Unusual Movie Prop Gun Cartridge

During the last few weeks when I was off work on Medical Leave, a movie production company that had contracted with us came in and set up all their gear.

They did a lot of filming up on the bridge, down in the engine room, the Launch Control Center, and what we call "Room 101", which is the Rocket Assembly Room where the payload gets mated to the rocket and tested before we transfer it over to the Launch Platform.

Almost all of the filming was done on 2nd and 3rd shifts, and since I was AWL (Absent With Leave!) when the schedules were made, I didn't get asked to assist the production company while they were on board.

It was mostly assistance to keep them from getting lost, making sure they didn't get into places they shouldn't go, and escorting them to the rest room.

Well, they finished filming over the weekend, and started breaking things down and moving them off the ship Monday morning.

The filming they did was a lot of "action" sequences, and according to my friends who were observing, involved  LOT of prop gun shooting.

So much so, in fact, that people were sliding around on the spent brass in between takes before they could get the floor swept up for the next take!

One of my friends said they were taking 5 gallon buckets of brass off the ship!

Even after "cleaning up", they were still finding brass rolling around, so one of my friends saved a spent case for me.

He had no idea what kind of gun they were firing, other than "It was some kind of machine gun!", and since it was a prop gun, might have been rechambered to fire these blanks.

It's obviously a blank from the crimped end, but the head stamp indicates it's a "9MM Win Mag", which I had never heard of.

A wikipedia search turned up that it's considered an obsolete cartridge, designed in the 1970's to duplicate the ballistics of a 357 Magnum in an auto pistol cartridge, sort of like a prehistoric 357SIG, I guess.

So, here's a couple of pictures of a cartridge you may have never seen before.

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Bringing the Mighty Saturn F-1 Engine Back to Life

Interesting article over here.

Never thought I'd see the F-1 roar again.....

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Salesman Joke

From a buddy of mine.....

A young guy from North Dakota moves to Florida and goes to a big "everything under one roof" department store looking for a job.

The Manager says, "Do you have any sales experience?" The kid says "Yeah. I was a vacuum salesman back in North Dakota."

Well, the boss was unsure, but he liked the kid and figured he'd give him a shot, so he gave him the job.

"You start tomorrow. I'll come down after we close and see how you did."

His first day on the job was rough, but he got through it. After the store was locked up, the boss came down to the sales floor.

"How many customers bought something from you today?" The kid frowns and looks at the floor and mutters, "One". The boss says "Just one??? Our sales people average sales to 20 to 30 customers a day.

That will have to change, and soon, if you'd like to continue your employment here. We have very strict standards for our sales force here in Florida. One sale a day might have been acceptable in North Dakota, but you're not on the farm anymore, son."

The kid took his beating, but continued to look at his shoes, so the boss felt kinda bad for chewing him out on his first day. He asked (semi-sarcastically), "So, how much was your one sale for?"

The kid looks up at his boss and says "$101,237.65".

The boss, astonished, says $101,237.65! What the hell did you sell?"

The kid says, "Well, first, I sold him some new fish hooks. Then I sold him a new fishing rod to go with his new hooks. Then I asked him where he was going fishing and he said down the coast, so I told him he was going to need a boat, so we went down to the boat department and I sold him a twin engine Chris Craft. Then he said he didn't think his Honda Civic would pull it, so I took him down to the automotive department and sold him that 4x4 Expedition."

The boss said "A guy came in here to buy a fish hook and you sold him a boat and a TRUCK?" 

The kid said "No, the guy came in here to buy tampons for his wife, and I said, 'Dude, your weekend's shot, you should go fishing'".

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WTF Is Going On With Blogger???

Well.....DUH!

I've tried to reply to posts on other blogs, and it will NOT let me post with my super-secret "drjim" ID.

It keeps insisting I use an old ID that I only use for a few Yahoo! groups.

This is getting REALLY annoying!

Maybe I should just move to Wordpress, or just get another domain, and run everything from there....

VERY Good News From The Hospital

My wife's grandson has been released, and he's back home.

They held him and extra week so they could wean him off the drugs they had him on. I don't know what they used to put him in the induced coma, but after they took him off that, they put him on Methadone so he wouldn't go into withdrawl.

They finally got him off that, and he went home on Tuesday morning.

Pretty amazing when you consider they had the Chaplain and the grief counselor team team there not that many days ago.

Again, THANK YOU for all the prayers and support. My wife was amazed at the number of people I "know" through this blog that poured out sympathy and prayers.

Thank you all, again......

Tinkering.....

I'm digging into the HTML code. I figure if they won't give me what I want, I'll just dig out my O'Reilly HTML book, read the code (Use The SOURCE, Luke!), and MAKE it do what I want!

I'm trying to get this set up so it nicely fills a 1280 x 1084 screen.

If it spills over on yours, or wraps around, or does anything that make it unreadable, PLEASE let me know.

Like I said, my HTML-foo hasn't been used in (quite!) a while, so I fully expect to get this looking real purdy on my 1920 x 1080 monitor, only to have it look like sh1t on other people's monitors.

Once I get the scaling and width correct, I'll try and do something about these rather lurid colors.

Please Stand By.........

Blog Tinkering

Spent some time this morning trying different templates.

Since my HTML-foo is low these days, I'll just keep putzing around with what blogger supplies until I find one I like, and then tweak it a bit.

Bear with me.....the blog might look pretty weird from time to time!
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Maryland Governor Puts Tax On......RAIN?

Just is just how far down the path of tyranny we've come.

I suppose next they'll tax us on the CO2 we exhale!

Go here and read the whole thing.



Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.
Don't ask me what I want it for
If you don't want to pay some more
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
And you're working for no one but me.

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Prince Rupert's Drop

This is amazing.

Back to Work on Friday

I should have bent my Doctor's arm to let me stay out until Monday, but.......

Anyway.....the extra antibiotics are doing their job, and the swelling and redness of my index finger are going away.

As a result, my Doctor doesn't think I'll need surgery to root out all the infection, but he's going to be watching it closely. If it flares up, or changes significantly, he'll get me in to the Hand Surgeon ASAP.

It's still a bit difficult to write, type, use a mouse and small tools, and solder, but I'm cleared to go back on Friday.

Radio Daze.......

Since I can't work on my Jeep, or work outside on any antenna stuff, or tinker around on my workbench (can't solder and use small tools with my finger all wrapped up), I've been spending most of the weekend listening to the radio.

There's a lot of Ham radio activity today on the 15 and 10 Meter bands, and the scanner is running in the background, too.

So far the scanner has provided most of the entertainment.

** A couple fighting in the parking lot of a local Double Tree hotel, cursing and throwing clothing and wine bottles at each other.

** A "medical emergency" aboard a Jet Blue flight that's due to land soon. A 34 year old woman complaining of dizziness, and also claiming she'd been "drugged by a nice looking man" at the airport bar of her departure city. A doctor on board took her vitals, and pronounced her "fit, normal, and a bit of a bubble-head".

** A traffic stop by the LAPD where the driver claimed not to know that his state-issued I.D. card wasn't the same as a state-issued driver's license.

** An ambulance call to a certain address where the driver said "Oh, NO....Not HER again!".

And the usual traffic stops where the driver has multiple FTA's and warrants.

One person had four warrants with the total exceeding $50,000.

And he was driving a brand-new Ferrari with cardboard plates.

Just gotta love L.A.!

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