Weekend!
They’re stealing an hour from us. Again. In the darkest part of the night.
It’s the worst part of travelling and we don’t even get to go anywhere.
So, pretty much, my weekend is ruined.
Other than that, though, the weekend is somewhat run of the mill. I’m doing the cooking thing and trying to get better at the whole “making something that meets both of our various dietary requirements *AND* tastes good at the same time” thing *WITHOUT* just saying “heck with it” and just throwing five pounds of steaks on the grill.
Though I probably will just say “heck with it” and throw five pounds of steaks on the grill. Heck. They meet both of our various dietary requirements *AND* taste good at the same time. Just grab a handful and make a spinach salad (if you’re me) or steak nachos (if you’re her) and luxuriate in how you don’t have to cook for another couple of days.
Sunday itself, we’re looking forward to travelling up to Denver to visit a friend who will be celebrating Pi Day (Observed) and we’ll be bringing, sigh, a pie. That I will not even taste. I’ll bring berries or something. I thought about baking a cobbler, you know, but it’s still the middle of Lent. Maybe next year. (Checks calendar…) Yeah. Next year.
And then to bed early on Sunday night, to try to get at least part of that hour back. But it won’t work.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Image is “Play” by Clare Briggs. Used with permission of the Briggs estate.)
Might go see Kong.
So, anyone else start watching the head trip that is Legion on FX? Gotta say, I’m not usually one for these kinds of shows, but this one has my attention.Report
Hoping we make it to Logan on Saturday. Otherwise full of desire to nap (but that might just be my working -the-late-shift-it’s-1-in-the-morning goggles).
@oscar-gordan , I haven’t but I did borrow the related comics from the library, once I have those read the show will be watched eventually for sure. hearing nothing but good things about it.Report
I’m really enjoying it so far. Super unreliable narrator, and he knows it, which makes things very interesting. It also helps that the actor isn’t playing him as insane, or creepy, just a bit odd, so he is relatable in a good way.
But so far, my enjoyment is that they are being smart with the symbolism. These kinds of psychological thrillers, where you can feel Freud and Jung dripping off the walls, have a habit of either being too subtle and coy with the symbolism, so you are never sure what is relevant and what is just part of the whim of a set designer; or too heavy handed, and the symbolism is crammed down your throat until you gag on it. Legion seems to be finding a sweet spot of making sure you know what to pay attention to, but not spelling it out for you in 20 foot tall letters.
Although, I’ll add, given David Haller’s powers, you are sometimes wondering if that was simply some symbolism with some meaning, or if that symbolism is actually a manifestation of his psyche that can pack a very real punch.Report
Uuuuggggh. So now I’m back to driving to work in what feels like the dead middle-of-the-night for at least a month. (I loathe DST. Even in high summer I loathe it because it’s not light enough early enough, but it’s often still light when I want to go to bed.)
The only mitigating factor for me is that next week is Spring Break, so at least I can slowly claw back that hour of sleep over the course of the week. (It’s going to be a mostly-working break for me; I have a new class to prep for the fall and I am already stressing about it: Environmental Policy and Law, which I am far from an expert in, and also, when the last person who taught it handed the materials off to me – shortly after Trump’s election – she said “Good luck, you’ll need it!” and walked off laughing.)Report
Environmental Policy and Law
Hoo, golly. Do you at least get to run with “here’s how things worked this time last year?”Report
I’m throwing a house “re-warming” party, to rededicate my house as solely my own. A number of friends have stepped up to offer emotional, logistical, and other kinds of support since my separation, and hospitality is my way for me to give thanks. It also forces me to finish fixing the place up so I can show off some differences and alterations in the wake of Natasha’s departure, which is a hell of a lot more productive than playing video games.Report
Good luck, my man.
The video games can wait. A weekend.Report
How’d the party go?
(I’ve been way too sick with a persistent and terrible cough for months now to travel up your ways. But if you are ever near the Long Beach courthouse, beers are on me. There’s a Congregation Ale House nearby I’ve been wanting to try.)Report
A couple weeks ago I bought a Kentucky rifle (reproduction) at the gun show. The owner passed away and his brother was selling it. The brother went on about how it was unfinished and would be a good wall hanger, I kind of smiled and said I don’t buy these rifles to hang on the wall. He lit up and was happy that it would be more than a show piece.
Ordered a buttplate and two thimbles that should be coming in today. The bore needs work, and as is typical, few folks in the region know how to maintain a rust free bore. The easy way to address the rust is with vinegar. Acid bathing/scrubbing the bore of modern rifles would have most shooters recoiling in horror, but with these black powder rifles it can be done once or twice without much loss.
With enough time I read the bore can be seasoned like a cast iron fry pan, but I suppose that would require types of lard that didn’t have salt as an ingedient. What I use in the bores of both conventional and these reproductions is a EEZOX spray. It prevents rust and will eventually build up a similar coating. I have had pretty good luck with the stuff.
It’s a really nice rifle being longer than my Hawkens, yet much lighter. I suppose the smaller 45 caliber barrel gives it a reduced barrel thickness, and associated lighter feel. That Hawkens becomes heavy after about three miles on foot, I think this one will be good for five miles or so before I have to rest my neck and shoulders.
Anyway I hope to email the brother a few photos of the completed rifle and a nice target grouping to let him know his brothers efforts in it are well appreciated, and will live on.Report
That’s pretty awesome.
I remember reading this option to soak, I think, any given gun part in a particular type of oil overnight to season it?
Was that an actual thing?Report
Speaking from my own experience, seasoning requires repeated oil and heat. The heat drives out any ‘fast’ solvents in the oil that have a low vapor pressure and allows the thicker heavier oils to coat the steel. It isn’t completely rust proof by any means but it does slow the process.
The chemistry cycling in a muzzleloader barrel is complex.
From a storage condition, before the first shot a piece of cleaning cloth is run the length of the bore to wipe clean any remaining oil that was applied previously. I usually don’t use a patch for this, as patches are to important to waste. This is done because you dont want all that oil mixing with the powder charge that’s about to be applied.
What’s next is applying the powder. The powder of course can be made from a variety of things, but the most used formulas are a oxidizer and a fuel component. The bad thing there is the oxidizer is going to briefly contact those freshly wiped lands and settle in the grooves. The patch and bullet follow and help wipe most of the oxidizer, but trace amounts remain on the lands and even more remain in the grooves.
So after the first loading the rust race is on. I suppose if one were to run a lard oiled patch after the bullet was loaded, it would further neutralize the rust and coat the lands. I keep mentioning lard because vegetable oils when exposed to air typically become sticky and glue like, which is the opposite of what you want happening in the barrel.
For daily use there is some historic writings that mention using lard in front of the bullet to prevent the powder from picking up moisture and coat the bore. With the lard in place it was probably good for 24 hours before needing anything to address possible rust. Typically the users would fire off the previous days load first thing in the morning, then clean the bore and reload before beginning the days affairs.
Cleaning usually involves using boiling, or at least very hot water going down the bore followed by some kind of scrubbing action from a cleaning cloth on the ram rod. I have tried other solvents, but nothing appears to work as good as water, and it doesn’t have the negative aspects of having to deal with quantities of chemical solvents. (I assume with the need for coffee most mornings that the historic cleaning ritual used a small portion of the coffee water for the morning task)
Running a final drying cloth, removes the the last of the moisture, and the heated barrel drives off moisture above vapor pressure. It’s a neat little thermal trick using the heat from the water to heat the barrel, then using the heated barrel to drive off the moisture.
Now all that is fine and good and it could lead to a well seasoned set of landings and grooves. Except, and there always has to be an exception.
In situation where rifle shots are being made, one after the other, it becomes important to run a cleaning patch between shots. This becomes important in accuracy when shooting more than 40 yards, because soot builds up in the barrel, and if not cleaned between shots the grouping characteristics of the rifle ‘open up’ and become less accurate. For whatever reason it is best for that patch to be wet or moist, and the highest utility solvent to apply to these cleaning patches is……..spit.
Yep saliva. So whatever seasoning zen you had going on up to that point will probably be rendered into abstraction on multiple runs of spit patches. Ha.Report
Dang, dude. That’s awesome.
Thank you for the amount of detail you put into that.
I don’t understand why patches would be too important to waste. Don’t you get 100 of them for 2 bucks?Report
Thanks,
Cleaning patches are cheap and can be about anything that cleans well and doesn’t shed string as it is used in the bore.
Cloth patches used around bullets or ball ammo is a science in it’s own right. There are several parameters to consider in patch material. The first is that it doesn’t stretch, not even a little. The thread has to be durable enough to survive the abrasion of the lands while being loaded, and more importantly not be shredded as it spins the bullet up to several thousand RPM on it’s way out.
It has to be thick enough to provide a good ‘grip’ on the grooves, but not create excessive friction by overly wedging the bullet in the bore. To much friction and loading becomes a wrestling match, and the velocity of the projectile suffers.
Tolerances are pretty tight, and just because one patch works on one rifle, doesn’t mean it will work on another, even if they are the same caliber/model from the same manufacturer.
So I have several square feet of cloth set aside for each particular rifle.
(From the cleaning perspective, I would recommend anyone getting into it to use the newer models of break action rifles were the barrel comes off the stock and trigger group. The newer breech plugs can be removed by hand, which makes the cleaning the barrel super easy from breech to muzzle.)Report
Fascinating stuff. God must hate non-exotic steel, it’s so darned hard to maintain.
I’m a sport fencer, the blades are low-carbon steel. Absent some sort of protection, they accumulate enough rust to smudge a clean cloth within 48 hours (and that’s in Denver, with low humidity). It’s considered bad form to use anything like oil on the blade that will mark your opponent’s white uniform. I don’t have to deal with all the heat and residues from explosions, and have found that a quick rub-down with a piece of waxed paper before putting the weapons away is enough to prevent rusting.Report
Conditions down here are pretty rough for steel. Humidity is for the most part, constantly high. The soil and associated dust is high in salt content. I could keep up with the rust in the north country, but this far south I tend to paint everything possible and coat the rest with the EEZOX, grease or motor oil.Report
Going to Overkill for a friend’s b-day party.Report
I was about to say “This is a bad weekend to lose an hour because Clancy is working and needs all the sleep she can get” but she works weekends now so that’s every weekend.
Still.
I’m taking Welbutrin on a daily basis now, trying to get off the nicotine. I forgot how much that messes with my sleep.
One of the main reasons I want to do it is to recover the time I spend outside vaping. But right now it’s leaving me with previously-vaping time (I vape less because it’s less enjoyable because Welbutrin) at awkward times.
All of this leaving me in a place where I’m not not vaping, but I’m out of the groove I was in.Report
I have never encountered a weekend that would have benefitted from the loss of an hour.
Wait… okay, maybe one or two when I was 19 or 20.
But other than those.Report
Sick and pregnant is the worst :(. I’ve gotten a lot of sleep but I’m a miserable sick person.Report
Oh, that sounds awful. There are so many things that probably aren’t even on the table for pregnant people. “Just take a…” “Can’t. Gestating a baby.” “How about a…” “Can’t.”Report
In the continuing joke that is my attempts to get a girlfriend, I just got my first scammer trying to take advantage of my loneliness. Progress.Report
The best thing that I can tell you to do is join a climbing gym. I understand it’s a decent workout which will be good for you physically and mentally and, on top of that, the male/female ratio is much more weighted in your favor than if you joined the Y or Planet Fitness or something like that.
Rule #1: Don’t go where singles go. Instead, go where the type of people you’d like to hang out with would tend to hang out.Report
My son met his current girlfriend when he was belaying for people on the big climbing wall at the local rec center. Is it more than a Colorado thing?Report
I assume it must be.
It’s huge in Colorado, after all.Report
The other advantage for Lee to consider is that the people who show up are – and let’s be honest, here – pretty damn attractive. And they’re attractive precisely because they showed up. Win-win, and hopefully win.Report
“Need a hand belaying?”
The ice breaks itself!Report
I’m already in a social scene with a male/female ratio in my favor, partner dancing.Report
That’s a plus. Don’t be afraid to mix it up, though.Report
That’s a pretty good run, if you made it this far without a scammer. I once met like ten in an hour, in Shanghai.Report
Gummint steals that hour just to remind us how indoctrinated we are, reduced to mere ineffectual reactivity to the absurdities it’s conditioned us to accept… Wait. I wanted to say something laudatory about five pounds of steak on the grill….
Countertop update: after f***ing up the first stain application pretty massively, this weekend was devoted to a redo. Which is something I really didn’t think the Gawds would allow. (Well, maybe the small gods. All praise the small gods!) And they look pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. They’re not installed, yet, tho. They’re just sitting in my garage, looking all flat and slabby.
Next up: Install! (Oh, I know: that’s when the s*** really hits the f**.)Report
I said “they” this time, in a deliberate effort to avoid politics.
But, in personal conversations, I refer to it as “Obamatime”.
Good luck on the install!Report
Obamatime, and the livin’s eeeeasy….Report
Arrived in Zurich yesterday. Lost 9 hours, but got 1 back due to DST back home.Report
I screwed up my shoulder in jujitsu and was in pain most of date night sat.
Need more wine stat for the pain! On the plus side, dinner was good and the wine outstanding.
Made tandoori chicken and roasted vegges Sunday and home made curried chicken with veggies and naan on Friday. (I’m on an indian kick)
Played a lot of Fallout 4.Report
How do you make tandoori chicken at home? I’ve never really tried.Report
It’s not “real” tandoori from a tandoor, although I’d be cool to have one.
It’s a powdered mix, somewhat an abomination I know, but the flavor is very similar to real tandoori chicken, that I marinate the meat in. I then roast it on a small grill over the baking sheet in the over. I usually use boneless thigh or breast meat.
I’m pretty sure this is it.Report