An Evening At The Range

I met Alex and a friend from Finland over at Bass Pro Shops for an evening of target practice. I got to try out that little .380 I picked up at Dallas Market Hall as well as some practice with some other pistols. That little .380 is a mean handgun. It’s got quite a kick, a 20 pound trigger pull that’s about a mile long, but for all that it still groups really tightly. It’s definitely not something I’d take out every day, but it’s good to know how it performs. Long term it’s going to get replaced with something else in .380, probably a Walther PPK, but for now it’ll do it’s job.

Pascha 2008

Christ Is Risen!

I just got back in from the Paschal Liturgy at St. Maximus’s. I got up to the church a little early to spend some time at the tomb reading the Acts of the Apostles before the Paschal services started. We celebrated the resurrection and then broke the fast, enjoying the meat, cheese, and alcohol we’ve abstained from throughout the 40 days of Lent.

In case you were wondering, the date of Pascha floats, based on the occurrence of the equinox and the full moon. From http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article7050.asp:

The First Ecumenical Council convened at Nicaea in 325 took up the issue. It determined that Pascha should be celebrated on the Sunday which follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox-the actual beginning of spring. If the full moon happens to fall on a Sunday, Pascha is observed the following Sunday.

Asia

I went down to The House of Blues to see Asia tonight, marking another band off of my list. The four original members reunited, released a new album, and have gone on tour supporting it. The show was really good, with songs from throughout Asia’s timeframe and from other bands that each of the members had been in. We were treated to some Yes, Buggles, King Crimson, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer as well. I’m definitely glad that I was able to see them, after so many years.

More Work In The Garden

It looks like we’re past the last of the cold weather and since this weekend is looking absolutely gorgeous, I went out back to do a little more work in the garden. I’ve gotten one more cucumber in the ground. They did really badly with the cold, with me losing 5 of 6 that were planted first time around. I also planted one of the cantaloupes, the anaheim peppers, jalapeƱos, banana peppers, and a sprite tomato. I also planted another batch of carrot seeds, some more lettuce, and try three at one of the broccoli. After that a lot of mulching of the more established plants and then running some fertilizer over everything.

My First Gun Show

After enduring much ribbing from friends about having never attended a gun show before, I picked up Alex and headed down to Dallas Market Hall to do a little shopping. I met a couple other friends there and proceeded to nose around. Definitely some good deals, but boy were the rip-off artists out in force! At the end of the day I picked up a couple LED flashlights, bright, cheap, and reasonably waterproof. One’s going in the Sportster’s saddlebags and the other’s in the Jeep. I also managed to score a .22 caliber air rifle cheap. That one will be fun for dealing with garden pests. And the pièce de résistance was a small, cheap .380 automatic for those times when concealing a full sized 9mm is just out of the question.

Planted The Hops

Well, both hop rhizomes are in the ground now. Now I’ve got to work on a climbing support for them. It’s going to be interesting figuring out how to work that in with the bird netting that’s currently covering the entire garden. They both looked really happy, throwing off shoots left and right in the plastic bag they came in. I also got some mulch spread over some of the taller plants that ought to help retain moisture, etc. The tomatoes and cucumbers are still really unhappy. I’m thinking they got planted too soon. But there’s more still inside so all is not lost.

Running Errands

It was a busy day today, met some of the North Texas Netscum for breakfast at Mama’s Daughter’s Diner, then headed over to Competitive Cameras to see if I could find a more convenient bag for carrying the camera around D.C. in May. Thankfully, I did. I’ve now got a SlingShot 300 AW and amazingly enough all of the gear fits in it. I’m happy that I found something that looks like it’ll work out. After that I went up to Homebrew Headquarters to pick up ingredients for a batch of wheat beer and some corks and a corker so that I can finally get the mead bottled. Looks like that’s going to be next weekend’s project. It was a pretty successful and productive day.

Stargate – The Ark Of Truth

I finally got a chance to sit down and watch the DVD and have to say that I really enjoyed it. They did a great job of wrapping up the Ori story arc and it was pretty evident to me that they had a little bigger budget to work with. The story line was well written, with no real gaps that stood out. The team chemistry was definitely there and I laughed at the ongoing banter between Vala and Daniel. I’m definitely sad to see SG1 end but as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. One more movie to go this summer and then it’s all Atlantis…

Hail, Hail, The Gang’s All Here

I got woken up at about 3:30 this morning to the pounding of hail on my roof. I ran to the back door because I was worried about the garden being completely wiped out. There was golf ball sized hail falling and literally bouncing off the bird netting that we’d put up on Saturday. I was amazed, and after I’d gotten up in the morning and looked, there was no damage to the garden at all. The Jeep has some more dents, but that’s not a big deal, they just blend in with the rock rash…

The Faded Sun Trilogy

I’ve been a fan of C. J. Cherryh for a while and picked this one up as my other reading for the trip out to San Jose. I got part of the way through it on the flight back, but didn’t finish it until tonight. The work is definitely a little dated, especially in regards to the technology, but the story really doesn’t suffer from it. Definitely some elements of Dune in it as well.

The story starts at the end of a war between humans and regul, who fought by using proxy mercenaries called the mri. The mri got slaughtered because of how different humanity treated the war. From that beginning we move through intrigue and betrayal as the few remaining mri struggle to find their ancestral home.

It was a great book and reading it brought me back to an author I’d neglected. I’ve got the beginning of some other series which I need to re-read and then finish off now…