Traveling to Tampa

Well two weekends ago in the middle of April I had the great pleasure of travelling with friends, to meet with more friends, to help two friends get married. It doesn’t get much better than that. And the damnedest thing of all, I didn’t take any pictures. Oh well. There were plenty of others taking pictures. Though we did miss recording the limo trip, the drunken go-cart racing, the game playing, and the drunken mini-golf. Ah that was a hoot right there. But the capstone was getting to stand up there and witness two people who are made for each other take the next big step in their life together. And now they are moving even closer to me. You know 2008 is turning out to be a stellar year. Smittys I hope you had a great honeymoon, and I hope you like the wedding present. I know Dex, Anita, James and Tiffany hope you do as well.

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Boomstick of My Own

A few months before I started going to school at Clemson my Grandfather passed away. My Grandmother lived in the house for 10 or so more years, before her failing eyesight forced her to move. There is a bunch of stuff one can collect in a house over 50+ years. Piles and lists were made of what to keep, sell, give away, or throw away. One item was in the back of my Grandparent's closet. It had probably sat unused for around 30 years. My dad nor his brothers seemed all that interested in it, and so that's how I acquired my Grandfather's shotgun. I'll ramble a bit about it, with illustrations, after the link.


It's a Stevens 12 gauge, 2-3/4 " shell, double barrel model 5100. I've looked around, but this one seems to have been made before that started stamping a date code on them. That puts it at least before '49, which I would have guessed already. It's not a long gun. My Dad said Granddad used it to hunt rabbits I think. Anyway at the time I was renting a house with some friends. I kept the gun in the closet, and didn't bother with having it checked out or keeping any ammunition. I mean I was sharing a house I didn't own with other people. I didn't need liability.


Well After I bought my mortgage I started thinking about the gun more. In my yard I've seen opossums, squirrels, a wild dog of some kind, deer, and the previous owners had a black bear come by. You can understand why I was thinking about the gun. I'm only really worried about the four legged intruders. I decided to have the thing checked out. I wanted to have it cleaned in case 30 years of dust may have gotten in it. It looked in really good shape to me, but I'm not that familiar with guns. Besides, knowing Granddad, he kept it immaculate. I took it to Grady's in Anderson. I've been there before and a friend said they set him up with his handgun about getting ammo and cleaning supplies.


I got a case for the gun and brought it back the next day. The older gentleman behind the counter took a look at the gun and said that it was in excellent shape and didn't really have any dirt on it. He recommended spraying it down with some cleaner and letting it drain down the barrels, but other than that it was ready to go. I picked up a couple boxes of ammo, 00 Buck and a box of turkey load #4 for varments. Apparently Grady's had a big Christmas and were out of all kinds of ammo. So I went home an ordered 30 rounds of 3 different types of light load shells to see which ones I liked. I've got some friends coming up for MLK day, and we might make a journey to a gun range another friend uses. It would be my first time using powder. I'm probably going to have to write that one up too.

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Holiday Return

It’s only been a month since last I wrote. That’s better than my previous hiatus. I’m not going to lie. December was busy, and I probably had things I could have written about. Let’s see if I can cover some of what happened.

Classes came to an end with exams. That actually went better than I had hoped. There wasn’t much that went wrong other than a few maintenance items. I’m still “Primary Supplies Orderer” and considered “Lead Technician” at work. I take that as a vote of confidence from my boss. Had a week and a half off and am back today, though I do not want to be. It was 22 degrees F when I left the house this morning. Classes start next week and I’m not sure when we get to install those two new classrooms. That’s pretty much work.

Over Christmas I went home to spend time with family. My Godmother had hip replacement surgery earlier this year. That went beautifully once it was accomplished, but soon thereafter she began having what amounts to a compressed nerve issue in her back that is making the same damned leg hurt. Essentially the pain is still there, ain’t that some luck. There is some hope that a new procedure she is scheduled for will remove the compression and get her back up and going almost immediately. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

My family went to visit my Dad’s and Mother’s family separately. At both locations we do a “Chinese auction (read the bottom of the article).” Anyway, some people like it and some don’t. The rules area always a source of contention, but we never have any problems with actual execution. I usually just hang back and let others bicker about the rules, because I don’t really care. I found out a long time ago that the secret to those games it to expect to get nothing of any use. For my Dad’s family I actually stole a book form my brother called Weapon. It’s pretty nice. I think I got a shoeshine kit at my Mom’s family’s exchange. There it’s always more fun to watch everyone else’s reactions anyway.

We had our usual Christmas Eve and day stuff. Went to church for communion, Mom’s family, and went home to prepare for Christmas day. We got up and did our usual stocking stuff and prepared for breakfast. We usually have some visitors over for Christmas Breakfast. Then we went about some present opening in the front room. Mom has two trees, the 10 ft white and gold ornament tree in the front room and the 7 ft “Ethnic Tree” in the back room. I started calling it the ethic tree, because that’s where all the multi-colored ornaments and lights she used to use on the front tree wound up when she switched to white and gold up there. It kind of stuck, and it makes me proud. Anyway she wraps all the presents in the front room in white and gold paper and bows. To keep the base of the tree neat she overflows presents to the Ethnic Tree, but those presents get more vibrant paper and bows. Anyway we started cleaning out the underside of the front tree for a while, per custom. Normally we would then go to a movie at around 2-4 PM. We started that tradition when the movie theater opened in town. But this year the theater thwarted us by delaying their opening until 7 PM. That threw our whole schedule off. My Godparents weren’t able to come over early because of dinner plans. It worked out fine anyway. We went and saw “National Treasure.” I’ll review that shortly. My brother and I went to see my godparents after the movie, since my Godmother was having problems with her back. It wasn’t what we normally did, but all was accomplished.

I got a microwave, games, DVDs, books, and some other assorted things. My sister got some furniture and stuff for her new house, and my brother got an IPod, DVDs, and stuff. My Mom and Dad bought a new TV for their den like 3 weeks before Christmas. Their anniversary is the 20^th, so they called it an Anniversary/Christmas present to each other. Since they are so had to shop for, Mom buys things when she needs then regardless of how close Christmas is, we decided we could get them a small home theater in a box system to go with the LCD TV. We had discussed the option in previous years, but the new TV clinched it. We knew Mom would be a little unsure about it, she has a hard time with remotes and electronics, so we also got a gift certificate for them to go out for dinner and my brother found dishes to fill out her plates and bowls in her pattern.

All in all it was a pretty decent Christmas. There were a few bumps, but everyone made it through. Hopefully next year everyone will be up and back to their usual selves.

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