MAG-80 Lessons Learned, Pt. 1

Thou shalt take care when firing slugs from thy Shotgonne with rapidity, lest thy thumb slippeth out of position and ye giveth thyself a Fatte Lippe...

I'm glad that week is over. EDITS

At least, I sure hope it is...

A rare glimpse into Why Drang Drinks.

M-F, 0800-1200, FEMA Instructor Development Workshop via Zoom, two presentations evaluated by other students and instructors. Followed on Monday and Thursday by an additional 8 hour shift, starting at noon. (Fortunately, I was authorized to telework...)

And Mrs. Drang had an online class Tuesday and today. Except she didn't know that it was a two-parter when she signed up for it. Remember this, it will be significant...

Monday morning she discovered that the compressor had gone out on the fridge. So while I was slaving away over a hot internet connection, she was searching for dry ice and on the phone trying to get a repair technician to come out.

He did, finally, at 6 PM. And the replacement part he had didn't work. 

Expecting him to come out Tuesday morning, she got a text that he had been rescheduled to Thursday. A couple of angry phone calls later, she got hold of them and him and he showed up shortly after her class was done, and had the fridge running right away. It had finally cooled off to the point we could take food out of coolers nd put them in the freezer and fridge compartments at about 9 PM.

Somewhere in there I was informed that a package had been delivered to the office for me, and from the return address I deduced that it was course material. I managed OK with .pdfs, but I decided that rather than have it take up space on a (shared) desk, I would pop in quickly and pick it up...

...and discovered upon arrival that the the personnel scheduled to be in-office had 1) requested and been approved to telework due to illness  -- OK -- and 2) overslept and decided to telework to avoid being late. Without running it by anyone. Resulting on me making several phone calls, tracking down my boss -- who was speaking to the director -- and suggesting we needed to talk, being told to spit it out, and, of course, embarrassing my boss...

Also, one employee from first shift doing an hour of overtime, and me sitting in the office working the phones, in jeans and a t-shirt, when I was supposed to be off...

Then, last night (after I had gone to bed), the intert00bz died. 

I had already planned to get up early and put some finishing touches on my final presentation, but spent most of that time trying to get connected. My laptop with LTE connectivity wasn't getting a strong enough signal to connect, so I finally used my brand new (less than a week old!) cell phone as a mobile hotspot...

Which was about the time I learned about Part 2 of Mrs. Drang's class. So I told her how I had gotten online, thinking that would work for her...

And then she told me she needed my laptop AND hers to have two screens... 

(Fortunately I was using the desktop, with dual monitors. Which, BTW, can lead to odd behavior from Zoom...)

...And just as I was about to start my presentation she informed me (by screaming) that she was unable to connect...

I finished and talked the rest of the small group to give me a five minute break so I could try and get her online.

Which I did, by logging her into MY cell phone. So for the rest of the mornings Samsung's finest was providing internet for THREE computers. I am told that my audio signal garbled a couple of times, but was readable. 

So with that over with we called customer service to see if they could trouble shoot the "Home WiFi Gateway", the results of which effort was to suggest we take it to the local store and exchange it, "Or we can ship you one for delivery next week."  

Went to store, store said they couldn't just swap it after we had been in possession for over 30 days, but they can have one delivered to us "Next Day", which, this being Friday, probably means Monday. Which means she should be back online in time for Tuesday's class.

But I need a drink or three...

Edit 1, originally a comment: First World Problems all, of course, but the cumulative effect of multiple First World Problems within a short period can be just as detrimental.

Edit 2: Yep, Mrs. Drang picked it up Monday while I was at work, Mrs. Drang realized that we had left the old box and its power supply in my car, so we plugged it in when I got home. Connected to it, and... Nothing.

She had ANOTHER online class yesterday morning, which I didn't want to interrupt by calling customer service. She got done about the time I was leaving for work, so she called CS. She and the tech went back and forth, wound up Mrs. Drang reading stuff off the label, while the tech looked stuff up in "the manual". Eventually Mrs. Drang got to "SIM" and the tech says "A-ha!! What's the number?" and then "OK, don't hang up or mess with the box, I'll be back in ten minutes."

Apparently the sim card listed on our account had to be reset by them, before we could use it. Which was fine, but it should have been mentioned on some documentation in the box...

News of the Obscure

 Just deleted my Twitter account.

Stopped using Facebook long ago, and the only reason I don't ditch Blogger is that I'm not quite ready to completely give up the blog, but the alternatives I know of all are all for pay. I see no reason to shell out $$$ for a non-monetized blog as, well, obscure as this one. (Or even ¢¢¢.)

Unfortunately, if you want a smart phone these days, you options are to get involved with one of two evil Commifornia Big Tech outfits. 

Somebody -- Kevin Baker at Gun Blogger Rendezvous, maybe -- had a t-shirt that was lamenting to the effect of having been a science fiction fan all his life, and getting the dark dystopian future of his teen aged years.

Heinlein's Crazy Years aren't even fully launched yet, and I'm already tired of them.

On this date...

 ...forty years ago -- Holy Crap! -- I got on a plane that took me from Detroit to Saint Louis, and then on a bus that took me from Saint Louis to that pleasure spot known to the US Army as Fort Lost-In-The-Woods, Misery, where I was introduced to the tender mercies of Staff Sergeants Daily and Graves.

By the way, a note to "Gunny" fans everywhere: Anyone who wears the "Brown Round" and "Pumpkin badge" is probably fully skilled and capable of the same shtick. 

This is getting old...

1/2 I can't wait for this to be over:
*We need to get people back to work. The longer the economy is on hold, the longer it will take to fix.
*I despise politicians that tell l Americans what they can and can't do.

— Drang (@DWDrang) March 31, 2020

2/2 I can't wait for this to be over:
*I despise Americans that dime out their neighbors for "unauthorized assembly's" and "conducting non-critical business."
*I need a haircut. I am not a hippie! Open the barber shops already!

— Drang (@DWDrang) March 31, 2020

It's doesn't help that my job is a critical one, and I still have to go to work. I can telework, but that means that means I simply do my regular duties with different furniture, including cats. Not a lot of sitting back and watching movies, reading, social media, binge-watching trashy shows on Netflix, day drinking...

"I'm walkin' heah!"

About a year ago I started making a concerted effort to "get my steps in" every day.

Fun fact: "10,000 steps a day" is marketing, not supported by scientific/medical research. (Not directly, that is. No research says "10,000 steps a day is the key to health!" Or any other count.)

So it turns out that, as of my last visit to the doc (for what turned out to be the flu, a month or so ago) I had lost 30 pounds in a year. Which isn't a lot, but as long as I keep moving, and watching what I eat, is also not likely to reappear...

Anyway. I have figured out how to get those 10,000 steps in while at work -- if I can, I simply do two "tours" of the Salt Mines, but if it comes down to it, I know how often I need to make a quick tour of the closest sections.

I have an app on the smartphone, and last year for my birthday Mrs. Drang got me a smartwatch, so I track my steps, and heart rate, that way.

So I was off yesterday, and decided to go for a walk on one of the local walking trails. (It's named for a major local power company, and the trail runs along the course of some high tension lines.) (Imagine my flabbergastedenss -- I'm telling you, my gast is downright flabbered! -- to learn that the BPA Trail has a Wikipedia page...)

Anyhoo.

I was walking over to the start of the trail.  Now, I have to cross a major 4-lane surface street to get to the trail, and there are three places I can do so conveniently; one is the intersection at the end of my street, one is a couple blocks down in front of the library (the site of a modern, American take on a  Belisha Beacon) and another is down the street further, a major intersection, the site of an apartment complex, and commercial development across the street.

Mrs. Drang swears that the only safe place to make the crossing is down by the shops -- Safeway, among others -- so I headed down, got to the intersection, and hit the button to let the traffic lights know that there was a pedestrian waiting to cross...

...and the lights changed, I started across, and some little old lady in a Caddy plowed right through the intersection, taking a left and passing within a foot or so of me.

This, by the way, is not only extremely unsafe, but also (and therefore) illegal.

Here in the 9-8-double-ought-3 it will come as little surprise, but up in Seattle I'm sure it would come as a shock to learn that the 9mm in my holster didn't even think about jumping out of it's holster and teaching her a lesson.

I'm Dreaming Of A...

...wet Christmas.

Screenshot from the Dark Sky app a while ago:

That streak of orange, pink, and blue is an "atmospheric river", known locally as The Pineapple Express. By noon local, we are likely to have set a new record for one day rain amounts.

Earlier, I tweeted thusly:

This may actually be relevant in western Washington today...#wawx @waEMD @NWSSeattle https://t.co/ce391F0Xr2

— Drang (@DWDrang) December 20, 2019

Now, flash floods are not often a threat in western Washington (although regular normal floods are all too common) , but the Washington State Emergency Management Department not only "liked" the tweet, but rated it accurate.

So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

(Edited to add this, which I had forgotten stealing pirating borrowing from... somewhere.)

I Ain't'nt Ded Yet

So it's been almost three months since I posted a post here. When I got started, they said you should post every day if you wanted your blog to be successful.
I guess I must not have been interested in a successful blog.

Anyway, yes, I'm still here, and if any of those spam comments were really from people, well, sign your comment next time. And make sure it makes sense.

Reasons for not posting are various, personal and general. The personal doesn't seem like it would be of interest to anyone, assuming I wanted to share outside family and very close friends, and the general... well, you know why Tom Lehrer* allegedly gave up his singing career and went back to being a math professor, right? 

Not that I make any claim to being on a par with Tom Lehrer. (Despite having a related MOS in the Army.)

Anyhoo. I'm still here, if anyone cares, and I'll probably start posting again Real Soon Now...



*He denies it, basically says he got bored with it. And there's a thought: Better to die in  obscurity, or have your obit read "Author of 'Poisoning Pigeons In The Park' and inventor of the jello shot"?

Photography Bleg

Just unearthed a box full of photographs going back to the mid-70s.

The oldest photos are from my Colorado Outward Bound experience in... '75?

These were taken with a Kodak 110 pocket camera, and not only are the prints faded (no surprise there) but the negatives have all taken on a green hue, which is present in the photos when I scan them with the negative/slide scanner Mrs. Drang got me for Christmas a year or two ago. Some of the 35mm negatives I have also need some color correction.

I'm looking for a reasonably priced software package that will allow me to restore these to normal colors, i.e., blue sky, white snow, instead of both being shades of green. Bonuses for being able to just click a button and have it be done...

Thanks in advance.

20 years, down the drain

And just like that, my Army career was rendered irrelevant.

Pacific Stars and Stripes: Moon and Kim Discuss Denuclearization at Historic Summit

BBC: North Korea's Kim Jong-un Pledges 'New History' With South Korea

The Times: Koreas Poised For ‘Great Transition in World History’

Voice of America: North, South Korean Leaders Hold Historic Meeting

Moon and Kim
Photo from The Small Wars Journal

Moon and Kim
Photo from The Small Wars Journal

Not really, of course.

Note, by the way, that Kim and Moon did not sign a peace treaty, which some of the reporting implied happened. It sounds like they agreed to look into it later this year.

No, what is so momentous is the fact that the heads of state met: Neither country has heretofore even acknowledged that the other existed legitimately. North Korea has always insisted on meeting with the USA alone, while the USA refuses to meet separately, and officially designates it "north Korea", with a small "n".

As I was explaining to a colleague in The Salt Mines,  I served for 20 years, 3 months, and 3 days, and almost 9 of those years were in the Republic of Korea. I spent a fair amount of time on, or within rifle-shot of, the Demilitarized Zone.

One year I was Watch NCO at Field Station Korea; this was under Bush 41, when Mrs. Drang and I were still newlyweds, and de-nuclearization talks on The Peninsula were proceeding well enough that every installation in the republic of Korea was required to make plans for how to deal with commie inspectors.

At a facility that was a wholly-owned subsidiary, so to speak, of the National Security Agency (which was still commonly referred to as "No Such Agency" at the start of my career) you might assume this resulted in some angst.

You would be correct, but it might surprise you that the Secret Squirrel contingent just read the instructions, and made plans accordingly. (Collection operations would be suspended, equipment turned of, and contents of filing cabinets and the like would be covered with kraft paper. IIRC, things would filed so that the kraft paper could be pulled back to reveal files, but they would be set up in such a manner that nothing could be learned of the contents of files by so doing. They would not have the right to inspect read the files, just do a quick scan with the Mark I Eyeball, and wave a Geiger Counter over it, if they wanted.)

(This was the first use I saw of an Access Card scanner; some genius covered those boxes with kraft paper...)

No, the person who really got all spun up was the NCOIC of the Information Technology Section. (Whatever we called it back on 1990.)

Mind you, that doesn't mean we were all impressed, those of us who had already invested a significant amount of time and effort into the "Korean Mission" fully expected the whole thing to come to naught, which it did.

So.

My standard answer regarding peace on the Korean Peninsula remains "I'll believe it when I see it", but I must admit, for the first time since 1980 I do feel some hope.

Observations -- UPDATE!

Some observations while I'm sitting here contemplating my liquid diet.  Many of you know from personal experience what I'll be doing (or having done to me) tomorrow.

1. Naturally, it seems like there are nothing but pizza commercials on.
2. This gunk tastes like someone involved in the formulation might have considered making it palatable.
3. Not that they did.
4. I tried to tell them that a nice, tall glass of whole milk, maybe accompanied by a properly aged blue cheese, would have the same effect, but apparently it wouldn't be scientific or something. 
5. Amazing how the cat that fights getting off your lap under ordinary circumstances recognizes the urgency in your voice when said gunk begins to take effect...
6. (Bonus observation, added later): The worst part may have been giving up ibuprofen for the various aches and pains and creaky joints. Of course, the VA says there's nothing wrong with me... 
7. UPDATE: I had to stop taking ibuprofen Sunday.
1. Up until sometime last night I was convinced that was the worst part of the process.
2. Now they tell me I can't take it again for two more weeks. 
3. 😱😰😭

I must be slowing down

Today an employee -- not one of mine, but a Salt Mines employee -- told me his hours in military time.

He then apologized for using military time.

And explained what military time is.

And translated "1300 hours" for me.

I managed not to reach through the phone and choke him.

Or direct him to address me as "First Sergeant."

Or tell him I was using military time when his father was trying to figure out what number Mickey's Big Hand was pointing at.

Told one of my colleagues about this and she said "It's like I don't even know you anymore."

I suppose I can cite this the next time someone tells me I need to ease up on the staff...

Earworm, 04/01/2017 -- Fed Up Edition

So, I haven't discussed my new job... and I'm not going to.

But I keep running into situations where my training was rushed, partly because they needed me to take over a shift, and partly because (in all modesty) they figured I was good enough to hit the ground running and do the job.

And, (again, in all modesty) mostly they've been right, except I keep finding things they never told me.

So last night a semi-annual report needs to be run, and I do. I've used this report before, and it was a pain in the fourth point of contact, because it's always been sorted on the wrong parameter. Maybe the choice didn't exist before, but now it does, so I sort it in numerical order by account number instead of alphabetical order by division or department, because there are too many divisions within each department, and many of the divisions across different departments have similar names, so, in the words of a colleague, you'd tell a customer to go for coffee while you find their account.

She added "You're the first person to make this report usable!"

Naturally, I got bitched at for doing it wrong.

So...

Uh-oh... UPDATED

So I woke up about 0200, couldn't get back to sleep, decided to read a bit. Mrs. Drang informed me that she was watching a DVD because the satellite dish was acting up again, "probably the snow." (See comments to previous post.)

About 0400 or so as I was about to turn out the light she came to bed and informed me that we might be about to lose the birch tree in the back yard.

"Nothing we can do about it now" we agreed.

Right.

Ten minutes later I was out in the back yard.

One of the limbs her father had secured with a line (plastic-sheathed clothed line, I think) was hanging down almost to the ground; the line had snapped.

The upper branches from the limb were over-hanging the corner of the roof, although I couldn't get a good look. Being me, I grabbed a large pair of side-cutting loppers from the back porch/lawn tool storage, and trimmed it up as best I could.

I think I need a real chain saw.

Did get the satellite dish cleared, though.

The tree in question.
Pretty sure I ran pics of it in pretty much this condition a few years ago.
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

Same tree, from driveway, post-dish clearing.
The white streaks are more snow falling, BTW.
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

The hood of Mrs. Drang's car.
The snow is heavy enough that the front half of the hood was cleared, the snow there slid off of it's own weight.
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

The solar-powered garden light seems to have problems...
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

For those of you in Fimbulwinter-free zones:
This picture was taken with ambient light, no flash.
"Waiting for daylight to assess the damage" wasn't completely necessary...
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

No bird baths today...
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

While I was out there I could gear limbs cracking all over the neighborhood, but did not see any actual damage to any of our trees. I think maybe what woke me up was a limb breaking down the street.

UPDATE: Just heard a loud cracking noise from outside. 😟 Can't tell if it's ours or a neighbors. Will wait for full daylight for further inspection, don't want to walk around under it if  it's about to go...😨

UPDATE 2: Lost power just before 0700. Lost two limbs from the birch tree, they fell down in the street. Called in power outage, notified 911 of a downed line in the street. Checked out the limbs in the street, decided it was enough of a public nuisance I needed to clear it away...

...and my silly little electric chain saws had no power.

Dug around in the garage and found a fairly large saw that Mrs. Drang's father had, grabbed it and a pair of offset loppers and got the street cleared, if not the entire mess cleaned up.

Power just came back on, trying to decide if I'd rather have breakfast or a shower first...

Earworm, 12/23/2016

Sometimes I need to not share the events of the day by texting a peer who is off...

...Sorry.

Ernest Langdon Tactical Pistol Skills AAR, First Draft

I'm changing my screen name to "That Guy".

ouch

As wake up calls go, the knee pain caused by the barometric pressure dropping rising* two full inches in one hour ranks right down there with a cat standing on my chest pawing at my face.

Things to do but they'll have to wait until I can walk. By which time the thunder storms will have started.

Good excuse to work on my MAG40  notes, I guess.


*Stupid knees, a falling glass is supposed to hurt!

Well, that escalated quickly...

In my previous post, as I was lamenting the fact that I had discovered by day three of MAG-40 that the three "generic" stainless steel magazines for my 1911s were crap, and the feed lips had spread to the point where, not only would they not lock back the slide when empty, but I couldn't even get one of them in the mag well, I added as an aside

the blued ones actually marked as GI mags seem to be working OK.

By the time we had finished shooting the last drills and were about to shoot the qualification several of my blued steel mags were also failing to lock back the slide.

I suppose the "COLT" marked ones have an excuse, since they came with my Combat Commander, which I purchased almost exactly 30 years ago.

Annoying, but nowhere near as annoying as getting that hot brass down my back from the Marine shooting his Ruger LC9S S&W Shield next to me was. ("Mas! The blogger is doing Saint Vitus' Dance!""Is his muzzle pointed in a safe direction...?")

That and it made the Glockenspielers even more insufferable.

Note to self...

Dear Self:
Remember writing this post? 

Turns out that when you said

• On the one hand, my habit of buying 1911 magazines over the last year or two seems like a good one.
• On the other hand, buying the cheap ones marked and packaged as GI 1911 mags may not have been so smart.

the twinge you felt when typing the first bullet was not just your bursitis acting up at the self-back-patting, it was foreshadowing.

Bullet two OTOH, was prescient. (Except the blued ones actually marked as GI mags seem to be working OK.)

Day three of MAG 40 and I now have three fewer 1911 magazines than I came with. Turns out those "generic" stainless steel magazines simply marked ".45 ACP" weren't even worth the sawbuck each they cost me.

In mitigation, I would like to point out I bought the things strictly for use in training.

Too bad they won't even go into the mag well easily enough to use them to practice reloads.

"Rocket Salad", you say?

U.S. serves up Korean rocket salad in war drill response to North's nuclear threats | Reuters

There's more to do in South Korea's heavily forested Rocket Valley, just a few miles from the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, than fire rockets. In quieter times, people tend vegetable patches along ice-cold streams.

But on Wednesday, a U.S. artillery brigade based in the South heated things up, launching a barrage of rockets close to the border town of Cheorwon.

Well, yes, many more things to do.  You can drive your HMMWV through a ford, and have a rock fly up into the engine compartment and knock off all the blades of the fan, which are theoretically a flexible plastic.

Or, north of there, during the same exercise, you can be driving down the  road that runs along the ridgeline paralleling the DMZ and have a small piece of metal come up and pierce the hydraulic line for the brakes of same HMMWV, leaving you stranded for the night until they can get a tow vehicle up to you.

Fun times, fun times.