Friday, May 8, 2009



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!!!