Finally .....

I have been taking an at home vacation this week.  My cases are more or less caught up, my next court date is over two weeks away and I felt like kicking back a little.  So, I have.

Every morning, I have been going up to the 2A Shooting Center and working on my CLEET shooting drills. Those of you who know me personally know that I don't take a bad score in anything well. My nearly failing score on the handgun qualification for my PI license has burned in belly since last fall. Granted, I was in a lot of pain, I wasn't allowed to take painkillers, my trifocals were messing up my shot picture, I wasn't shooting my weapon of choice, yadda, yadda,  yadda. But, the fact is, I shot a lousy score.  I have been working on it ever since.  It has been a long haul.

But, today, finally, I started hitting my groove, letting the Zen of the thing take over.  I have had moments of this before but now it seems to be becoming my pattern.  Who knows, maybe it is muscle memory or whatever.  It also helped a lot that for whatever reason, I am in a lot less pain in my legs.  At any rate, I finally shot a group of pretty good scores.  The picture shows one of them. Adjusted for two misfires, that is an 86 on the standard Oklahoma CLEET 25 shot qualification.  Not a bad score.

Oklahoma CLEET qualification is strange.  There are two levels basically. I have always been able to shoot the plainclothes officer qualification fairly easily.  You would think that that would be the standard used for private investigators.  But, it isn't.  Oklahoma private investigators must pass the higher, uniformed officer standard which includes weak hand shooting, kneeling shots, shots from behind barriers, etc.  Here is a link to the drill:  http://www.ok.gov/cleet/documents/FirearmsQualificationJune2007.pdf  Now granted, Oklahoma's standard is fairly easy compare to some states like Texas for example.  Only a 72% score is required but still, some cops have to work at it.  When I heard that, I couldn't believe it, until I had to do it myself.  I'm not accustomed to having to work this hard to master something.  Hopefully it is building character.  It is certainly humbling me.

Assholes in Red Pickups Volume 2

Our daughter called early this morning.  She is ill and needed help with the house and the baby.  Sheila and I decided to eat breakfast at the Freeway Diner on the way over.

When we came out THIS is what we saw.  I would really like to ask the driver of that pickup just exactly how he expected the driver of the car next to him to open their door and get into their car.  Unlike unthinking rednecks who often drive drive big red Ford pickups, some of us try real hard not to open our doors into other people's cars.  And, we try not drag our clothes alongside your car or ours and drive away looking like we had been rolling around in the parking lot.  And, we try real hard not to let our keys or whatever else metal we be holding in our hands drag down the side of your car.  We also remember that the other driver may be older or even physically challenged and may need all of the room that normal people would give when they bother to park their vehicles IN THE CENTER OF THE PARKING SPOT.

Notice that THIS PERSON left their front wheels right on the yellow line and only left about six inches from their rear wheels.

THIS is the space that this driver gave himself on other side.  There is a good three feet between the TWO RED FORD PICKUPS BOTH OF WHICH PARKED IN SUCH A WAY AS TO GIVE THEMSELVES MAXIMUM ROOM TO EXIT.

I really don't know what to say to people like this. You may have grown up in Bug Tussle where everybody parks in the middle of the street and its no big deal how you park.  BUT, half a million of us or so live in Tulsa and the surrounding communities.  If we don't think about the other guy as a matter of course, life can get real miserable real quick.   Here's a message for you Oklahoma license number shown above.  If you ever park like that around a handicapped spot, I will take pictures again and personally deliver them to the traffic division of the TPD who will see to it that was the most expensive parking spot you ever parked in.

And one more thing.  If you are going to drive a truck, any truck, even a pickup, learn how to drive the damned thing without taking up more space than is allotted to you.  A professional driver would never have parked liked that.

Bill and Sheila's Saturday In the Big Town

Yesterday, Sheila had to work a couple of hours at TU first thing.  That is fairly common these days.  A couple of the professors have her doing the publishing set up (really tough typing) on a new Chemical Engineering textbook they are writing.  She is one of the few folks around who can handle complicated equations in word processing software.  She also still maintains a website for TU and is getting ready to build another one for the one professors who also runs an oil patch consulting firm.

While Sheila was at TU, I ran over to Coweta and picked up my new electric guitar.  I know this is going to sound insane but I returned the uber expensive, pro-quality Gibson I recently purchased and instead ordered a child sized Fender Squier Mini-Strat.  No, I am not insane.  I had good reasons.

I fiddled with the Gibson for over a week before I returned it.  It was wonderful.  I could almost use sexual metaphors to describe the experience.  I say almost because, despite the sheer beauty of it and the to-die-for neck, I couldn't get it to sound good for me. I have three separate amp systems, a tiny all-in-one Vox that includes all of the effects including a mic mixer and a rhythm machine, a medium sized acoustic amp that includes a mic channel and a small room (under 200), multi-channel, PA system.  No matter how hard I tried and what combination of settings I used I could not get the sound out of my existing sound systems that I knew the Gibson was capable of producing. Cheaper guitars actually sounded better on all of my sound systems.  After several fruitless sessions, I realized that the Gibson needed a lot more amp than I had on hand and frankly, after spending way over a grand already I wasn't all that gung ho about spending that much again for an amp to make it happy. And frankly, aside from all of that, I really couldn't see myself walking away from THAT guitar on a gig and enjoying myself.  I would be sitting right there with it until I carried it out of the building.  There are an amazing number of grab and run thefts of high dollar guitars.  So, reluctantly, I shipped it back for a refund.

I ordered a child sized guitar this time around because I have arthritis in my hands, arms and shoulders.  A few years back, I bought a "Baby Martin" acoustic and found that I could play it for hours without pain.  I ordered a cheap Fender because, if you are going to take a project to build anyway, there are thousands of choices for upgrades and everybody knows how to work on them.  Over time, as I "hot rod" it, the Mini-Strat will turn into a useful little axe.

I know it is possible to get good sound out of these little guys because I have been asking around on the net.  I knew that I couldn't be the only old picker that had discovered that playing a reduced sized guitar relieved arthritis problems.  Turns out there are some pro's out there gigging with these little guys, particularly older folks and folks with small hands. And the sound, while not as good as my dearly beloved Les Paul's, is still good enough.  I'm not a Fender fan but frankly, when modified properly, these little guys sound about as good as any other Strat to me.  Here is an example of an older guy doing pretty well with one.



The mini-strat was a mess out of the box.  It came equipped with a set of Chinese strings that sounded like they had been made out of old bailing wire.  It went out of tune when you played certain chords and the intonation was ridiculous.  I darn near just sent it back.  But, I called my old friend Robert Smith who makes his living playing various Fender axes and asked him what was going on.  He took a look at it and a couple of days later the little sucker stays in tune, has near perfect intonation and generally is a playable guitar.  It's nowhere near where I want it yet, but Robert's professional set up was good start.  A high tech carbon fiber nut, a set of pro quality pickups and a set of the good quality tuners are the next jobs on the agenda.

After that, Sheila and I got together and we ran our usual weekend errands, dropping off the laundry and dry cleaning, pharmacy stuff, etc.  I was particularly pleased that we happened to catch Academy on a day when the bulk .22 LR ammo was not sold out.  We got to purchase two bricks.  That should keep me in range ammo for a month or two without having to go buy it a hundred rounds at a time.  I have nothing but admiration for Academy Sporting Goods for holding the line on ammo prices and making a point of treating their customers fairly. And, I have nothing but scorn for dealers like Dong's Sporting Goods which send their employees to Academy and Wal Mart to buy all of the ammunition they can and then mark it up to twice the price for re-sale.

We had bad incident at lunch.  I decided to suspend my boycott of Cracker Barrel for a day and have lunch there.  As Sheila and I were walking in, a younger teen-aged black boy was sitting in one of the rockers and working it pretty hard.  As we walked up, he stared intently at us.  His look was pure hatred.  I know that look.  If we had been walking down a lonely street or a dark alley there would have been trouble.  As I kept my eyes on him, I was reminded that there have been several violent incidents in the parking lot of this very Cracker Barrel and armed robberies are common at Cracker Barrel locations around the nation.  I had a gun in my front pocket and was carrying a cane that is guaranteed to break a knee cap or split a skull if necessary so I wasn't worried about him.  I just wondered what in the world that child had been told or taught that could make him hate and want to do violence to people he had never seen before.

When they do it right, Cracker Barrel makes a wonderful turkey sandwich.  Real roast turkey and grill toasted, fresh baked bread served with a side of steak fries.  They didn't do it right this time.  There was one little knot of turkey on one side of the sandwich and the steak fries were cold, limp and greasy.  Between walking the gauntlet to get in the door and the poorly executed food, all on top of firing a Viet Nam Vet for giving a corn muffin to a homeless person, I've had it with them.  Cracker Barrel is off our list.

After supper, we went to Mike and Jodi's for a swim.  We passed a very pleasant couple of hours in their pool chatting and sipping wine coolers. When we go to Mike and Jodi's for a pool session, Sheila and I often just wear our swimsuits.  Yesterday evening, I was very careful to take my weapon out of my pocket, take my cellphone out of my pocket, and carefully put my glasses away on one of the deck boxes.  I didn't realize that I had left my wallet in the back pocket of my swimsuit until I stepped out of the pool two hours later. When I got home, I was amazed at how much now soggy but very important paper I carried in my wallet. OOPS. We'll see how much it survives today.

Despite the little disasters at Cracker Barrel and the pool, overall it was nice day in the Big Town.