The Wandering Minstrel

I was watching the history Channel this morning. The program was about various weapons systems. I was impressed by this Sako TRG-22. It’s a highly accurate competition/sniper/hunting rifle chambered in .308 made in Finland. Shown here without the optional folding bipod.

Every once in a while we take off our carry guns and clean off all the accumulated fuzz. The Better Half says her gun gets “furry” after a while.

Clickable image - decontamination

This afternoon was one of those times. During the day, I carry “Little Boy,” the 9mm Glock 26 and at night, I keep “Jerry Lee,” the S&W 686 .357 magnum in reach. The Better Half carries “Rosie,” her J-frame S&W 442 .38 caliber day and night.

Since we are between gun range memberships, our guns aren’t used weekly for target practice. In our new venue, that will change and we’ll be shooting at the Wickenburg Sportsman’s Club frequently for practice. Meanwhile we have to get out the cleaning kit regularly.

Two weeks ago, I posted about Groundbreaking Set for New Arizona Home. At that time, I thought the building permit was imminent. Last week, I discussed the delay with Kevin, our builder and he told me that there were going to be a couple of issues with the permit that probably could be resolved by the end of this week.

When we were in Wickenburg, The Better Half and I walked around the lot with Kevin discussing how the structures would be situated. We made a couple of quick changes to the original plans, like increasing the size of the garage, orienting the garage door toward the east and adding a pull-through RV pad with full hookups.

I obtained the clickable image above from the Maricopa Assessor’s on-line map page and modified it to show roughly where the structures would be placed on the lot. The orange represents the house and garage while the gray represents the location of the RV pad. The Lot size is about 0.55 acres and the size of the compacted pad where the house will be is roughly 0.23 acres. The California lot is a mere 0.15 acres.

A couple blogs that we regularly read posted their results to an online quiz, to wit: Are you a Hippie? Well, being game to see how I score, I went to the website and took the quiz.

I think global warming is a farce, don’t buy organic veggies and don’t trust the sanitation quality of farmers markets.

I am proud to say that I’m not a stinkin’ Hippie.

A former colleague sent this in an email today:

Clickable image (to read the fine print).

Back in the early 1980s, I had the pleasure of serving as flight instructor to primary student Fraser Heston. A mutual friend and former student, Ralph, introduced Fraser to me and wanted to have Fraser take his primary instruction in Ralph’s Piper PA-18 Super Cub, a descendant of Piper’s Venerable J3 Cub. I was one of the few taildragger instructors at SMO then, so I got the job.

Clickable image: Fraser Heston posing by Ralph’s Super Cub (found during the big house cleaning)

One of the big events was when Fraser was to have his first solo flight. His Father, the immortal Charlton Heston brought the family to witness the event. After a few trips around the traffic pattern as dual instruction, Fraser was ready to make his three take-offs and landings to a full stop (touch and go landings don’t count for taildraggers). I got out of the airplane near the gas pit where there was an observation deck. I introduced myself to “Chuck” and his family as Fraser taxied out for take-off.

Fraser’s three trips around the pattern were flawless. His landings were smooth and uneventful - which is a good thing. We cheered from the observation deck as Fraser taxied back for each subsequent takeoff. after the last landing, Fraser taxied to the tie-down area next to the observation deck and we all met him there.

Chuck proposed a toast to the event. The family brought a bottle of champagne and several little plastic champagne glasses. Chuck had to pour the champagne into glasses on the horizontal stabilizer of an adjacent Cessna since Ralph’s airplane’s horizontal stabilizers aren’t horizontal on the ground. We toasted to Fraser’s perfect first solo flight. The family then adjourned to have brunch in Westwood Village.

The Better Half and I were honored to be invited to the screening of “Mother Lode” a few weeks later. We both met with Chuck Heston, the star of the film, and with Fraser, the writer and producer. On the way out, The Better Half (literally) bumped into Lou Ferigno, star of “The Incredible Hulk.” That was a fun night.

I am very proud to have these events in my pilot logbook. I still brag about having this experience from time to time. This is one of those times.

During the time I worked in aerospace, I would usually have something humorous or controversial hanging on the office wall. At one point in time, this sign graced the walls of a cubicle where I dwelt 20 or so years ago when not in the lab shooting laser beams into our experimental electro-optical analysis subsystem (I was writing software for the embedded devices and needed to test them with near actual environment).

Today, while continuing the clean-up of old stuff, I found this sign in one of the piles. It’s in the recycle now, but not before I got a photo of it for posterity. Plus, it fits into the mold of the non-PC environment of this blog. Clickable image (if you want to read the fine print).

Well, not the proverbial attic, but rather all of the cubby holes where we have stored pictures and documents over the years. Since we’re now committed to building our home in Arizona, we’re starting to dig out stuff we’re NOT taking with us and either dispose of it, shred it or give it to family.

The Better Half has been at it since a few days ago, going through our vast collection of photographs (non-digital hard-copies), sorting into keepers and non-keepers piles. Today, I got into some old boxes and cabinets upstairs and discovered documents such as my original application for employment to Hughes Aircraft (now Raytheon), tax records, old trust deeds, legal papers of all descriptions, some not fond memories, I must admit, and a set of plans to add on to our California home 25 years ago. I even found my original DD214 Navy discharge papers. Talk about a trip down memory lane.

Some of the old papers went into the safe but most went into the shredder. Many of the old photos were sorted into several large envelopes by The Better Half destined for family to see and dispose as they see fit. A lot of old kid pix of nieces and nephews who now have their own kids. I still have a crap load of old 35mm slides in the garage - they’re next.

We have really a lot of stuff to clean out over the next months and we’re transitioning to Arizona. We’ve only scratched the surface of 30+ years accumulation of stuff in our California house.