Good day but very tired.
I was up early this morning. Shoveled out the driveway, just enough to get my Element out. The snow at the bottom of the drive way was nearly two feet deep despite being shoveled out Friday night and Saturday morning. The snow was like concrete from the plows packing it down. Took me about half an hour just to get the skirt opened up.
Loaded my gear in the Element and headed down the road to meet the guys for the match over in Erie at Gem City Gun Club. Arriving at the meeting location I learned two possibly useful lessons. First, an Audi S4 station wagon with Quatro and Blizzake tires still will get stuck when driven into 18-20 inches of unplowed snow. Second, a Honda Element AWD does not work nearly as well in reverse as it does in forward.
The S4 driver had gotten to the parking lot just before I did and I watch as he tried to get into the unplowed parking lot. He did pretty good for a lot further than I thought he would. I followed him in and when he got stuck I tried to pull him back out the way we both came in. No dice, either the traction control system does not engage the rear wheels while in reverse or the system does not produce as much torque at the rear wheels in reverse. The rear wheels did not even spin in reverse. I turned around and re-hooked up and pulled the S4 out with no problem. I was quite surprise the Element pulled as well as it did with the crappy tires it presently has. It did make me feel good I had spent the $16 on that tow strap that has been floating around in the back of my Element for a bit over a year know.
So after our lessons were learned we hit the road. Only three of the original eight shooters showed up but we had fun none-the-less. Four stages inside a nice warm range. I have been sort of negligent about my shooting "notebook" this year but I did take the earmuff camera along. I'm a bit out of practice with it and I either got bad video or forgot to turn in on at all for several of the stages. I did get some good video of stage 1 while shooting both my XD-40SC and my XD-45ACP. It was an interesting stage. Three shot per target (6 targets) and you had to fire at least one round from each of the three boxes.
XD-40SC shooting in Production (Quicktime 2.1MB)
XD-45ACP Tactical shooting in L-10 (Quicktime 1.8MB)
Got home from shooting and finished digging out the drive. Our driveway is double wide and only a bit over one car long but I only manage to get the part between the garage and sidewalk dug out full width the skirt is still only wide enough for one car. Buy the time I finish that and the front walk I was beat. My arms are tired but the real pain is in my ribs from all the bending and twisting. I am going to sleep good tonight.
Back to the old grindstone tomorrow. More proposals, I am up to my eye balls in a huge BAA and I am really tired of writing and writing and writing. I really want to get some real engineering work in here pretty soon or I am going to get cranky.
Loaded my gear in the Element and headed down the road to meet the guys for the match over in Erie at Gem City Gun Club. Arriving at the meeting location I learned two possibly useful lessons. First, an Audi S4 station wagon with Quatro and Blizzake tires still will get stuck when driven into 18-20 inches of unplowed snow. Second, a Honda Element AWD does not work nearly as well in reverse as it does in forward.
The S4 driver had gotten to the parking lot just before I did and I watch as he tried to get into the unplowed parking lot. He did pretty good for a lot further than I thought he would. I followed him in and when he got stuck I tried to pull him back out the way we both came in. No dice, either the traction control system does not engage the rear wheels while in reverse or the system does not produce as much torque at the rear wheels in reverse. The rear wheels did not even spin in reverse. I turned around and re-hooked up and pulled the S4 out with no problem. I was quite surprise the Element pulled as well as it did with the crappy tires it presently has. It did make me feel good I had spent the $16 on that tow strap that has been floating around in the back of my Element for a bit over a year know.
So after our lessons were learned we hit the road. Only three of the original eight shooters showed up but we had fun none-the-less. Four stages inside a nice warm range. I have been sort of negligent about my shooting "notebook" this year but I did take the earmuff camera along. I'm a bit out of practice with it and I either got bad video or forgot to turn in on at all for several of the stages. I did get some good video of stage 1 while shooting both my XD-40SC and my XD-45ACP. It was an interesting stage. Three shot per target (6 targets) and you had to fire at least one round from each of the three boxes.
XD-40SC shooting in Production (Quicktime 2.1MB)
XD-45ACP Tactical shooting in L-10 (Quicktime 1.8MB)
Got home from shooting and finished digging out the drive. Our driveway is double wide and only a bit over one car long but I only manage to get the part between the garage and sidewalk dug out full width the skirt is still only wide enough for one car. Buy the time I finish that and the front walk I was beat. My arms are tired but the real pain is in my ribs from all the bending and twisting. I am going to sleep good tonight.
Back to the old grindstone tomorrow. More proposals, I am up to my eye balls in a huge BAA and I am really tired of writing and writing and writing. I really want to get some real engineering work in here pretty soon or I am going to get cranky.