Red Dots!

Since my wife has trouble with the iron sights on her TRR-8 357 revolver, *AND* her instructor mumbled something about the gun needing an optic, I popped for an early birthday present for her with a HOLOSUN Reflex Sight.

It got very good reviews on several sites I read, and Brownell's had it in stock  at a good price, so I ordered it.

I'll wait'll she goes out on one of her shopping excursions, and sneak it on to her pistol and set it up after it gets here.

Never thought she'd turn into a "gunney", but life is full of surprises.

ARRRGH......PC Isuues of My Own Making....Jeep Repair, etc, etc, etc

Some time ago I was having a great deal of trouble getting a version of OpenSUSE installed on a few machines, and threw in the towel. I decided on Kubuntu 19.04.

WELL......I screwed the pooch by NOT getting one of the "Long Term Support" releases. And now this version is unsupported, and since I also missed upgrading it to version 19.10, I'm stuck with it, and no longer get any updates, and don't have an easy path to upgrading it to a newer one.

Yes, I suppose it could be done by somebody with more linux-foo than I currently have, but after spending two days trying dozens of "Recommended Solutions" with ZERO positive results, I'm tossing the towel in again, and going to do a clean install of 20.04_LTS, which is supported until April 2023.

I'm grabbing my passwords, bookmarks, and some other files off this disc, then I'll install another hard drive, and put 20.04_LTS on it.

I'm glad I have several 4TB disks sitting around, and I'll make sure not to miss the next "End Of Life" notice for 20.04_LTS.

I had to take my Jeep into the dealership yesterday for some work. My Check Engine Light has been on for about 6 months, and my code reader told me the code was for the Oil Pressure Sending Unit. Looking it up online reveals that code means it failed "Off Scale High", and although I can clear it, it throws it again about 10 seconds after the engine is up and running. I bought a new sender at O'Reilly's, but I can't get a wrench or socket on it without having the Jeep several feet in the air (No Thanks!), or getting it on a lift. I would have taken it to a local garage like "Grease Monkey", but I also had four recall notices on it for various things, so I bit the bullet and took it to Fort Collins Jeep.

I dropped it off at 1000, and they called at 1245 to come and get it. The sensor (Genuine MOPAR!) was $60, and the labor charge was $108.75, for a total bill of $191. Looking at the receipt I see they charged me $16.31 for "Customer Pay Shop Charge For Repair Order", which is a bit cryptic, but most likely means I paid that amount to just issue and process the work order. Back In The Day when I was running a shop we never would have charged for something that. It was just considered part of the overhead in running the place, like the lights, heat, telephone bill, parts washer and shop towel service, and was included in our hourly labor rate.

Kinda reminds me of McNamara and his "Whizz Kids"  squeezing every penny they could out of things like the M16.

"Well, if we delete the chrome plating and change the powder type in the ammo we can save $3 a rifle!", or whatever the cost was.

To take a little sting out of handing over $200, I'm going to write it off that I paid about $75 to get the sensor swapped, and the other charges were for the recall notices.

The $40 I spent on the sending unit from O'Reilly will get stuffed into the "Bad/Uncollectable Debts" column.....

I certainly can't complain about the service. It's a brand-new building, the service bays are immaculate and have all the latest diagnostic equipment, and the free ( ? ) coffee was very good. The staff was very efficient at getting me checked in, and equally efficient at taking my payment and getting me back on the road.

Two of the recalls were for reprogramming the "Final Drive Controller Module" and one for the "EBC Controller Module", and the Jeep appears to start and run smoother, so I can't complain there, either.

I talked with the Service Manager, who was out writing tickets, and he said their business is down about 70% compared to what it was before The Virus. Cars are selling OK, but he didn't know how much the volume was down. He winked and said you could get some really good deals on certain cars in stock, and they'd make me an exceptionally good offer on my existing Jeep. I'd imagine they're getting eaten alive by their "Floor Plan" with Jeep/Chrysler, as they're a fairly high-volume dealer.

The next things I have to do on the Jeep are to get the oil changed, get it smog tested, and then renew the plates. And I still need to get the windshield replaced, and it needs new front struts and rear shocks. I'd ordinarily get new inserts for the front struts, but that means tearing them apart to replace the cartridge, and as long as they're apart I should replace the top strut bearing and the rubber-bumper/strut-rod protective boot parts. If I just buy complete replacement units I get all that, plus new springs. It also cuts the repair time significantly, because as soon as the old one comes off, the new one goes on, saving me a couple of days of tearing things apart, cleaning and replacing parts, and then putting it back in.

The rear shocks are easy-peasy, just regular "Tube Shocks", and I'm kicking myself for not doing it when I did the rear brakes. Once you take the rear wheel and tire off, the shock and all the mounting bolts are right there in front of you. The hardest part is getting it in the air and pulling the wheel/tire off.

So, Life Under Quarantine continues, and projects are being worked on.

And I just about have my Lightning Detector Project from last summer finished, just in time for the Spring storms!

Be safe!

Local Wildlife In Action

In the most realistic enactment of a National Geographic episode, I just saw a rabbit get nailed by a hawk in our neighbor's front yard.....

I'd been watching the rabbit from the garage for a while, and it was watching me. It's was a much lighter shade of brown than I'm used to seeing, so I guess the local rabbits develop a lighter coat in the winter.

So anyway.....this big, almost white, rabbit was smack dab in the middle of our neighbors brilliant green front yard just minding it's own business, Fat, Dumb, and Happy, when this brown bolt slams down from the heavens.

And I mean it SLAMMED down! I could hear it hit and hear bones crunch. The rabbit jumped a bit, and made some blood curdling noises as the hawk finished putting it down with talons and beak.

The hawk then looked around a bit, clamped on the the rabbit, and lumbered aloft at what was probably a bit over max gross.

Stunning reality check if you think about it, and it happened about 35 feet from me.

More Neighborhood Changes.....

Talked to one of our younger neighbors today, and she filled me in on the local gossip.

She and her husband are now divorced, and she leased a house a few blocks away. No idea where he might go, or if he'll stay in the house.

The young couple next to them are also divorcing, with him going to the Denver area for work, and she's headed to Florida with the kids.

The older couple who moved out a few months back had sold their house to a company that cleans them up and flips them. It was this company that hauled everything away in numerous dumpster loads, not the original owners. It's been sold, and the two cars we see there now are the new owners. So far they're very quiet.

The house next to them, which was a rental, is sloooowly being worked on. The owner lives in Arizona, and nobody knows if he'll rent the house again, or sell it. It's been empty since the two single Mom sisters bought a house about two blocks away. The only activity we've seen has been a single truck and two guys who put new carpeting in the house, and now a single guy who appears to be a painter. I don't think he's painting the whole interior, as it's kinda silly to paint the complete interior after you've had the carpet replaced! That's what the people we bought this house from did, and it resulted in the baseboards not being fully painted. Kinda hard to get down to the bottom of the molding with an inch of carpet and underlayment.

I spent the day spraying RoundUp in the backyard gravel beds, and selectively spraying Weed B Gone in the front and back to get the dandelions, thistles, and other weeds before they go to seed.

And we have a gigantic mushroom infestation at the base of the cottonwood tree we had cut down and hauled away. I was just reading that vinegar kills mushrooms, so tomorrow I'll head out and get (another) sprayer to put vinegar in.

Otherwise, life goes on......

Sea Launch Back In Limbo

And apparently the owner regrets moving the ships to Russia.

He said he was promised it would be "no more" to berth the ships there compared to Long Beach, when in reality it's costing him twice as much....

And there's no suitable launch vehicle until maybe the "middle of the decade".

Interesting, and so very sad.

RTWT right here on SpaceNews....

Emporor Polis Threatens Weld County

I think Weld County should tell him to go pound sand.....

Read all about it over here...

Hey, Springtime....You Gonna Stick Around Now??

Abso-freaking-lutely beautiful outside today. 67*, mostly sunny, 3~4MPH breezes, and with the exception of some rain later this week, it'll be like this for a while.

It's "Springtime In The Northern Rockies", which means we could still get clobbered with 12" of snow, but the chances of that happening are diminishing daily. This last snow was a lot drier than I expected, and was fairly easy to get blown off the driveway and sidewalk. It was a lot more than I expected, meaning it was deep enough to require hitting the same spot twice with the snow blower, and as such, I ran the batteries down just clearing a single 24" wide lane down the driveway and sidewalks.

And the stimulus money we received will be going to fund a GAS POWERED snow blower very soon.

The "Honda vs Ariens" battle will be decided by what I can get at what I consider to be a reasonable price.

Thunderbirds Fly By

Should have used a different lens.....

This was shot with my 80mm~400mm "Image Stabilized" lens. Why is it blurry? Because the lens doesn't focus as fast as my other Nikon lenses do, and a switch on the side of the lens got bumped, slowing it down even more.

And the slot man, all by himself.....

The lens was all the way back at 80mm, meaning I really should have used one of my lenses with a shorter focal length.

Oh, well....at least I got to see them.

USAF Thunderbirds to Fly Over Northern Colorado.

 Got a big lens on my camera, and the weather is forecast to be partly sunny and 50*.

Read more about it here.

April Showers Bring May Flowers.....

But April snowstorms bust up trees!

We got clobbered pretty good last night. Not as much as the Thanksgiving storm, but a bunch nonetheless.

I haven't crawled out to measure this, but I'm guessing 14~16"?

It even stopped my anemometer and windvane....

And broke two branches on our poor little crab apple tree...

Loaded up (no pun intended, SiG!) my ground radials on the 20 Meter vertical, too...

It's pretty, but I hope the branch on the maple tree makes it!

Bent down the lilac bush by the side of the garage...

And pulled the juniper away from the side of the garage, too...

Oh, well.....Time to get the boxes off this thing, the batteries off the charger and into this thing, and go do battle with the Forces of Nature!

Y'all be safe out there!

Here's One For LL...