The Hobbit Hole XXXVI - O! Water cold we may pour at need...

[Rose in RoseBear]

I'm sorry ... I get a little .... ummm ... carried away ... occasionally ...

[Rose in RoseBear]

Yes, in fact, I think we'll be going there. The female co-owner has a PhD in molecular genetics, and the male co-owner is a professional engineer and a blues musician.

Their Basic Pistol 1 class sounds cool ... you get to fire several kinds of handguns.

[Rose in RoseBear]

In fact, I may have been channeling one of my characters ...

[RosieCotton]

Ya think?

I *was* going to finally mow today (I know it looks terrible over here), but I got sidetracked this morning, talked to both sisters at lunchtime, and then decided it was just too durned hot. I’ll do it tomorrow as early as it’s polite to do so. I doubt we’ll have much in the way of dew anyhow. Pretty dry.

I’ve been practicing guitar much of the day, and it keeps sticking to my arms. Poor thing...can’t be good for it, no matter how good I am about wiping it down. At least I changed its strings, which were pretty much dead. Tam and Halvah were delighted - they find that whole process *fascinating*.

Haven’t been around here much...have I missed any major mini-dramas?

[HairOfTheDog]

I don’t know... I wasn’t here much myself today. :~)

[300winmag]

Tonight's Saturday Night Gun Pron [tm] (which means written Saturday night, and posted Sunday Morning) covers a few minor items. That's because I'm still waiting for the "major" items to arrive.

First, I got my "spring survival kit" from Wolff. From left to right are M16 (lots of springs), M14, Garand, Springfield, and ten extra-power M14 mag springs.

They will all reside in a toolbox containing nothing but springs. As I go through the rest of my stuff, I'll order whatever Wolff has for those brands. Smiths, Rugers, Colts, and Glock are high on my handgun list. After that comes shotguns and .22s, if available. It's cheap insurance today. In the future, who can tell?

Next is the Smith Enterprises flash hider for my DPMS. When you say "Smith Enterprises" and "flash hider", there's nothing left to be said. I left on the small spacer the original flash hider used to keep the unit from bottoming out on the crown of the barrel.

And, in the never-ending search for the proper rail guards, the search may have finally come to an end. I got what seems like a quarter mile of Magpul XT rail panels. These are the semi-soft ones that seem to agree with my hands the best.

Just as I got them on the three sides I intended to cover, (there's a trick involved, as always), I noticed they have a new style of rail cover called the XTM. This is a hard plastic cover that comes in two identical parts, and covers four "rail ties". It has a "trick" to installing, too, but since you work in smaller units, it's easier to manage. The two halves squeeze together and lock, requiring a small pointed object to separate them.

Rather than going "whole hog", I ordered enough to try out on the top rail of the handguard. They aren't quite "low profile", but I think the scope can clear them (if the mount ever arrives). They are available in black, tan, OD, and foliage, and Magpul shows a decent approximation of camouflage by mixing colors.

I bought one black and one tan set, and gave them a try. It took a while to get the hang of installation, but here's what I have so far:

I've noticed that not all M1913 rails are created equally, and mine don't butt up together as nicely as the vendor shows. Also, they might not fully connect the first time. When I took the rifle out for the photo, I found I could squeeze all the covers a bit closer.

This isn't a big deal for me, and there is the added bonus that a tiny bit of daylight can be seen through the covers at certain angles. That means they provide a tiny bit of ventilation.

$7.95 gets you eight pieces, which is enough to cover one side of a M4 handguard rail. With all of the acreage of "cheese grater" the DPMS has, I calculate I need about eight sets in various colors for a camo effect. If I go that route, I'll have a large amount of the semi-soft "XT" rail covers for anybody who is interested.

The jury is still out on these covers, but so far I'm happier with them than I was with the earlier set, which was still a big improvement.

[SuziQ]

Heh, SirKit has been researching new computer stuff all day long. He was considering a Quad Core for a bit, but read that the extra two cores were only useful for folks doing heavy duty video editing. We need one that will run his Mathematica and my Chief Architect, so we need calculating and graphics power more than anything else. We’re looking for 2 or 3 gigs of RAM and a 500GB hard drive. We’d thought about trying to find one in the area and just pick it up, but now he’s looking to build one himself. Sure wish we had a Fry’s in town.

[Rose in RoseBear]

Don't need Fry's, though I do like mailordering from them.

I recommend Newegg and ZipZoomFly to anyone building their own systems. I built our systems from the cases in several years ago, and both those companies were very good to me.

Newegg has been my computer e-tailer of choice ever since, and not once have I been mistreated or short-changed. I have ordered on Sunday night and received my shipment on Tuesday. I have ordered merchandise that turned out to be defective, and gotten an RMA without much pain.

Although you didn't ask ...

I recommend Antec cases, just for the ruggedness factor --- they're all metal.

Be careful picking a motherboard. Make sure you get one with lots of USB and SATA ports.

He may want to take another look at the QuadCore ... new versions of current applications, especially calc-heavy apps like Mathematica, will be taking advantage of the Quad's power --- those CPUs won't lie fallow long. I've heard the QuadCore Q6600 price may fall below $200 again in the next month.

Four gigs of memory ... most of the motherboards want symmetry.

Look at a 750gB hard drive as well --- 750 is the new sweet spot. SATA, of course, and a good fast spinner with a nice large buffer.

Two DVD/RWs, to facilitate copying.

And, of course, the biggest, baddest graphics card your wallet can stand!

And get flat-panel monitors, if you don't already have them ... they are wonderfully restful to the eyes. And, if you have the room and the wallet, get two monitors for each computer ... you have no idea how much back-and-forthing you do until you can park one application on one screen and the second app on the other, and just move the mouse from one to the other.

<laughing!>Dang, Suzi, but you just helped me build our new systems!

Let me give you two more URLs: Anadtech and Tom's Guide. They're both cool sites all on their own, but they both have guides for building new systems, and, more importantly, they have "Hot Deals" sections (Anadtech's Hot Deals, Tom's Hot Deals) where people post sales and rebates on computer hardware.

When I built our systems, I bought our Memorex CDRWs from Office Depot on closeout, with a rebate that made my net price less than $1 apiece. (Woot!) And our hard drives wound up costing around $40, which, back then, was pretty much a steal. I also got the cases for a song --- the e-tailer had moved, and in the process had lost a lot of orders. To try and improve their rep, they had a huge sale and offered free shipping for orders over $50. I reaped the benefits.

And, oh yeah ... you want to run XP, not Vista. Friends don't let friends install Vista.

More than you ever wanted to know about system buildouts!

[hiredhand]

As always, THANKS for the update! That Smith Enterprises flash hider is called a “Vortex” right? I’m thinking about installing them on a couple of the rifles that we have here. Where did you purchase yours if you don’t mind me asking? :-)

[Overtaxed]

My daylilies seem to be behind everyone else’s but they have buds coming along. I’ll get my first coneflower blooms ever! I moved them inside the bunny fence this year.

[g'nad]

I’ll get my first coneflower blooms ever!

heh... I got em everywhere but theyard...

[g'nad]

yer too funny... yuh did bring a few good ideas...

[g'nad]

good call on the springs... I never gave it much thought until a few weeks ago when you started postin’ about ‘em...

I been lookin’ fer a good set of cheese grater covers... the search maybe over...

[g'nad]

one more try...

[Overtaxed]

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Copying and pasting the image link into another window works, so I'm thinking that the site blocks image references... try posting them just as links, that should work.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Now that's an "Oops!" look if I've even seen one...

[Corin Stormhands]

And on the second day, God created thebeach...

Here and not yet doin’ much of anything. Jr. and his friend went to thestore and took Luke along. Mrs. and Sister Mary Hamburner are off to the grocery store. We’ll hit the beach a few hours later this afternoon. Then tomorrow we’ll be there in full force.

I keep thinkin’ I should be doin’ somethin’ and then remind myself I’m on vacation. I think I’m scheduling myself for a nap...

[JenB]

Mmmm... Beach.... been way too long here.

[Corin Stormhands]

That’s why I can’t live in the middle of the country. Too far from theshore...

later