My sister the gun-nut…

12:29 am on Sunday, September 7, 2003

AR-15Today I took my sister out for her first time shooting ever. She used to be very anti-gun but after living under my roof and finding out that guns don’t jump into your hand and make you start shooting things randomly she decided to give it a try. I also invited along my friend Mando who also brought along one of his friends. We met a few geocaching friends out at the range. I started my sister out with my pre-sellout Smith and Wesson 9mm. She seemed to like it. Well I assume so, she put nearly 150 rounds through it before the day was over. I let her put a few rounds through the .45 also but it was a bit big for her to handle. Mando and his friend put many rounds through the .45 and the .38. While we were doing this my son was happily plinking along with his BB gun. After that it was time to move to my favorite weapon, my AR-15, pictured on the left. After I mounted a scope for them and zeroed it I let them have at it. My sister didn’t want to try it but I made her. After which she asked to do it again. Mando said it was the ‘coolest thing on the entire planet’. Mando and Anthony put about 150 rounds through it before we were done.Home on the Range We then moved to the shotgun range. I have a shotgun, a Remington 11-87 12ga., I bought brand new 1 1/2 years ago I’d still never shot. We loaded the clay launcher and my son pulled for us. The gun shot like a dream and the kick wasn’t bad at all, not much more than my old 20gauge. Mando had a crack at it and Anthony was damn good for a first timer. Couldn’t convince my sis to try it out. One of the geocachers grabbed a pic of me, to the right, describing God knows what to Mando.

All in all, not a bad day at the range.

My iPod is Playing: Look At Little Sister from the album “Soul To Soul” by Stevie Ray Vaughan

My lil sis’ b-day present…

11:09 pm on Saturday, August 23, 2003

Skydive SaucyFor her birthday we thought and thought about what would be the perfect gift for her 30th birthday. I finally came up with something. A skydive. We were going to do it on her actual birthday a few weekends ago but things didn’t work out schedule-wise. We finally got to do it today. I have some friends that are regular skydivers and decided the best place to take her would be somewhere I knew some folks. One of the guys I know has a helmet-cam and said he’d be happy to film her jump. We showed up around 3pm for her dive. She watched the little training film and did some practice with her tandem partner and was ready to go. As they were taking off clouds started to roll in. Gotta love Texas in summer, storms can pop-up and disappear quite quickly. By the time they got to altitude it was pouring on the drop zone. The pilot called off the jump and landed. As he was landing, the storm ended. They re-fueled and took off again. Once at altitude, about 12,000 feet, they jumped. She got a good 10-12 seconds of free-fall before they popped the chute. She got another 3-5 minutes of gliding before touch-down. It was not the most graceful landing but as they say, ‘any landing you can crawl away from is a good one’. She said she had a blast and that she’d do it again.

Happy Birthday, Saucy.

For pics see the photo album. I’ll also upload the video once I’ve got a copy.

My iPod is Playing: Semi Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind

Welcome DHS!

4:51 pm on Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Welcome to my rarely updated blog, Mr. DHS Lacky! Enjoy your stay looking for terrorists under every rock.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-22

4:09 pm on Sunday, August 22, 2010
  • That's my boy. He loves him some good sushi. http://twitpic.com/2f5id4 #
  • I used to have mad gaming skillz. Now I'm getting schooled by my son and his friends. *sigh* Guess I'll go back to board games. #
  • Just bumped the #nexusone up to #cyanogen mod 6.0-RC3. Thanks to the guys for all the hard awesome work. #
  • I really have no idea what I'm supposed to do with free time anymore. Home is where I do laundry, repack, and leave again the next day. #
  • Woohoo! Rain in North AUS. Oh no! Throttle cable broke in Series almost stranding us in the downpour. #
  • Starting on filling out expenses for Rio. I don't have receipts for everything because they like cash down there. This should be fun. #
  • I'd rather go through a vasectomy without anesthesia than have to deal with #Oracle for doing expense reports. It'd be less painful. #
  • My wife is cleaning out the bathroom. She says I have a problem and might need an intervention. http://twitpic.com/2fx8hg #
  • At the Apple store. Guy looked funny at me using my Nexus. #
  • Is it weird that when working from home I insist on getting fully dressed before starting? I can't get in the right mindset in my jammies. #
  • Ok, chrome2phone is pretty damn sweet. #
  • At the eye doc seeing if I'm eligible for getting lasered. #
  • Just finished poker night at my place. First time in months. Good to see old friends. Even better to take their money. 🙂 #
  • I've got the go ahead for lasik. I go in next Wednesday. No more glasses after 32 years if wearing them. #
  • Yep. 100+ degrees outside so I decide to do shocks and struts on Shannon's Mustang. Yeah, I'm not too bright. #

A good birthday

12:38 am on Sunday, December 7, 2008

My birthday’s over. It was a pretty good one. Started off with arriving home from San Francisco at midnight. I finally got home around 1AM.

We woke up early around 7:30 to get ready for the big day. My wife and son hopped on the bed ad made me open cards. I’d have rather slept in but we have a fairly predictable routine for my birthday and I knew it was coming. We got dressed and headed for Wimberely for their big market days. We love going down to look at funky antiques and finding cool little knick-knacks for the house. We spent about 4 hours there walking from booth to booth. We came away with a couple of neat fruit crate labels and a new-to-her antique pitcher for my wife.

After that, the thing I really look forward to: The Saltlick for lunch. I gorged on much dead animals. Brisket, ribs, sausage, tater salad, bread, beans, etc. All you can eat. I only get down there one or twice a year so I really look forward to it.

After we hit our protein high we drove over to Buda to hit Cabela’s. I was thinking of treating myself to a new shotgun for my birthday. We got to the gun department there and I realized that wasn’t happening. It appears everyone and their brother was there buying guns today. They had a whole extra table set out for doing background checks. I can only assume the rush is due to the election last month. Democrats now control the White House and both branches of Congress. A gun ban of some sort is inevitable. All I ended up with was some new socks. 🙂
First picture from new lens

As we headed back home towards Austin my mother mentioned that she needed a part for her new camera so we stopped by Precision Camera. Bad idea. It happened to be manufacturer demo day. The place was a mad house. Vendors trying to hawk their wares. My wife bought me my birthday present while we were there. A brand new Tamron AF 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC LD Aspherical (IF) MACRO (how’s that for a mouthfull?)lens for my D70. It’s the newest lens from Tamron. An unbelievable 18-270mm zoom with image stabilization. I’ve finally reached the point where my lens is now worth more than my camera’s body. And I like it. The picture to the left is the first pic I took with it and makes a pretty good computer background if you ask me. The lens has macro capabilities and can focus down to 12″ at full zoom.

We stopped at the house and dropped off my mother then went for the last errand of our long day. Also the most important. Since we were first married my wife and I have always, always, gotten our Christmas tree on my birthday. We were tired and really didn’t feel like going out again but I insisted. In the 18 Christmases we’ve spent together we’ve only missed this day once. We were in Orlando at Disney that year so it was excusable. We went to the tree lot and the first tree my wife grabbed was perfect. A nice 7′ Frasier Fir. We loaded it into the Range Rover and took it home. It fits perfectly in the family room.

A little bit of Amy’s ice cream for dessert and the day drew to a close. Not a bad day at all. My wife really likes to spoil me on my birthday. So much so that it makes me feel guilty every year. It’s not like I’ve realy done anything to deserve it. Only get another year older. But I like her spoiling me anyways. 🙂

Got a new (not really new) toy.

3:42 pm on Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Range Rover Great DivideThis past weekend we picked up a new ride. Ok, new to us that is.

It’s actually another Land Rover. A 1991 Land Rover – Range Rover – Great Divide Edition #101 of 400. Quite a mouthful. It has a manufacture date of May/1990. That makes it over 18 years old or 2 months younger than we’ve been married.

I got hassled by my sister for buying a ‘gas guzzler’ instead of some hippy-mobile. I told her I was thinking of the environment when I bought it. By buying a used car I saved it from a landfill/being junked. Also, I saved the world by not requiring the use of all new resources to build me a new car.

Likewise, it is far cheaper to keep an older car running if you’re the least bit mechanically inclined. I do all my own maintenance on my Defender. They are both fairly electronics-free. I did the math with the help of an MPG calculator I found online. At $4/gallon I’d need to drive a new Prius about 150,000 miles before I’d break even on the purchase price between the two vehicles. I also assumed paying cash for that new car which wouldn’t happen. So add in finance fees and you push that break even point out closer to 200,000 miles. I drive on average about 6,000 miles/yr (even less now that I’m travelling all the time) which means 200,000 miles is a long, long time. Over 30 years to be exact. That also assumes any repairs are equal. This is totally not the case. I sure as hell know I won’t be messing with the engine, motors, and batteries in a hybrid in my garage at home. So now I’d have to pay dealer prices for any repairs, driving up the costs of a hybrid well above my ‘old’ truck.

Best of all, show me a hybrid that can drive 30 miles from the nearest road, all in leather swathed comfort, and get me the hell away from everyone else. 🙂

Carpal tunnel syndrome is no fun. Worker’s Comp is less fun.

7:30 pm on Saturday, February 17, 2007

Last Friday I got the official results of my Nerve Conduction Study. My doc confirmed the other doc’s diagnosis, severe Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. She suggested that sugery is the best way to fix it. I told her whatever she thought would make the pain and numbness go away is what I want to do.

She scheduled surgery for the 22nd with a pre-op appointment on the 16th. Great, I finally will get things fixed. Or so I thought. I got a call from the doc’s office Thursday afternoon saying that they had to cancel my pre-op appointment. The reason they gave is that the worker’s comp insurance company was taking their time deciding what to do.

Figures, that’s all they’ve been doing since the start. The numbness and pain have gotten progressively worse over the last 4 months. I now can’t sleep because the numbness and tingling is so bad. My right wrist is now as bad as my left ever was. I’m afraid to file a claim for it too because I know how big a pain in the ass it is. I guess that’s their plan, make it so annoyingly frustrating to file a claim that maybe you won’t.

Have you ever smashed your finger with a hammer or in a door? Imagine having that numb, throbbing feeling in all of your fingers except your pinky 24 hours a day. That’s me right now. Last night as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep I thought to myself

‘Hey, it’s not that tough a surgery, maybe if I get hopped up on Vicodin and find some local anesthetic I could do the cut myself.’

Arkansas vacation report

4:54 pm on Saturday, October 21, 2006

Ok, it’s been while(ok, two months) and I figured I should post the about our trip to Arkansas. I wrote this when we got back but never posted it. I’m going to back date it to when it should have been published. I’ll explain reasons for the lateness later.

We decided to take an early fall houseboat trip on Lake Ouachita, AR this October. Rental rates are lower, lake traffic is lower, temps are mild. Fishing is supposed to be great on the lake too. We were renting a houseboat but decided to bring along our 22′ jetboat to use as a run-about on the lake for fishing trips and such.

We pulled out Saturday afternoon after my son finished his Young Marine drills and drove to Texarkana. We stopped at the Czech Stop in West, TX. I think there’s some sort of law that says you need to stop there if you’re ever traveling up IH-35. We stocked up on some smoking jalapeno kolaches that made us literally cry. Next time we’ll get the ‘plain’ spicy. 🙂 I was beat after driving 6 hours towing a boat and collapsed into bed. People just love to crowd your trailer when you’re towing and it makes for a stressful drive.

After a night in Texarkana we headed across the border into Arkansas after breakfast at Waffle House. Yum. One of my favorites. My wife had never been to one and she wasn’t impressed. Heathen. We drove straight to the marina where we were to pick up our houseboat the next day and dropped the trailer so we could manouever in Hot Springs. We got into Hot Springs around noon and found our hotel. It was right in the middle of ‘Old’ Hot Springs, right near bathhouse row. After getting settled in we went to see the town. Right at the main intersection is a spring that flows down a cliff. The water in the pool at the bottom is almost too hot to stand. I soaked my hands and wrists in the hot water and it really helped with my carpal tunnel symptoms. We visited a large rock shop and my son bought some nice quartz crystals. We toured an old bathhouse from the 1920’s and got to see how they were run back then. After dinner we went to bed early because we had a long day the next day.

Monday morning we woke early and had a few hours to waste. My wife suggested going to one of the bathhouses. I’d never been to one and after the way the hot spring water made my wrists feel the night before I figured that it would feel even better over my whole body. So my father and I decided to go to Buchstaff Bath House, the only still operating of the original bath houses in Hot Springs. It has been in continual operation since 1912. A 20minute soak in the hot water felt amazing. Showers, hot wraps, a massage, and a parrafin dip later I was feeling pretty damn mellow. I could get used to this.

We picked up the boat around 3pm and hit the lake. The lake was beautiful. I’ve never seen clearer water in a lake. You could easily see the bottom in 20′ of water. We found a nice protected cove and setup camp for the night. We dropped our lines in the water and got to fishing/drinking. 🙂 We got ttally skunked on our first night as far as fish. Not a one. This would be the theme for our entire trip. We seem to have arrived right as the lake turned and the fish wouldn’t bite.

Lake OfficeThe rest of our trip consisted of lots of fishing, lots of games, some very brief swimming as the lake was around 70degrees, and a bit of rum for me. I did get a bit of work done while we were there. The accompanying pic is of my office for the week. Amazing and sad is the fact that you can go miles from nowhere and still get a 115K Internet connection. The lake is empty at this time of year and we seemed to have the whole place to ourselves.

By the last morning we’d caught a grand total of 4 fish between 4 people fishing. Not the best time of year to fish in the lake apparently. The sad part was the fish finder was always packed with fish returns but we couldn’t get the to eat a thing. Very frustrating. Also, as we were getting ready to pull anchor to head back to civilization I managed to fall in the lake. Fully clothed and ready for a 7 hour drive home. I had saved my most comfortable jeans and shirt for the trip home and I soaked them. I felt like such a moron.

It was a fun trip and I’d love to go back again soon. Assuming the fish are actually biting, of course.

One hard workout

7:57 am on Tuesday, August 1, 2006

My son’s birthday is this week. He’s been begging for the longest time for a trampoline. We finally caved and got together with a few family members to get him one for the backyard. We picked up a nice 14′ trampoline with a full net on it. The net was at mom’s insistence. No trampoline was going to be at our house without one.
It took about 30 minutes to setup the trampoline and another hour and a 1/2 to do the cage. We have a prefectly sized spot in the backyard under the shade of a few pecan trees. The trampoline is shaded from sunrise to sunset so, even in the Texas summer heat, you don’t overheat too badly.
After we got it setup we played for a bit on it. Here it is, two days later, and my stomach oblique muscles are sore as hell. You don’t realize how much of a workout it is until you go at it for a while. It’s one form of aerobic excersize I actually enjoy so maybe it’s not such a bad thing to have it back there. Now I’ve got to wait on my muscles to heal before I go again. 🙂

Still around

7:00 am on Monday, February 27, 2006

Been a couple weeks since I’ve posted. Guess I forgot how. I just haven’t been too motivated lately. Been super busy in my new position at work. Also, I’ve been fighting depression over the last few weeks. I occasionally suffer from SAD and it seems like it came back this year. Being sick over the last couple months coupled with our weather insisting on being really shitty every weekend brought it on. I wasn’t getting outside in the sun enough. Yesterday was beautiful and sunny so we went hiking and geocaching. Just the couple hours outdoors in the sun seem to have turned me right around. I feel much better today and actually I managed to crawl out of bed at a decent hour and got into work around 8:30 instead of something approaching 9:30-10.

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