I just don’t feel it anymore for various reasons that a few friends know, so this will most likely be the last post.

Stay safe.

She asked where I was going to be sleeping tonight

I probably use this sander two to three times a week for shaping curved areas on grips or whatever I am working on at the time and overall I have been very happy with it.  It’s powerful enough to use on very hard woods without it bogging down or being overtaxed and is small enough that it fits into my workspace perfectly.  It even has a build in tool caddy for all the spindles and the wrench too!

Unfortunately though, it decided to die on me.  I was working on a set of revolver grips and had finished shaping the left side grips and was just beginning on the one for the right side when the sander went from it’s normal whirring sound to a grinding noise followed by smoke and the smell of wiring insulation burning.

I contacted the company to see what the warranty would cover and, to be honest, was expecting to be told to take it somewhere to have it looked at after I faxed them a receipt to prove that I actually bought it on the fifth Sunday in a month with a blue moon.  I work customer service for a company and have seen that kind of policy before – more about protecting the bottom line than taking care of the problem. Also, since it was a weekend I had to do it by email so to me that meant it would be days before I heard anything.

I was wrong.

I got a response from Rockwell on Monday simply asking what happened and the model and serial number of my sander, I sent a response and Tuesday my new sander was shipped out to me by FexEx.  It arrived on Saturday and I am back in business.

Like I said, I had never owned a Rockwell tool before, but with customer service like they have, it won’t be the last.

Oh, and I don’t think they are in anyway associated with this Rockwell

I brought the 1911 and the LCP figuring that since the LCP is new and I haven’t shot it that much I should get some more time with it and since dad reloads all his brass shooting the 1911 is relatively cheep especially when you are using wad cutters instead of FMJ or JHP.

Things started off just fine. Had a new set of grips that I made out if Teak for the .45, two new 8 round magazines (don’t want to make the liberals scared of my excessive number of rounds), and a new magwell I was trying out. All was golden and glorious right up to the tenth round.

That’s when it happened.

Pulled the trigger and instead of BANG there was ‘click’.

Now when it happened I will admit I first thought misfire so I waited a moment to make sure it wasn’t a slow burn, dropped the mag and ejected the round. What came out was a very dirty looking casing. The outside was black but otherwise it looked normal. I assumed (wrongly) that the ejector hadn’t grabbed it and tossed it out which, if I had been thinking, I would have realized if that was the case I would have been dealing with a mis-feed and the slide would have tried to grab a new round.

I showed it to dad and he said something about the round not being crimped enough and needing to have a look at his reloading equipment when we got home and I went back to my lane not thinking anything more about it.

It was when I put the magazine back in that I realized all was not right with the world. The round wouldn’t chamber.

I STILL wasn’t thinking squib, and I should have since I have read about them plenty of times, instead I was thing ‘magazine not seated’ ‘bad magazine’ and even ‘bad round’ or ‘dirty feed ramp’.

After trying a different magazine and checking the feed ramp I grabbed my dad who immediately called an end to range day and we headed home to see what was going wrong. Once we had it stripped there it was, jammed just far enough in the barrel so it couldn’t be seen but enough that another round would not load.

According to our gunsmith, he thinks the round didn’t get any powder and was all primer.  Dad is going to have his reloading equipment checked by the manufacturer and the round was extracted from the barrel with no damage.

Moral here, I guess, is never take anything for granted and pay attention to your ammo and your weapon.  I should have realized all was not right when the ‘click’ happened.  My initial thought of the cartridge not be ejected from the last shot couldn’t be right because the pistol wouldn’t have been cocked.

I wasn’t expecting a squib and when it happened I didn’t follow the signs that were right in front of me.  That’s when bad things happen – pay attention to the signs.

When he was born I remember describing it like the part in the Wizard of Oz where the movie changes from being in black and white to color.  That’s what my son did to me, my whole world turned upside down and I now see it with a different set of eyes.  I used to go work, work, play, sleep, work.  Now the play part is fine, but Matthew likes to walk and be outside and that’s great, but it has made me slow down and appreciate just BEING outside.  He’ll wander my parents property just looking at things and exploring and I’ll walk with him just enjoying having him around.  Occasionally he will pick something up to hand to me that is VERY important -like a rock or a stick, and then continue on his quest for the next bit.

Mom and the Wife will occasionally get mad that I don’t bother to make him put on shoes for these outdoor excursions, today we didn’t even bother with his jeans -t-shirt and a diaper with socks – that’s how we roll here. He had fun, and since it’s his birthday, that’s the point right?

He played with the dogs, helped feed the horses, dug in the dirt, got a basketball thing and shot hoops with his cousin (made more baskets than the current occupant of the White House too) and got a whole bunch more toy trains.  All in all a good day for him that was topped off by a chocolate cupcake.

Hard to believe that he has grown so much in such a short time.  A few months ago he couldn’t hold a cup without spilling it, now he runs to the refrigerator and will fill it himself.  There are still spills at times, but most of the time he will get his cup, fill it and then have a good long drink.

We have another one on the way and soon he will be the ‘big brother’, the one that we will tell “Don’t let the bigger kids pick on her/him” or “Quit teasing your little sister/brother” – both will happen I’m sure, but he will always be special for one reason – he opened my eyes to something I had never really thought of before, the joys of being a parent.

Happy birthday, Froggy.

Click to embiggen

Their side is concerned about themselves, not about you, me or anyone that can’t do something for  THEM.  Because in their world the only thing that matters is them.

In my world I would shed my blood for my tribe, and I know that the people who are part of my tribe would do the same for me.  I know this to be fact.  I was at work one time and tried to call my wife at home and there was no answer.  Since she had told me to call her and was expecting the call I tried the house phone, no answer there either.

Normally this wouldn’t evoke a reaction on my part, but she was pregnant at the time and there were some things going on so it got me a little worried.  Since I couldn’t get out of work I called a friend of mine to see if he could get hold of her for me since my break was over.  He tried for ten minutes to call her, after the first two minutes he grabbed his pistol,  got into his car, and headed to my house breaking quite a few speed laws to get there as quickly as he could.

Now, he didn’t know what he might be walking into, but he did it anyway because he knows I would do the same for him.  That is my tribe, my people.

On the other side we have my brother in laws group.  They one time decided they wanted to go ghost hunting in a active railway freight yard and I was asked to talk to them and let them know how monumentally stupid their idea was.  One of the group was a girl, young and kind of cute, the other six or seven were your average teenage boys who spend too much time playing video games and not really much else.

I did my best to explain to them that the particular rail yard they were thinking of had a very bad history of bodies being found and a very bad element that was in that area.  I finished it with “What would you do if someone came out with a knife or a gun, told you boys to scram and leave the girl?”

One of the boys, without hesitation, said “I’d leave her to her fate I guess.”

Us and them.  Big differences, choose your side carefully.

“Why’s America out of ammo?  Because I shot it all”

That combined with the Oakley’s and the Punisher patch show all us wannabe’s what a REAL tactical badass looks like.

I especially love that he has his hat on backwards, that is REAL tactical shit too!  Honest, he’ll tell you that I’m sure.

This is the description he has on the video “Rick Taylor, world’s greatest tactical instructor, brings you the most technologically advanced handgun on the planet – the M&P17 Warrior. It’s the illegitimate love child of a Glock, an M&P, and a 1911.”

So, if you see his name on the class, you know not to waste your money

Oh, there’s this too.

**UPDATE**

Was informed that this is, in fact, satire.  Thank god for that.  There are so many out there who ARE this bad that sometimes it’s hard to tell.

The drugs came out strong and swinging hard, after day 3 it seemed that the infections were on the ropes. By day six I was feeling pretty dang human again.  Like Foreman, the sheer power of the antibiotics seemed to overwhelm the opposition, but alas, this was just part of the ear infections rope-a-dope tactic and because of that I ended up back at the doctor again today with the ear and sinus back in full blown infection mode a mere three days after finishing my antibiotics.

So now we have a new contender – Cephalexin – which is a “wide spectrum antibiotic’ which I take to mean “doesn’t give a crap what it kills” kind of drug.  It has apparently killed everything living in my intestinal tract and is now moving on to the rest of my body.

With all this going on, looks like I am off the workouts for a few more days.  Gonna wait till Friday, see how I feel, and if I’m good then back to the running and weights.  If it’s still no, then I’ll wait till Sunday.

Yeah, this kinda sucks.  Again.

So, today I had to pack in two days of work into one day.  I began by cutting the sail for some wind chimes I am making.  I have already cut the suspension ring, the clapper and the copper tubes for the chimes so the sail was the final part.  Since I am trying to get them into a local pet store that sells higher end stuff, I decided to do a cutout in the center of the sail of a Golden Retriever.  Once that was cut, I oiled it all up and then used the rest of the morning to clean out the garage and run a bunch of stuff to recycling.

While returning from that I swung by Target and got the boy a new car seat.  He hasn’t outgrown the one he has, but I figured while the money was here we should upgrade him to one that becomes a booster seat later on so we don’t have to worry about it.  Got home, put it together and got it set up in the car – he was very impressed with it and kept playing with the cup holder by putting his sippy cup in it and then taking it out.

Once that was finished I pulled out the pattern that I am trying to make for a set of 226 grips and continued cutting things, re-cutting and then (for one part of it) starting over when you realize you measured wrong.

After that, it was off to the parents to have a visit.  Matthew especially wanted to see the horses – as you can tell

After that, home with a very tired and cranky boy to have dinner and put him to bed.

Still have five days of antibiotics to take, and I’m still hacking up stuff, but I’m feeling more human now.  Think I may take a walk tomorrow.

Last time we checked in I had all the side panels glued up, stained and ready to be given a coat of polyurethane varnish. I decided to go with a polyurethane because it is a very durable coating that isn’t going to wear off very quickly so the piece will be protected for a good long time, and since this is a laundry cart that is being used daily, that is a very good thing.

When I did the varnish, I used a good, fine bristle brush so I was able to put down a good coat without having too much left on the surface to cause drips or pooling.  After letting one side dry for 24 hours, I then flipped them all over and poly coated the other sides.  I gave the cart a total of five coats and in between each coat I ran over it lightly with #400 sandpaper to smooth out the brush strokes.

Once the last coat was dry I gave it a good buffing with some 000 steel wool and furniture wax.  The steel wool, like the sandpaper, allowed me to remove any debris that might have settled into the varnish while it was wet and also remove the brush marks while the wax made sure the steel wool didn’t cut too deep or leave any visible scratches.  The result was a nice warm glow to the wood without looking too shiny.

So, behold the power of this fully operational laundry cart!

The white dots on the top and bottom rails are where I drilled though and then used dowel rods to pin the pieces together, that way the wood can still flex with the changes in weather and the only glued spots are where the dowels are held in place.  I like the contrast so I didn’t bother to stain it.

Wheels and hampers were salvaged from the old cart and work perfectly here, and this frame can hold quite a bit more than the old one could too, so no worries about three full bags and then piling blankets on top too.

So, let’s review – above, new hotness; below, old and busted.  I think I see an improvement over the original.