Showing posts with label photos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photos. Show all posts
2/12/2012
1/28/2012
Dogs
There's our little annoying dog (taking a break from trying to pull off my socks) and my Uncle's Ridiculous Corgi (who was supervising him taking off my socks) I mentioned the other day.
Dogblogging!
Dogblogging!
1/09/2012
Another sunrise
From this morning:
As they say in Colorado, "If God isn't a Broncos fan, then why does he make the sunrise blue and orange?"
As they say in Colorado, "If God isn't a Broncos fan, then why does he make the sunrise blue and orange?"
1/05/2012
12/21/2011
Red Sky In the Morning
Supposed to snow tonight and tomorrow. If old sailor's tales have anything to do with it, I'd say they're right.
12/17/2011
12/12/2011
Bushmaster ORC Brief Range Report
So made it out to the range yesterday with my rifle (pt1 of my escapades here, pt2 here). We got off 40 rounds before the dark and the cold drove us home, which was enough to get the red dot sighted in and to get a feel for the rifle. We started at the 50 yard berm and then tried a few at the 100 yard--which is about as far as we could go with the red dot, anyway.
I am happy with that, considering that I have been mostly a pistol shooter--and all those holes are within the "dot" of the scope. I could see a person going out further with a red dot if they knew what they were doing, but...
As for the gun, I was pleasantly surprised at how little recoil it had--while it was of course more than my 10/22, it was less than my dad's .222. More of a "push" than a "jerk". That's a semi auto vs a bolt for you. While the 30 some odd rounds I shot might not be enough for a real test, I had no discomfort whatsoever. And again, 40 rounds isn't enough for a real test, but so far no problems functionality-wise. I love those P-mags, too. So much nicer than the metal one that came with it. The only complaint I might have about it right now is that with the generic stock on it pulls hairs off your face at times.
I hope that I can get out there some more sometime soon. As they say, shooting is converting money into smoke and noise, but it also converts money into experience and skill. Probably ought to spring for a range membership so I don't have to work around my friend's schedule.
Oh, and the obligatory shot of the gun (notice the redneck shooting rest!):
It's a good thing that no one else was there, we spread out over three shooting benches!
As always, fun was had by all.
100 yards, 3 shots from me and 3 from my friend, can't remember which ones are whose
I am happy with that, considering that I have been mostly a pistol shooter--and all those holes are within the "dot" of the scope. I could see a person going out further with a red dot if they knew what they were doing, but...
As for the gun, I was pleasantly surprised at how little recoil it had--while it was of course more than my 10/22, it was less than my dad's .222. More of a "push" than a "jerk". That's a semi auto vs a bolt for you. While the 30 some odd rounds I shot might not be enough for a real test, I had no discomfort whatsoever. And again, 40 rounds isn't enough for a real test, but so far no problems functionality-wise. I love those P-mags, too. So much nicer than the metal one that came with it. The only complaint I might have about it right now is that with the generic stock on it pulls hairs off your face at times.
I hope that I can get out there some more sometime soon. As they say, shooting is converting money into smoke and noise, but it also converts money into experience and skill. Probably ought to spring for a range membership so I don't have to work around my friend's schedule.
Oh, and the obligatory shot of the gun (notice the redneck shooting rest!):
It's a good thing that no one else was there, we spread out over three shooting benches!
As always, fun was had by all.
12/03/2011
Scaredy Cats and Chickens
Let Fractal the Cat out of his shed (for the first time) and the chickens out of theirs this morning while we cleaned everything out. He wasn't quite sure what to make of those things, decided discretion was the better part of valor and climbed into the willow bush to observe from a safe distance.
Cats and chickens are both funny to watch, and adding them together resulted in a good hour of entertainment.
12/02/2011
Unveiled: Bushmaster ORC .308
Note: any technical terms I use in the following is strictly used on a "book knowledge" basis. This is my first AR style rifle, and indeed could be argued to be my first Evil Black Rifle of any sort. I am most definitely a neophyte when it comes to these things, and I welcome anyone with more/other knowledge to share.
As some of you may have guessed/put together the pieces for, the rifle I ordered via Davidson's (great service, by the way, everything worked wonderfully, three days and it was here) was a Bushmaster ORC (or "optics ready carbine"--which means "we are keeping it low cost and not even putting on iron sights") in .308 Winchester. It comes with a 16" barrel w/A2 flash hider, a bit of nylon strapping, a couple of rail risers, one 20 rd magazine, and a rather ridiculously oversized hard plastic case.
Thoughts and observations: The handguard feels a little sloppy; reading around on teh interwebs this seems to be how it is. It appears that it is easy enough to come by aftermarket handguards, however, with some reporting success with using the MagPul MOE, which I don't think is specifically made for the 308 AR's. I would, however, like some more rail somewhere for mounting some iron sights out front--perhaps changing the gas block to one with a rail built in, or a gas block with the sights built in?
I have also been reading that, as Bushmaster is part of the Freedom Group, their guns are made by DPMS. Indeed, though it says "Made in Windham Maine" on the side (despite Bushmaster relocating), it also says "Mod: LR-308", the name DPMS uses for their AR-10 style rifles. I am not sure what those two things together are telling me, but I am assured by the internet that the Bushmaster can use anything made for the DPMS style guns. Such as some o' those slick MagPul PMags, a major consideration for me.
Some day I think I would like to get a longer barrel, however the 16" does feel rather handy, and the gun comes to the shoulder nice. Perhaps I am going to start diving into the madness of having multiple builds of rifles... not that I could afford that, right now.
However, the very first thing I need to do is get some optics of some sort. Since it is a carbine, was sort of thinking about a red dot... but since it is a .308, was thinking of an actual-by-golly rifle scope. This is probably the area that I would welcome the most suggestions. Would like to keep it somewhat reasonable for my bank account, $300 at the very most--for now anyway.
Looking out there at the myriad of aftermarket parts and gidgey-gadgets has made me almost giddy looking forward to taking it all apart and putting it back together again. Better faster stronger, right?
I've been wanting a 308 "Battle Rifle" (though not sure if a carbine counts for that or not) for some time, and between saving up for it a little bit at a time over the past 6 months, Christmastime coming, a nice deal from Davidson's, and the way the economy seems to be shedding parts as it careens towards the ground, now seemed to be the ideal occasion. It may not have all the features, and it will require more money to get to where I want it, but this way I at least have my foot in the door. Oh, and I also bought this rifle to learn reloading with--when Mr. R offered to bring down an extra press the next time he comes through town that he just has lying around and that "is nicer than the one your dad had here," who am I to refuse?
And lastly, for doubletrouble, who really wanted a pittcher last night, this is the best I could do:
P.S. FCC FTC FAA FGH FAC F ET AL.: You'd think you guys would get the idea that blogger write about stuff for the simple reason they like to show off their cool toys, not because there is some sort of grand conspiracy of being bought out by the companies who make the products they write about. But, I guess not. Go soak your fat heads.
Added: Link to what was done next.
As some of you may have guessed/put together the pieces for, the rifle I ordered via Davidson's (great service, by the way, everything worked wonderfully, three days and it was here) was a Bushmaster ORC (or "optics ready carbine"--which means "we are keeping it low cost and not even putting on iron sights") in .308 Winchester. It comes with a 16" barrel w/A2 flash hider, a bit of nylon strapping, a couple of rail risers, one 20 rd magazine, and a rather ridiculously oversized hard plastic case.
Thoughts and observations: The handguard feels a little sloppy; reading around on teh interwebs this seems to be how it is. It appears that it is easy enough to come by aftermarket handguards, however, with some reporting success with using the MagPul MOE, which I don't think is specifically made for the 308 AR's. I would, however, like some more rail somewhere for mounting some iron sights out front--perhaps changing the gas block to one with a rail built in, or a gas block with the sights built in?
I have also been reading that, as Bushmaster is part of the Freedom Group, their guns are made by DPMS. Indeed, though it says "Made in Windham Maine" on the side (despite Bushmaster relocating), it also says "Mod: LR-308", the name DPMS uses for their AR-10 style rifles. I am not sure what those two things together are telling me, but I am assured by the internet that the Bushmaster can use anything made for the DPMS style guns. Such as some o' those slick MagPul PMags, a major consideration for me.
Some day I think I would like to get a longer barrel, however the 16" does feel rather handy, and the gun comes to the shoulder nice. Perhaps I am going to start diving into the madness of having multiple builds of rifles... not that I could afford that, right now.
However, the very first thing I need to do is get some optics of some sort. Since it is a carbine, was sort of thinking about a red dot... but since it is a .308, was thinking of an actual-by-golly rifle scope. This is probably the area that I would welcome the most suggestions. Would like to keep it somewhat reasonable for my bank account, $300 at the very most--for now anyway.
Looking out there at the myriad of aftermarket parts and gidgey-gadgets has made me almost giddy looking forward to taking it all apart and putting it back together again. Better faster stronger, right?
I've been wanting a 308 "Battle Rifle" (though not sure if a carbine counts for that or not) for some time, and between saving up for it a little bit at a time over the past 6 months, Christmastime coming, a nice deal from Davidson's, and the way the economy seems to be shedding parts as it careens towards the ground, now seemed to be the ideal occasion. It may not have all the features, and it will require more money to get to where I want it, but this way I at least have my foot in the door. Oh, and I also bought this rifle to learn reloading with--when Mr. R offered to bring down an extra press the next time he comes through town that he just has lying around and that "is nicer than the one your dad had here," who am I to refuse?
And lastly, for doubletrouble, who really wanted a pittcher last night, this is the best I could do:
P.S. FCC FTC FAA FGH FAC F ET AL.: You'd think you guys would get the idea that blogger write about stuff for the simple reason they like to show off their cool toys, not because there is some sort of grand conspiracy of being bought out by the companies who make the products they write about. But, I guess not. Go soak your fat heads.
Added: Link to what was done next.
11/30/2011
11/26/2011
This one goes out to doubletrouble
He said, and I quote: "It's inevitable. Once you get a cat, the cat-blogging commences. It's a rule, I believe."
So here you go:
Fractal the cat, in daylight. He had his whack of shots and is starting to act much more animated. Though the vet said that he's 5 months old yet only weights 2.5 pounds. So he'll probably be a little cat when he grows up.
Happy Caturday, dammit.
So here you go:
Fractal the cat, in daylight. He had his whack of shots and is starting to act much more animated. Though the vet said that he's 5 months old yet only weights 2.5 pounds. So he'll probably be a little cat when he grows up.
Happy Caturday, dammit.
11/20/2011
11/17/2011
11/07/2011
Up Before the Sun
I don't get it. It's still dark out when I get up, but now it's dark when I get home from work, too. What a stupid idea.
10/27/2011
Wow.
Let me tell you, we just came back from one of the local bar & grills (it's not really a brew pub, but it's associated with Breckenridge Brewery so they have semi-local beers) and I had the most amazing beer I think I've ever had. It was their Vanilla Porter (which is pretty good in its own right) which had been aged in a used bourbon barrel. Wow. Amazing. Dee-lish. If anyone out there ever comes through my area of Colorado, I highly recommend stopping by The Ale House and trying it out.
And then when we got home we saw this sunset:
And then when we got home we saw this sunset:
And all was good.
10/22/2011
10/21/2011
There's a problem
That right there is water... in between the panes of glass. How much is a new, big picture window?
10/20/2011
Photodump: Lake Powell
We got to the lake just as the sun was going down, and my uncle picked us up in his little purple speedboat. Unfourtunately it was too dark by that time to really see any of the landscape; the moon on the water was the only thing visible.
But the next morning when the sun came up...
Blue water, blue skies, and only red rocks and sand in between them.
There's the little houseboat--just big enough. We had a party of four adults and one cute little girl (seriously--only four years old, but she was hilarious), and we were comfortable, but there are four bunks, two fold-down couch/bed things, you could sleep under the awning up top, or you could even pitch a tent on the beach if you aren't afraid of coyotes. Enough room for as many friends as you want to bring, or as few.
Miles and miles of canyons. Lake Powell, when it's full, actually has a larger coast line (around 1900 miles) than the entire west coast of the US (around 1200 miles). It's really amazing to see.
A (slightly blurry) cormorant in Halls Bay, where we camped for most of the time. My uncle, the mechanic of old vehicles he is, pointed out that the logo of Packard Motor Car Company had a cormorant in it.
And this guy kept buzzing us as we puttered around in the purple boat one day. He was doing touch and gos. I love me some piper cubs and I love me some seaplanes--so I have more pictures of this than could be considered perfectly reasonable...
We camped next to this little rock, so I had to go out on top of it.
The water was somewhere around 74 degrees, definitely on the chilly side, but not so much so that you couldn't go swimming for a while before the cold got to you. And you couldn't have asked for nicer weather, with hardly a cloud in the sky, highs of around 80, and lows in the 50's.
And here, in Lost Eden Canyon, there's a really cool overhang/amphitheater thing the water is still a couple hundred feet deep under there, so we just bobbed along marveling at it for a little while.
The formation on the west side of Halls Bay, where we camped, is called Waterpocket Fold, because of all the slick rock potholes that collect water, and stay wet even in the summer. This arch was only a short hike up from our campsite. And you can barely see my uncle waving back at me from on top of it.
Behind the arch are a bunch of the water filled potholes, which just keep going up the drainage in a string like that. Saw a few little froggies living in the holes.
And, in the southwest, where there are canyons, there are indian ruins. This place is called Defiance House, and consists of several of stone dwellings and a kiva up on top of a rubble pile under an overhanging cliff, near the end of the water in Forgotten Canyon.
We also stopped to look at this (you may need to click on the photo to see what I'm talking about). There are some foot holds carved into the rock right here that come right up from the water and go up the cliff. My uncle said that he once had himself dropped off there and he climbed up it--at the top are a bunch of areas that were obviously farmed by the natives way in the past. There are little square plots of dirt, no more than an acre, and channels cut from more potholes for irrigation. I would have liked to have climbed up myself, but we were running out of daylight and still a ways out from the houseboat.
This past year's runoff was exceptionally good (you've heard me talking on and on about how high the Colorado has been in town here, remember?), the lake hasn't been this high in many years--only about 30 feet down from high water. This makes it much easier to get to and from some of these places, where in the recent past it has been necessary to bushwack through miles of tamarisk to get to any of these things. On the one hand, I can see why environmentalists consider Lake Powell to be some sort of disaster--it really is equivalent to flooding the Grand Canyon--but on the other hand having a lake and a boat makes everything so much more accessible. And there's that whole "electricity" thing that Glen Canyon Dam does for us. TANSTAAFL.
Speaking of free lunches, in return for all the fun times, this was the last outing for the year of the little houseboat, so we had to help clean it up and winterize it. It's now tied to a buoy in Bullfrog, awaiting next year's adventures. Sadly, many of its buoy-mates' owners seem to have fallen on hard times, what with the economy and all. People are deciding it's cheaper to give up their dreams and let the boats rot, rust and sink away, forfeiting them for the marina to deal with. Kind of sad, really.
And speaking of lunches, boy did we eat like kings. My uncle was expecting a few more people than we ended up with, so between the steak, barbeque pork, and bleu cheese hamburgers, we were all expected to drink up the large supply of beer, gin, cheap tequila, and rum. Well, all of us but the cute little girl. And with Radio Margaritaville on the satellite radio, we did our best. I think I gained 5 pounds.
So that was my pretty neat spur of the moment vacation from last weekend. Hope you're at least a little envious; otherwise I didn't do a good enough job writing this all out!
But the next morning when the sun came up...
Blue water, blue skies, and only red rocks and sand in between them.
There's the little houseboat--just big enough. We had a party of four adults and one cute little girl (seriously--only four years old, but she was hilarious), and we were comfortable, but there are four bunks, two fold-down couch/bed things, you could sleep under the awning up top, or you could even pitch a tent on the beach if you aren't afraid of coyotes. Enough room for as many friends as you want to bring, or as few.
Miles and miles of canyons. Lake Powell, when it's full, actually has a larger coast line (around 1900 miles) than the entire west coast of the US (around 1200 miles). It's really amazing to see.
A (slightly blurry) cormorant in Halls Bay, where we camped for most of the time. My uncle, the mechanic of old vehicles he is, pointed out that the logo of Packard Motor Car Company had a cormorant in it.
And this guy kept buzzing us as we puttered around in the purple boat one day. He was doing touch and gos. I love me some piper cubs and I love me some seaplanes--so I have more pictures of this than could be considered perfectly reasonable...
We camped next to this little rock, so I had to go out on top of it.
The water was somewhere around 74 degrees, definitely on the chilly side, but not so much so that you couldn't go swimming for a while before the cold got to you. And you couldn't have asked for nicer weather, with hardly a cloud in the sky, highs of around 80, and lows in the 50's.
And here, in Lost Eden Canyon, there's a really cool overhang/amphitheater thing the water is still a couple hundred feet deep under there, so we just bobbed along marveling at it for a little while.
The formation on the west side of Halls Bay, where we camped, is called Waterpocket Fold, because of all the slick rock potholes that collect water, and stay wet even in the summer. This arch was only a short hike up from our campsite. And you can barely see my uncle waving back at me from on top of it.
Behind the arch are a bunch of the water filled potholes, which just keep going up the drainage in a string like that. Saw a few little froggies living in the holes.
And, in the southwest, where there are canyons, there are indian ruins. This place is called Defiance House, and consists of several of stone dwellings and a kiva up on top of a rubble pile under an overhanging cliff, near the end of the water in Forgotten Canyon.
We also stopped to look at this (you may need to click on the photo to see what I'm talking about). There are some foot holds carved into the rock right here that come right up from the water and go up the cliff. My uncle said that he once had himself dropped off there and he climbed up it--at the top are a bunch of areas that were obviously farmed by the natives way in the past. There are little square plots of dirt, no more than an acre, and channels cut from more potholes for irrigation. I would have liked to have climbed up myself, but we were running out of daylight and still a ways out from the houseboat.
This past year's runoff was exceptionally good (you've heard me talking on and on about how high the Colorado has been in town here, remember?), the lake hasn't been this high in many years--only about 30 feet down from high water. This makes it much easier to get to and from some of these places, where in the recent past it has been necessary to bushwack through miles of tamarisk to get to any of these things. On the one hand, I can see why environmentalists consider Lake Powell to be some sort of disaster--it really is equivalent to flooding the Grand Canyon--but on the other hand having a lake and a boat makes everything so much more accessible. And there's that whole "electricity" thing that Glen Canyon Dam does for us. TANSTAAFL.
Speaking of free lunches, in return for all the fun times, this was the last outing for the year of the little houseboat, so we had to help clean it up and winterize it. It's now tied to a buoy in Bullfrog, awaiting next year's adventures. Sadly, many of its buoy-mates' owners seem to have fallen on hard times, what with the economy and all. People are deciding it's cheaper to give up their dreams and let the boats rot, rust and sink away, forfeiting them for the marina to deal with. Kind of sad, really.
And speaking of lunches, boy did we eat like kings. My uncle was expecting a few more people than we ended up with, so between the steak, barbeque pork, and bleu cheese hamburgers, we were all expected to drink up the large supply of beer, gin, cheap tequila, and rum. Well, all of us but the cute little girl. And with Radio Margaritaville on the satellite radio, we did our best. I think I gained 5 pounds.
So that was my pretty neat spur of the moment vacation from last weekend. Hope you're at least a little envious; otherwise I didn't do a good enough job writing this all out!
10/18/2011
And another Mantis
I've seen more of these guys in the past week than I've seen in the past 5 years. May have something to do with being in Montana for the fall in the past 5 years, but still, I've seen a lot of praying mantises lately. This one was sunning itself in the afternoon sun on the south side of the chicken shed, a nice warm place after the chilly mornings we've been having. Not too much longer now and you'll be able to call it winter...
10/08/2011
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