 3 in the morning by that time, and I looked in on lil N', and it was that moment where it all hit me. As I run my fingers through my sleeping girl's hair and tried in vain to swallow my tears, I thought about how much Grandma meant to me, to everyone she touched throughout her life.

Even as I drove down yesterday, just me and lil' N in the truck, my first thought was how happy grandma would be to see lil' N, and I felt the air leave my lungs in a rush as once again that realization set in, that Grandma would not be there. There will be no more Sunday phone calls inviting me to come down to "Grandmas". As I pulled into the yard, I found myself in tears. I miss you already Grandma Helen Halmes, I only wish I had a little more time to spend with you.

Tales Of Broken Hard Drives, Car Talk, Range Firing, New Laptop, and Travian

I'm not even going to promise to post 'more' any longer, because I never follow through, perhaps by not promising such things I will actually begin to post more again.

I think it is likely because I spend so much time on other places like SRTForums that I don't really get to posting as much as I should. Yes, SRT as in Street and Racing Technology, as in Ah Toe Mo Beels. My SRT-4 with its cute little 2.4 inline 4 intercooled turbo is at 35,872 miles, and the warranty is up on May 16th (36 months)of this year, or at 36,000 miles, whichever comes first. I am going to take the car into the dealer for a once over, to have them really check everything out while it is still under warranty, and then perhaps I can actually hit the mileage and 36 month on the same day, which would be an interesting coincidence, interesting probably only to me and maybe my other friends who populate, or pollute if you will, the SRT forums.

Once the warranty is up, oh goodie, the fun begins. I have a stage 1 performance ECU, full 3" Borla exhaust with cat delete, rear strut bar, catch can, AGP billeted waste gate assembly, and other fun items ready to go on the car. Right now the car has BWoody HBrace and traction bars, along with an Aeroforce tech gauge, and that is all, none of which can affect the warranty. Hmm, I've probably lost all of the people who randomly read my blog from time to time with these last two paragraphs...

Moving on...

About 2 weeks ago my Toshiba laptop from 2005 began acting up. The hard drive was making clickity noises, and I got a little worried, so I pulled out Mr Noisy 20gig old as hell external hard drive and I backed up my files. I am a GENIUS (okay, in this one instance, very very lucky) because the next day my screen saver was locked up, and upon the obligatory 5 second power button hold down/restart, UNABLE TO LOCATE MEDIA/UNABLE TO FIND OPERATING SYSTEM...

HOORAY FOR ME!!!! Right? Oh, just wait... gets better...

So, now I have no computer... wait, hold on, Belly has a Toshiba that has had a burned out screen for about the last oh, 3 years... so I switch her hard drive over to my computer...

Nothing

Okay, let's try something else, the *gasp!* dreaded screen switch!!!

I looked up the instructions online, and despite it being a relatively in depth process, I needed my internet, so I gave it a shot. About 2 hours later, I had the screens switched, and I hit the power button, and VOILA!!! On comes her screen, first time I had seen that background image in a LONG time.

HOORAY NOW??? No, wait, things start getting worse

I taped the cord to the back of the computer because the battery was completely kaput, either that or the power saver software wasn't allowing the battery to charge. The cord was loose, so anytime it would pop out BOOM the power was off, not good for the computer and irritating for me. On top of that there were 68 processes going at one time, and around 16 different programs that started up whenever you powered up the computer. S L O W I N G down everything.

Late one night I was working away and BOOM, that hard drive crashed too.

Let's see, F word, mother F word, g damn, son of a b, slam fist on table, lament and scream, etc etc... because this time I didn't back up the hard drive and there are some things on that hard drive that I need to have, so I may be stuck with a 100 dollar Best Buy bill if one of my buddies at work can't boot it externally and get the info I need.

Thankfully, Belly's father, being the wonderfully precise and thorough person that he is, had already been looking for a replacement laptop, and found one that still had XP (albeit XP for business, still a shitload better than that god damn Vista or Mojave or wtf they want to call it).

So, after a bit of thought, I chucked down the 600 bucks for it, or should I say, Belly did and I wrote her a check, and then I headed off for range qualification fire.

We spent 4 days out at the ranges, doing our range qual and warrior task training requirements...

Second year in a row I had to deal with weapons malfunctions. Last year had to aim way low (half the target length) because my front sight post was spinning free and I couldn't lower it at all. This year was even worse.

On the zero range, I had fired 3 shots at 25 meters, put them in my usual quarter sized group placement, then on the second 3 shot set the extractor didn't eject the round and it double fed on me...

So I lubed the shit out of the thing and hoped for the best.

Next up, KD range (roughly like what the Marines fire except no 500 meter range).

Fired at 300 meters, slow fire, 1 shot per minute for 10 minutes (to gauge and make changes to tighten up placement). No problems, put 8 of 10 shots in the 5 point circle.

Second... rapid fire 300 meters (10 shots, 70 seconds). 9 of 10 shots in the 5 point circle.

Third... kneeling 250 meters, 10 shots 60 seconds, landed 8 of 10 in the 5.

4th, prone unsupported 200 meters, rapid fire 10 shots 50 seconds, major problems again, 3 misfeeds, same problem, extractor not doing its job...

This isn't a normal misfeed either, when you get a double feed like this, you have to:

1) Pull charging handle to rear
2) lock bolt to rear
3) pull magazine out of housing, sometimes hard as hell because the round will jam against the top of the mag nearly locking it into the well.
4) tilt weapon to the open ejector side and slam fist on side of weapon to push unfired round out and away from chamber.
5) let the bolt slam forward to re-engage the round
6) pull charging handle back and hope the old round ejects this time
7) lock bolt to rear
8) reinsert magazine
9) slam bolt forward to put new round in the chamber

I had 3 misfires like this, and each one takes an eternity to fix, and under rapid fire conditions you have like no time at all

Then it happened to me again on the next one, 200 meter rapid fire from the knees.

I was only able to fire 12 of my 20 shots, I left 8 live rounds on the ground, didn't even send them downrange.

The range safety said he couldn't believe I was able to re-engage the target on three seperate occasions from the 250, I don't know how the hell I did it, I fucking HATE shit weapons.

Fired the last one, slow fire standing, and put all 10 in the 5 point range. I had misfires again but with a minute for each shot I was able to fix the problem easily.

I ended up with a 266 out of 350. Well above average but below where I wanted to be. I did the math and if my averages for those 2 rapid fire rounds had been as good as my others (and no reason to believe they wouldn't have) I would have fired a 310, or second best on the day.

So I had a new extractor and spring put on, then went to the actual money course, the qualification range, and got about 10 shots in and had the same bullshit happen again

Fired a 29 out of 40 because of it, I was like 'fuck it' and borrowed a buddy's weapon and got a 34 without zero'ing and I took that, despite being 3 to 4 below my average.

If I could ever get a decent weapon *@(*#@$&*@#*$&ING CRAPPITY!!

But, even with all the problems, I finished 8th out of more than 100 firers, so that was good.

Got home on Thursday, and there was my new laptop sitting by the front door, under the doormat, thank goodness for that bit of 'security' right?

So of course I am giddy and i have to open it and get it ready and...

Yikes, what an ugly mo fo, that was literally my first thought. BUT, that being said, after studying some reviews for the Lenova computers, I realized they are more about function than form, and so far I'm really liking this brutus beast of a laptop with its 'hardened' hard drive (hopefully will keep it safe from my abuse, right?)

One can only hope.

My other bit of addiction lately has been... NO, not tharsis gate, although I still hang out from time to time there, now I have been playing Travian.

No, don't look it up, don't try it, don't do anything with it, you may get hooked on it, and that is bad. Travian is one of those games that, even if you aren't there, you are there. You can't just 'log out', your villages can get attacked, your troops killed, etc. I would like to smack Fantom good and hard right in the testicles for ever showing all of us that game. Oh, but somehow he breaks out and doesn't play anymore. That rat!!!!

I swear though this is the last server I play on, once End Game is over, I'm not playing it again...

Maybe?

NO, I will have will power and resolve this time.

What else went on today? I am at 205 lbs, and I put off my diet another day, and instead of running 8 miles tonite to justify the Taco Bell I had for lunch, I instead went to Burger King and had a massive heart attack inducing BK disaster burger. That isn't the real name of it but christ almighty the thing is huge and I should NOT have eaten it. It is likely I'll be feeling it for most of the day tomorrow.

I did mow the lawn, so I got about 1/100th of a workout in. The lawn is decent size, and it is a push mower, but lets face it, an 8 mile run is way WAY more of a decent cardio trip than mowing my lawn. Even so, the lawn looks pretty good. I love having my own house.

Belly and lil n' are both in Wisconsin, and I miss them. They will be back on Monday. Don't worry, no hookers or drugs here, just me and the three diabolical bastard cats.

Anything else? Well, I'm sure there is a lot more, but tomorrow I am teaching a 6 hour block of instruction on Accident Avoidance to our students (yes, cycle started again, another month of laborous long days) so I need some sleep. I'm going to try to condense that class down to two and a half hours or so, I CAN DO IT!!!!

Time to go be one with the bed. Toodaloo!!!

Parents So "Good" That They Are Horrible

So, I just finished watching a youtube video about some lady who let her kids go trick or treating, but when they got home she took their candy and traded it for 'approved candy' that she bought. From nasty sugar free cookies to some sort of crackers that she praised for being "salt free, food coloring free", I felt like throwing up just watching it.

I have to wonder sometimes about parents who go so freaking far overboard in the idea of 'protecting' their children. I remember when we first brought n' home, and how I was freaking out about the temperature of the formula, about whether to have a blanket in her crib, about how warm the apartment should be, etc.

Yah, I got over that within about a week. And now, some 18 months later, well, suffice to say I'm of the opinion that what doesn't kill em is going to make them stronger. This doesn't mean that I go out of my way to give my daughter terrible things, but when I'm feeding her and she knocks something onto the floor, well a liberal use of the 5 second rule is in effect. Toss your bottle on the floor? Yah, I'm not washing it off. Chewing on your shoe? Woopity doo, who cares?

Honestly, I can remember doing some crazy shit myself growing up, activities that would likely have got my mother into some trouble. I'm sure we had a child seat when we were like a month old, but we never used a freaking 'booster seat'. I can remember crawling all over the back of the car, getting yelled at for not having my seat belt on, being dropped off one mile from home along with at least one sibling because we wouldn't shut up, and it was our punishment the rest of the way, etc.

I guess I just don't understand parents that would raise their children in some sort of protective bubble of hyper overzealous parenting. "OH MY GOD you got your hands DIRTY OH NO, get into the bathroom so we can IMMEDIATELY put anti bacterial soap on it!!!" Yah, let's just fail to realize that by doing so you breed supergerms that survive the antibacterial onslaught and then multiply. Then your kids get sick from those germs, not only can you NOT kill them with the usual antibiotics, but your child has no immunity whatsoever because you raised them in a protective bubble, and they got no exposure to germs and no ability to build their immunity.

It seems like it is almost some sort of sickening contest as to who can be the best SUPERPARENT or something... "You let your kids watch TELEVISION??? NOOOOOOO!!!!" What the hell ever, I know I watched a good amount of tv growing up, and I turned out just fine (despite what some of you may think mwahaha). Therefore if my daughter is tuning in to Dora the Explorer, Ruby And Max, WonderPets, etc, I am not going to really worry about it. Hell the shows are a lot more educational than the Tom And Jerry or WB cartoons that I grew up watching.

So as I watched this goofy lady who took away all her kids decent candy and gave them pure shit in return, I think back to when I was a kid, and how irritating this would have been. I mean honestly, NO CHOCOLATE? How can you do that to your kids? I don't think growing up in a childhood like that would be fun at all, overprotective parents freaking SUCK!!!