"Your gun says replica..."
"...and mine says Desert Eagle .50".
Went to the gun range tonight with Sean. Met up with Matt while I was
there too.
I got to shoot an assortment of weapons:
Para P14, CZ-52, CZ-75B, CZ-95B, Desert Eagle 44Mag, Desert Eagle 50 Cal, Ruger 10/22, Glock 9mm Open Class and a Ruger 610 Revolver.
The Desert Eagle .50 will put hair on your chest, that's for sure. I mean look at the size of the rounds! I shot it only 3 times and on the third round, my hand was bright red! I fully expected it to be like the movies where it throws you back, but it wasn't. Just had a helluva kick. Made firing the 45 easy. The CZ-52 also had quite a kick (due to the sub-machine rounds it fires) but it felt good in my hand and was pretty fun to fire. Of all the guns I shot, I liked the Para P14 and the Desert Eagle 44Mag the best. The DE weighs like 5lb so it actually absorbed the kick of the 44Mag really well...and just felt great to hold. The Glock 9mm Open Class was rad but I don't really have enough experience firing to tell the difference between a $500 model and a $2500 model.
A fun time, glad I went. /me does a google search for the H&K USP 45ACP
Volcano Cam
Live Mount St. Helens Volcano Cam
Link thanks to Wil Wheaton, a stand up guy and fellow blogger.
Speed Festival
Sunday, Karl, Eddy, Dave and I went down to Coronado for the Speed
Festival. It's like a
mini-monterey, but not nearly as far or costly. Eddy, in his new Z3
Coupe,
met up with Karl and I in the
2002
at Dave's place in OB. We grabbed some food and cash at a local deli and
hit the road. One giant bridge and 30 minutes later, we were at the
North Island Naval Base parking next to $150k cars.
A nice guy actually gave us 2 free tickets on the way in, which totally made our day! Half price! But then we found out they didn't allow outside food. What the heck is up with that? So we scarfed down the sandwiches while standing outside the gates. Karl was stopped by the metal detectors for his cans of soda but was able to slide them past security using well known Jedi Mind Trick...it works well on guards apparently.
The racing was really good! Since it was a flat course on the runway, we saw nearly the whole event and all of the action of the race, with the exception of a bit of course blocked by the other set of grandstands. It was great to watch the cars with big engines overtake in the straights but get whipped around the corners. Karl and I were disappointed when our pick, the Alfa, didn't compete in race 7, but Dave's pick, the McLaren, killed in the first few laps. But it lost it's grip, or breaking or something because it slowed so much that it was dead last, then rolled off the track and didn't finish the race. D-oh! The last race of the day, race 8, was TransAm, with giant muscle cars from the 60's and little 2 liter BMW's and Alfa's. The BMW's held their own against the cars with 3 times the displacement.
I put up my pics of the event here. It was a good time, I'll definatly go next year.
Pizza Port
Today, Arne, GeekD, Jim, Neil, Jason, Eddy, Karl and I met up for lunch
at the Pizza Port in Encinitas. I am not sure what alignment of planets
caused this, but for some reason, that place was stoked beyond belief. A
birthday party for kids = large group of MILF's. Add 3 different groups
of cute girls. And the waitress was cute. It was basicly lunch with a
ton of cute girls and us bunch of geeks. I mean, really, that was a good
end to an overly hard week.
Rode up in Eddy's new car, the Z3 Coupe. That is a tight little ride, I'm jealous.
Links of the day:
The Straight Dope: Premium vs Regular Gas
Google SMS?
Now this is rad! Make google queries from your phone with SMS. And it totally works too. I typed in 'pizza port 92126' and got back the full listing for the Pizza Port in Solana Beach, but just what I needed: The name, address and phone number. No ads, nothing. Check out the wallet size reference card. The web page is more in depth, but the short of it is that you can look up item prices, business and personal phone numbers, dictionary definitions, google search snippits, use the google calculator and get area code and zip code lookups. This rocks!
Also, today's APOD is awesome.
The RX-7
Lots of posts today! So I am leaving work and find my old RX-7 parked right next to me. It turns out that after I sold the car to Fred, he got a job as a consultant BREW QA tester for Qualcomm. So on occassion, I see the twin turbo R1 beauty. Fred has modified it quite a bit, added a lot of chrome under hood goodies, new suspension, 18" wheels and a new
crazy looking carbon fiber hood. I generall prefer the original style of the car, but it does look pretty cool I must say.
I will own one again one day. Or maybe the new RX-7 when it comes out. Or maybe a Lotus.
Hummers
Saw two hummingbirds outside work today. Pretty neato! I haven't really seen any since I moved to CA. It's good to know the little things still exist. They were drinking the nectar of the large square of flowering weeds that grows outside the east side of my building.
In 7th grade, my brother did an experiment to determine what type of food to feed your backyard humming birds. He did different ratios of sugar to water and compared colored water to non-colored water. I forget the ratio that was the best, but they definatly preferred the non-colored water. The 4 post flower style feeder was the most popular as well.
Lidocaine and Butterfingers
Know what that big needle is? It's Lidocaine. Yep, I went to the dentist for the first time since...maybe 1997...most likely 1995. Tracy and her perfect teeth maintenance schedule guilted me into it. I used to really hate going to the dentist when I was younger. But, this was not an unpleasant experience.
My Dad gave me some good advice: Large athletic male types (like my doc as a kid) don't make good dentists...they have huge hands. And I have a small mouth (I guess). So I followed Tracy's advice and went to her dentist, a petite asian woman. Small hands. Better experience!
I only had 2 cavities, one due to a badly installed filling and the other very minor. In addition she pulled my old silver fillings and put in new white ones made of an composite resin. They also won't expand and contract with hot and cold foods. I went in at 8AM, left at 10AM. I don't have to come back for 6 months. Now, that is service.
If anyone else is interested, her shop is called TransDental Family Care and it's in Mira Mesa, near the Hollywood Video and Baja Fresh. She's good and she's nice. Tell her Nathan sent you.
P.S. I bought a box of Butterfingers from Costco to celebrate. Shh!
Padres Games
Russ W invited me to a Padres game. As much as I don't like baseball, I
really like going to the games. It's fun, the beer is decent (RedHook)
and even the seats up in the 3rd level aren't too bad.
It is pricey tho. $14 for the cheapest seats. $50 for the better ones.
Althought we didn't do this, my recommendation is to park and take the Trolley down. It's usually free parking, the trolley is $4.50 round trip and the ride back gives you some time for the buzz to die away.
Anniversary 2004
This weekend, Tracy and I celebrated 2 years of knowing each other. Last year, we rented a cabin up at Big Bear, it was a good time...but rather expensive. This year, due to budget and time constraints, we decided to go camping in a near-by state park. We had originally looked at William Heise, but the ranger told us that it had been mostly burned down by the 2003 SD fire and to check out Dos Picos instead, "it's beautiful and really green". So, we re-set our sight for Dos Picos and made reservations ($12/night, 2 nights + fees = $27).
It was a good time, but a little disappointing. The park was a lot smaller than we had imagined it. Our camping area was right against the park edge, which was someone's back yard. It didn't look like what we had thought. The rangers said it was 'very green', which was attractive to two people from back east that are tired of looking at sand and boulders. The pictures from the brochure showed streams and a lake sized pond, which turned out to be a 50 foot wide puddle with some skanky looking ducks in it. And a bunch of frogs. And millions of bugs...that wouldn't leave us alone. But it was low on water because they were pumping out of it to feed dozens of sprinklers on a few large mowed lawns that they had at the park. Including a large jungle gym for kids. Which just seems backwards to me for a place of 'nature'. And we didn't expect it to be loud...the people...they let the kids go nuts! Yelling, screaming, early in the morning, just loud as hell, and rooting through our stuff too! Brats! And people were blasting music. I mean, really, who does that in a nature preserve. Well, these people do, I suppose.
But, we did get to spend some time alone in a large grassy field under a pretty oak tree, that was really nice. And we went on a morning hike, which was also pretty fun. And we spent Friday night looking at the stars, which were incredible from that location. But we decided to come home a day early anyhow since it had become uncertain if Tracy would have to work Sunday afternoon.
So we packed up and headed out back to civilization. And spent the rest of the weekend relaxing at home. It was quite nice.
Sunday, we went out for a nice dinner downtown, to the "Dakota Grill". Neither Tracy or I had been there and the prices were reasonable. The food was good and we each had a nice glass of wine. I could have done without the waiter staring at Tracy, but other than that it was a good place. I'd go back.