Pomegranate baseball

....sounds like fun, don't it?

Well, there was a series of poor choices made yesterday afternoon...

Number one, probably the worst; I decided that I could trust my kids and their buddy to get on with their homework unattended while I took care of some stuff online (OK I was surfing...)
Not so. Bad dad.

Number two; my kids opted for play first, THEN homework... they know better than this, or at least I thought they did...

Number three; my kids hopped the fence to our next-door neighbor's yard to take some pomegranates from their tree (my neighbor's moved out and the house is vacant at present, and they had told us to feel free to come over and take whatever fruit we wanted - they have a lot of fruit trees - however, I don't want my kids going over there without a grown-up, something that I hope now is VERY clear).

Number four; since they couldn't find a baseball, the kids decided that these round, red, somewhat OVERRIPE fruits that they had just taken from next door would make an excellent substitute. That's right; batting practice in my backyard with pomegranates. Notice the plural - pomegranates do not survive more than one contact with a baseball bat, so yes, they used multiple pomegranates...

Last night, right before we were to leave for football practice, my daughter's conscience got the better of her and she spilled the beans. I walked up the drive into the back, surveyed the carnage, and told them to pick up the larger pieces... in a rather large OUTDOOR voice... since we were pressed for time, I left it at that for the time being.

Tonight, before they get to do anything fun, EVERY LAST SEED shall be removed from my backyard...

And yes, it was quite hard to keep a straight face throughout. I was a kid myself too, once...

This one time - in deer camp...

Deer season opened up October 4th this year in the zone we like to hunt, which is X1, all the way up in Siskiyou County by Mt Shasta. I got to work on Friday the 3rd at 6am, got off at 3, got my crap together and headed upstate.
13 hours and 720 miles later I pulled into camp right at 6am where my buddies (who had come up the day before) were getting ready to go out. I had just enough time to change into some warmer clothes and grab my .308.
Saturday rained all day, so we spent a lot of time in my friend's truck, just cruising the lonely dirt roads way back in the forest. Saw plenty of does and fawns, but no legal bucks.
The next few days the weather cleared up so we could break out the ATVs and the Rhino - much fun!
I stayed till Tuesday, but struck out as far as deer are concerned. No matter - the Shasta-Trinity forest is incredibly beautiful and the company was great. I heartily enjoy my forays into California's northern forests, and look forward to these trips every year.
The highlight of my trip...
My friend Shane and I were walking along a remote road, looking for sign of deer. I was ahead, looking into the trees on our left, when Shane let out with:"Bear!"
Since this guy is a jokester, I turned back towards him to say something like "Yeah, very funny," when he pointed past me with a stricken look on his face.
Sure enough, there was a middlin' sized Black Bear ambling down the road towards us about 80 yards distant. The bear turned into the trees on our right, still ambling along at an easy pace, until he drew about even with us. Finally he caught sight of us and took off running. You don't see that every day, at least not down here in the brown valley...
OK - some pics...

A gap in the forest from up high - the trees go for miles and miles. Fantastic. I think this was Saturday, because it looks a bit gloomy.

Mt Shasta through the trees. You have this vast green carpet of trees with a stark white cone sticking up out of the middle of it all. There's snow on there year round, I believe.
Some of the "ATV militia" on the prowl...
Motor pool back at camp...

Dew-dusted trees...

Mt Shasta from the McCloud gas station on the way back home...

There's a first time for everything...

...and yesterday was my very first rifle match... ever!
It was a .22LR precision/tactical rifle match and 16 guys showed up for it - $25 a head.
I showed up with my Savage boltie, decked out with a wee Barska 3-9x32 scope and a bipod. My friend and I got there early and took a few minutes siting our rifles in @ 25, 50, 75 and 100 yards. Once the rest of the guys showed up, my little $120 Savage was looking pretty outmatched by all the custom 10/22s, Anschutz rifles and what-have-you on the rack. It was pretty intimidating. I turned to my friend and said "OK, I guess I just have to beat you" - he had brought a rig not much more decked out than mine - tube fed, no less...
The competition was in 9 stages, several prone at varying ranges - 75 yards, 100, 150 and one at a "mystery range" which some dude measured with his laser rangefinder at about 115 yards. The 4" target at 150 yards was so small I couldn't make out the numbers on them, and had to ask my friend which one was mine...
We then had a stage where you put your rifle in the rangemaster's shed and stepped back about 10 yards. You had 60 seconds to dash in, load 3 rounds into your rifle and aim out the window at a 4" steel plate at 115 yards. First shot was worth 100pts, 2nd was 50 and the third was 25. I nailed it on my third shot, which I think was a complete fluke. That was a damn small target.
Next up was "the jungle", 5 posts setup along a dirt path with clay pigeons set up on them at varying ranges. We had 7 shots to take them down. A hit was not enough - you had to knock them off the posts. I got 4 with 6 and then when I lined up on number 5, my last round jammed in my action. The rangemaster called time as I was frantically trying to get it out...
The last few stages were prone at 25 yards (hit the fuse on the dynamite - a line about 1/4" wide), 50 yards (hit the bad guy behind the hostage - maybe 1X1.5") and then hit a 4" target with 5 rounds off hand.
At the end of the day, I came out in 11th place out of 16 - and I was stoked! I fully expected to come last, given my inexperience and lack of practice with this rifle/scope combo (about an hour at dusk on Wednesday) - my buddy came in at 9th place - he's very good at shooting offhand - that's pretty much the only way he shoots.
I had an excellent time, it was a nice group of guys and I'll definitely do it again - though next time I'll remember to bring a sling to steady myself with the offhand shooting. I'll need a fair bit more practice too I think. I'll probably get a better scope - one that I can at least see my targets with!
Oh yeah, my friend and I were using bulk ammo, too...
Savage .22LR boltie rifle - $120
Barska 3-9x32 scope - $40
Walmart 9-13 inch adjustable bipod - $40

Not coming in last - priceless!

Good times...

On a side note...

...I saw that my Rams got absolutely destroyed by the Eagles, 38-3. I mean, really! That's like a frikken college score! Sigh. Looks like its going to be another tough year for us Rams fans...

Panthers!

We just got back from the Chargers-Panthers game in San Diego, and I'm beat. We got out there by 8am this morning for the tailgating - something I've never done before, and that was a lot of fun, although Number One Son and I took a little ribbing for our Panthers attire.
Good food all around, plenty of beers and great company. Couldn't have asked for more.
The game itself was close - the Chargers defense kept the Panthers offense from scoring anything but field goals for all but the last play. If you didn't catch the game on TV or the highlights, let me just tell you it was a dramatic ending. The Panthers had led most of the game but the Chargers came back in the 4th with a TD that gave them a 5 point lead, with a little over 2 minutes on the clock. The Panthers had 1 time out (as well as the 2 minute warning).
The Panthers drove down the field, pass play after pass play and got inside the Chargers 20 with 6 seconds left. Delhomme (Panthers QB) tossed a pass - it was completed, but not close enough for the score. They frantically called a timeout - 2 seconds left. One more play - pass again, straight down the middle into the end zone for the TD. The entire stadium went silent - except for Number One Son and me, who were screaming our heads off...
I have pictures to upload, but I'll have to do that tomorrow, since, like a bonehead, I left my camera (and a bunch of other stuff) in my buddies car.

First "gun" purchase this year....

Funds have been pretty tight this year since we moved into the new house, so I haven't been going too crazy on the gun front lately - to be honest, I pretty much have all the guns I want for the foreseeable future anyways (gasp!)... with the exception of maybe an M1A, which isn't going to happen anytime soon...
What I did get a few days ago was the first air rifle I've owned since I was a kid - a scoped Gamo Big Cat, something I can legally plink away with in my back yard. Man, I'd forgotten how much fun these things are! Packs enough punch to take out small game too, supposedly, although I haven't tried it out in that regard yet.

Home-brewed bench rest

A buddy of mine at work is an avid shooter - he's quite the rim fire fanatic - and the last time I went shooting with him, he whipped out a bench rest that he'd put together (he's pretty handy with a welder, which is a huge deficiency in my own skill-set).
I liked it so much, I asked him if he would make me one too, and he very kindly did - just charged me for the materials.
So, a couple of weeks and $45 later, I got to take this home:



I still need to buy the padding for the rests, but I think he did a great job putting this together - real clean welds, everything moves as it should, heck even the paint color is nice...

Game On!

Woohoo! NFL season starts tonight! The Giants are currently beating on the Redskins... Can't wait until this Sunday, because I'll be taking Number One Son to San Diego to see his Panthers take on the Chargers. Ahhh, football season!

Sasha...

Is the name we've finally decided on....
She's changed quite a bit in the last three weeks...
She's got that whole "one up, one down" ear thing going on, exponentially adding to the cuteness factor...
You can't see too well in the picture, but because of her pigmentation, one side of her whiskers is white, and the other is black...

Sarah Palin

I've been watching with some amusement the near-hysterical exultation/relief that has swept the conservative blogosphere at McCain's choice of running mate.
Having studied up on her bio - like a ton of others yesterday who had never heard of her before - I have to say I like what I see.
There's no doubt that in Sarah Palin, McCain has made an excellent choice, and has made himself much more palatable to those of us on the right, as well as stuffing the whole identity politics thing right back down the Dems' throat.
I have heard that the VP choice of a candidate has little effect on the outcome of presidential elections, but choosing Governor Palin will certainly help settle the conservative base I suppose.
I think we tend to overlook, however, just how much power a president really has - they cannot by themselves institute broad, sweeping changes (which is how it ought to be) - and the impact they will have is often overstated during the run for president. It's still a democracy, with three branches of government - we're not selecting a king.
On that note, the VP has even less impact on the governance of the country. Dems are crowing about Palin's question the other night, "what does a vice-president actually do?" as though its a sign of her inexperience. I think it's a legitimate question, and shows that she knows that not much is expected or required of a VP, that the office of VP is in many ways more overstated than that of president. It's essentially a preparation for the presidency, and thus far I think she would do well in the top spot. I think Governor Palin has an exciting future ahead of her.

Retreat!

Dropped the kids off with Grandma and Grandpa last Friday and headed out to the desert to this place for a marriage getaway organized by our church.
We got there just as the food was being served Friday night (braised beef short ribs-yum!) and settled in to listen to this little ditty, followed by some "ice-breaking" and then a talk by our pastor. We rounded out the night with some dancing.
Saturday was spent getting together in small groups and discussing ways to improve our marriages as well as finding time to explore the local area and blow a wad of cash on some really good food.
Sunday was an early check-out followed by a wrap-up and trading addresses with the folks in our group who turned out to be really nice people.
It's a popular event - there were something like 300 couple there this weekend...
This was our second retreat and the better of the two. I'm looking forward to next year's.

New buddy

Here's our new wee Rat Terrier pup - just picked her up today, about a week after her first shots. The epitome of cute. She'll probably be about twice the size of Spartacus when she's grown, since he was some sort of runty aberration. We still don't have a name for her yet, although wifey's leaning towards Sasha. We introduced her to Lena today at a neutral site (aka Grandma and Grandpa's pad) and she gave us a bit of a scare when she nipped the wee one. Seems fine now though, we'll be keeping a close eye whenever they interact of course. This pup is smaller than the rabbit Lena ate a couple of weeks ago...

Here she is in Grandpa's arms with her stylish new collar (that bugs the crap out of her right now).

BTW

Sorry for the light posting lately - I've been trying to deal with a fairly serious case of Halo 3 XBOX Live addiction.
It is a sickness - it must be. No sane person should want to go back time and again for torrents of abuse by foul-mouthed teenagers...

Championship...

Well, we had our championship game last Saturday, and...

WE WON!!!

BY ONE POINT!!!

Woohoo!
Man, that was a tough game to coach! We were up against an undefeated team (the Ravens), one that had beaten us 3 times already this season, but since they based their entire offense around one particularly fast kid (who I came to find out was 10 and had no business being in the 7-9 division, but that's neither here nor there), we felt that a zone defense tailored to the few plays they actually used would work for us.
We started out with the ball and got a quick TD. We stopped the Ravens, got the ball back and drove it down field for another. The Ravens came back with 2 TDs, so by the half it was 14-14.
The Ravens got the ball in the 2nd half and broke loose on the first play, scoring then converting. We answered with a TD, but didn't convert, so we were a point down. When they got possession, one of our guys nailed their QB in the endzone, scoring a safety and putting us one point up!
The Ravens got the ball again, and drove down the field. They got to our five yard line with 2 downs to go, and the ref called "Time!"
Very intense game. I think all the parents got their money's worth. We'll be picking up that trophy at the team banquet this Thursday - unfortunately Number One Son won't be there, as he is in camp all week.
This season has been a blast. Can't wait for the Fall season to start up...

PS - I have to give props to my assistant coach and coworker Claudia. She's been a fantastic help throughout. You ROCK, Claudia!

My perspective

Those of you, like me, who frequent the gun-nut corner of this here blogosphere will have no doubt seen the recent brouhaha during the last few days over Mike Vanderboegh’s letter to the editor, and his opinions of regarding "the next American civil war". For those of you who aren’t familiar with this particular corner of the web, it may surprise you that there is an incredible diversity of opinion among gun owners (not really incredible to me, since I know gunnies are typically individualist at heart anyway – get ten in a room, and you’ll get ten separate opinions on most anything you care to discuss. Simultaneously our greatest strength, and our greatest weakness – gunnies tend not to jump onto bandwagons).
Sure, our current system of government has its flaws – anything conceived, instituted and ran by humans does – but by God, it’s the best system yet devised in human history and I am proud and thankful to be able to live under it.
The Founders’ promise still holds. Yes, it’s been eroded somewhat, but PLEASE take a look around you.
Where else on this planet do people have the freedoms we have? Just about anywhere else in the world you need to beg permission from your government to own a gun, permission that includes submitting your home to random “safety checks” to make sure your guns are stored properly, permission that means your guns must be stored at a gun club or rifle range, permission that is hard to get and so very easy to lose. Licensing fees and additional costs that put ownership beyond the reach of all but the very affluent. Registration that makes it easy for government officials to confiscate your guns when the time is right – a recent example being the British handgun ban after the Dunblane massacre. Hell, even permission slips to buy ammo.
Now look here at home. Look at the progress we’ve made in the last couple of decades or so.
A majority of Americans support the right to own guns for self defense (which is incidentally an invalid reason to apply for a gun in the UK. Everyone there has a right to life, including the bastard standing over your bed with an ax handle demanding your money, your jewelry and your daughter’s virtue). 37 states thus far have shall-issue CCW (with a further two, Alaska and Vermont, being unrestricted), way up from just 20 years ago. Castle doctrine laws are being passed (God bless Texas!). The Heller decision smacked down DC’s handgun ban, with other cities soon to follow. We’re moving in the right direction. A government of the people, by the people and for the people has to respond, however slowly, to what the people want. Sure, inertia makes it slower than we’d like, but it is moving. Our glass is truly half full.
I won’t deny that there is plenty of room for improvement - especially here in California. I won’t deny that there are abuses by the government that make one angry or nervous. But focusing only on that end of things produces nothing but a siege mentality and ignores the hard work and progress that the supporters of gun rights have achieved. Shit, just look at the internet. Until I began reading the gun blogs out there, I truly thought I was one of a tiny minority, a myth perpetuated by what I saw in print and on the news, courtesy of the MSM. It has been extremely comforting to discover, to KNOW, that I am not alone. I am part of a large, diverse culture – a culture that WILL be heard. A culture that will not be going away any time soon. A culture that I have every intention of passing on to the next generation.
I know America won’t last forever – it had a beginning, it will certainly have an end. I don’t know if it will go out in sudden collapse and societal breakdown, or fade into a more socialist/authoritarian obscurity like the once-Great Britain. All I do know is that right here, right now is the best time and place in history for anyone to live. So I’ll enjoy it while I’ve got it, thanks.

Shakin'

Sitting on the second floor of a building during a 5.4 magnitude earthquake centered about 20 miles away can make for a pretty exciting morning, especially when you hear the two large 1800L tanks of liquid Nitrogen right behind your chair bouncing around...
It was all done in less than a minute, but the news folks on radio and TV are still talking about it, even though no damage has been reported anywhere in the Southland. Slow news day, I guess...

Action Shots

Number One Son about to complete the handoff...


Number One Son just made a pass right before the sack...

Go Panthers!

Our Flag Football team, the Panthers, won their semi-final game on Saturday, which means they'll be going to the championship! Man, it was an exciting game! We gave up 2 TDs within the first few minutes and things were looking pretty grim... but we pulled it out with a final score of 33-19. We'll be playing the Ravens on August 2nd, who so far have gone undefeated... our last game against them we blew a 3 TD lead, so I know we can score against them - my boys just have to hang in there for the whole game...
My wife took some nice shots of the game... when she gets back from Rollerblading in Newport I'll put them up...

Sad day

Our mighty little rat terrier, Spartacus, finally met his match tonight. He was bitten by a rattlesnake around 8:30pm in our back yard. I heard him yelp and went over to see what was up, and saw a fat diamondback curled up behind our shed. I grabbed him, ran over to my wife who took him with her cousin to the nearest animal hospital. I ran back to the shed, grabbed a shovel to kill the bastard, but he'd already gone under the shed. I could see him through a hole but it wasn't big enough to get the shovel in. Since we live in the city - albeit on the outskirts - I couldn't shoot the damn thing with a firearm, so I grabbed my BB gun. Yeah. Fat lot of good that did. Just pissed it off and it snuck further under to where I couldn't see it.
Sparty was given antivenom and put on an IV at the hospital, and my wife came back home. They said they'd want him there for a couple of days to watch him.
Well, they just called about twenty minutes ago to say he wasn't breathing on his own... then ten minutes later they called to say he'd passed.
Spartacus was my wife's special little buddy. She took him everywhere, and he'd already been through so much, having fought through a parvo infection when he was just a few months old. He was a tough little trooper, but that snake was just too much. He topped the scales at five pounds max, so his little body didn't have much chance. We did all that we could getting him to the vet ASAP, but it wasn't meant to be. We're going to miss him terribly.
So long, little soldier. Rest in peace.

July 4th Weekend...

...Was spent at the beach in Oceanside, one of my favorite places to go. My wife's parents have a condo about 50 yards from the sand on the second floor, so there's a nice view and we can watch all the fascinating folk cruising up and down Pacific Avenue.
Friday started out cloudy with a marine layer that burned off in the late afternoon for a brief spot of sunshine, but by 7 or 8pm it had come back with a vengeance.
The condo is about a mile south of the pier where they have the annual firework display and is normally a good spot to watch it, but by the time the show started, we couldn't see down the block, let alone the pier. It was so thick you couldn't even see a glow - but we heard the show, right on schedule...
I had such a good time there that this didn't dampen my spirits at all - I was more amused than disappointed. Hanging out with family and watching my kids boogie board was way more important...