Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Thursday humor

It's like looking for love in all the wrong places, gleaning all those emails for the very rare good joke, but I finally found one.

Behold:

A crusty old biker out on a long summer ride in the country pulls up to a tavern in the middle of nowhere, parks his bike and walks inside. 

As he passes through the swinging doors, he sees a sign hanging over the bar: 

  COLD BEER: $2.00 

  HAMBURGER: $2.25 

  CHEESEBURGER: $2.50 

  CHICKEN SANDWICH: $3.50 

  HAND JOB: $50.00 

Checking his wallet to be sure he has the necessary payment, the ole' biker walks up to the bar and beckons to the exceptionally attractive female bartender who is serving drinks to a couple of sun-wrinkled farmers. 

She glides down behind the bar to the ole biker. 

"Yes?" she inquires with a wide, knowing smile, "may I help you?" 

The ole biker leans over the bar, "I was wondering young lady," he

whispers, "are you the one who gives the hand-jobs?" 

She looks into his eyes with that wide smile and purrs "Why yes, yes, I

sure am". 

The ole' biker leans closer and into her left ear whispers softly, "Well, wash your hands real good Honey, 'cause I want a cheeseburger".

There's a moral to this story: There's old bikers, and there's bold bikers, but there are NO old, bold bikers.

Maybe another moral: With age comes the skill to keep your scoot upright, and the smarts to stay alive while living the scooter-trash life.

Enough moralizing already, just laugh!

 

Boomershoot photo post

OK, taking a break from my next big deal, the Opening Day Yacht Parade day after tomorrow, and I'll post some photos with captions. Note that some of the previous text-only Boomershoot posts now have photos attached, so they are worth a second look now.

Camping in the ghetto. There were a few motor homes down at the other end of the property, but we did it without generators, and they didn't, so it would have been annoying to tent-camp down there. Aaron's tent trailer is mostly hidden in this photo, but it is the one flying the Stars and Stripes instead of the Klingon battle flag or whatever that is that Ry Jones was flying above the Gadsden Flag. The gentleman in the HHR drove all the way from Indiana.

This is how the after-lunch action opens on Boomer Sunday, with an anvil lift. The anvil has a base attached with an inverted cup, and a steel base has an upright cup. The two cups make a firing chamber when the base and anvil are assembled. Put Boomerite in the chamber and Fire! This was a half-charge:

Then there is the HUGE Fireball (if all goes well, and this one didn't). Several one-gallon jugs of gasoline are put on top of a box with a charge of Boomerite in it, and two fusees are set out to the sides to ignite the gas when the jugs rupture from the blast, hopefully creating the Huge Fireball.

A couple of the jugs didn't rupture, it seems, so the setup basically just torched some grass. This shot WAS right after the blast, since you can see the Boomerite smoke still in the vicinity of the fire.

Here is an example of a previous fireball, lifted from Joe's site:

All good things must come to an end, and it this case, the end is the heart-stopping "High-intensity Cleanup" of unexploded boomers on Saturday. Shooters are shooting point-blank with various carbines (ARs predominate). I took a CETME and a battle-day's load of military ball ammo (120 rounds for it) but I wasn't signed up for this optional event, so I got to watch it and shoot pictures instead of boomers.

The shooters are "entertainingly close" to the boomers exploding, and occasionally get showered with dirt.

Next year, I am DEFINITELY paying the extra bucks for this, but first, I want to put an ACOG sight on the CETME.

Once again, thank you Joe Huffman for your fantastic gig!

Boomershoot wrap-up

Long drive back (not as long as Aaron's, though). I got up at dawn (about 5:45) and started to break camp, but since Aaron was still in his rack, I gave him a traditional Drill Instructor "get-out-of-the-rack" yell (the campground was empty except for one motor home way down at the far end). We spent a freezing hour and a half getting our respective gear loaded up and the tent trailer folded. My hot coffee made the temperature tolerable. New camping trick, self-learned: to wipe down a folding fiberglass table in below-freezing weather, dip a rag in your vehicle's windshield-washer bottle and use that solution to wipe with. Does a marvelous job.

For the camping, both of our faith in the Mr. Heater Big Buddy heaters is expanded to the max now. This expedition would have been a freezing, miserable torture without the heater, but with it, it wasn't only tolerable, it was pleasant. Ditto the Coleman inflatable beds for the tent-trailer. They are a joy to sleep on, and mine didn't need ANY extra air over three days. We had two Coleman propane stoves, and they are a dream also, easily capable of taking my 20" wide, 6-gallon dish-washing kettle (a 24-quart Bluestone boiling-water canner, actually) and heating the dishwater in a few minutes (hint: since it was too cold for bacteria growth of any amount, keep the water and just add to it by rinsing the dishes you wash with hot water from the coffee pot, draining over the washing kettle). We took a total of 38 gallons of water to the water-deprived campground (well is dry), but only used around 8 or 9 gallons of it, and gave away a few more gallons. That is what heavy-duty trucks do for you: you can bring more water. Our ice held up well, and I started with 18 pounds in a 94-quart cooler and got home yesterday afternoon with at least half that.

Got on the road at 0730, and arrived back at home at 1515. Gas mileage sucked on the 830-mile round trip, as I used about 60 or 65 gallons, but that is a Chevy one-ton maxi-van (350-CID V-8) I drove, and it had a LOAD! I probably only used about half the gear I took, but then, I could have sheltered and fed a lot more with what I had. Truck camping means never having to count ounces, or even pounds, and yes, I have done backpack camping, thank you very much.

Final thoughts on the shooting. Precision riflery is ALL about mind over muscle, and in all my life, I have NEVER had such a stark demonstration of it as I got with my new skills as a 1-minute-of-angle shooter.

Boomershooting for real, Ch. V

...it was so orderly, it was like a military event. It was almost an anti-climax after getting pumped up the past two days on precision shooting at long range.

Get up, have coffee, toss down some hand food, get into ALL the warm gear for the biting wind and temps in the 30's, get the gun gear back out, set up a shooting table and scope, and at the appointed time, brief in and then go shoot. In the photo below, Joe Huffman gives the briefing, standing on the prone-berm against a leaden sky.

I shot first, and I fired one "barrel heater" round at 380 yards with the .243 that almost hit a boomer, then I boomed it on the second shot. Minute of angle, spotter talking me in to the 3" target.

That's the way it's supposed to be.

Shot about 40 rounds of ammo, but only blew up one more boomer (I hit about 4 more that were confirmed kills but they did not explode), and that one was at 575 yards with the .243. My scope sight, a Nikon ProStaff 3X9 with bullet-drop compensating reticule, is perfect for this kind of work. The bullet-drop "bubbles" on the lower vertical crosshair subtend one MOA perfectly.

I'm beginning to believe that almost any decent hunting rifle with a decent scope is capable of this level of accuracy.

The shooters just have to learn to believe in their own latent ability.

I do now.

Thank you Joe Huffman and especially Gene Econ, the master rifle instructor. This was the best weekend of fun and skill improvement I've had in a long, long time.

Boomerblogging IV - Send it!

Saturday, the last day before Boomershoot, was VERY eventful. I paid my range fees, and Major Econ graciously let me sit in on a short class for precision rifle operation, as I had missed the long class by arriving late on Friday. I remembered his key lessons to spotters, and I went to my shooting position to practice on the steel at 380 yards. Final sighting-in went well, and I practiced wind doping per the Major's instructions.

Time and pricey ammo goes by in a hurry, let me tell you!

I got the Winchester M70 (.243 WIN) and my Savage M99E (.308 WIN) smack on at 380, and moved out to 500. The wind is a HUGE deal at 500 yards. The Savage, still digesting my handloads well, soon had the steel at 500 ringing, validating my theory that it IS a MOA rifle.

Too soon, my range time, divided between spotting duty and shooting practice, was over.

It was time for boomer targets.

All the shooters safed the range and sortied down to the 380 yard berm. We observed placement of our 3 reactive targets according to our desires, and went back up to ready for the command to fire.

Aaron Neal was on the scope for me, and he called the wind and the wind overhold. I sighted, doing everything right as I was supposed to, and he gave the order, "Send it" and I began to squeeze, and bang-BOOOOOM! One shot, one boomer. That had been a 7" boomer, a 2 MOA target. I sighted on a 3" boomer next, but it took me 4 rounds (all within 6" of target center) to set it off, then I crippled my last boomer by cutting it free from it's stake and it was then half-buried in the soft dirt, making the 0.8 MOA target about a 0.4 MOA one, and THAT is beyond my capacity. I moved it twice with three more shots, but it never went off. Kevin Baker of the Smallest Minority was happily booming away next to me, and we got into a contest to see who could set off the cripples. A fun way to spend another half-box of ammo. We both left them in the dirt unexploded.

Clean up, put the gear away and head for Orofino for the Boomershoot Dinner at the VFW Hall. Some very interesting people presented short takes on what precision riflery really means, and I am even more pumped this morning, even after spending a few anxious moments in the camper as a nasty mountain cold front blew through overnight.

Hot coffee this morning, and I'm ready to rock and roll on over a thousand boomers in just an hour or so, so THIS one's a wrap, and more later, of course.

Boomerfreezing III

Kee-kee-kee-RIST it's cold up here! Thank God for Louis Chevrolet and his wonderful van heater, and also for Mr. Heater and his wonderful Big Buddy heater last night. Got up just after dawn this morning with the radio blaring rain, then rain and snow in the forecast. The dishwater in the dishpan was frozen over. The water jugs were frozen (except for the one Aaron and I put into the camper).

The rifle was HOT, though. When you can take a .243 Winchester M70 hunting rifle, with an ordinary scope (Nikon ProStaff) on it, with ordinary hunting ammo (Federal Fusion 95-grain SPBT) and can put down a palm-sized group at 380 yards, then move out to 500 and kill the target on the second shot, then repeat, you have ALMOST arrived.

The purists will tell you to stay home from Boomershoot with this sort of "ordinary deer rifle", and hunting ammo, but don't listen to them, you can do what your mind tells you to do with such a rifle.

Gene Econ says it is so in his class, and it is so.

Later.

Boomerblogger II

Watched a lot of booming that I wasn't signed up for. Aaron of Dad's Garage made it in late, and we had a fine dinner of Tommy's BBQ Brisket & beans, then cleaned up and now have the camper set up to resist the below-freezing temps to come tonight. The weather forecast is turning bad, and it may snow on us tomorrow and Sunday. Ya gotta be tougher than the weather, I guess. Got pictures, but no high speed, so they will have to wait.

Beans 'n Bacon. Basic, but a universal side dish. Went well with the BBQ:

Here's Aaron heating up Tommy's brisket, lugged all the way from Texas.

Note the dry staple, JERKY! We had plenty, but always managed to find the time to feed ourselves hot meals. The lunch wagon was usually closed when WE needed something, but they opened for a short breakfast and a shorter lunch.

Watched an old master, "Mike", try and not succeed to get the required accuracy out of his accurized AR, so he pulled out a wildcatted boltie in 6.5X47, fired one round, got one boomer, fired another round, got another boomer, put the rifle away. His only words? "That one's a shooter". Mike is the master of understatement so far at Boomershoot.

"High Intensity" WAS intense, and we rocked the mountains here at Boomershoot.

I'm going to try to sign on with Major Econ for a one-day course tomorrow to tune up for the big event on Sunday.

Time to hit the rack for a get-up with the chickens.

Later.

Boomblogging I

I'm here. The boondox. Crowd is lighter than forecast and weather colder than forecast. Some attendees saw snow on the way up. It was an uneventful journey for me, and I never fired off the GPS! Joe Huffman's written directions were outstandingly accurate.

I'm on a Generation One (1X) phone modem, as I can't get the wireless up here to lock on, so no pix until the wireless works for me.

Haven't heard a boom in a while, have to go find out why.

Later.

In crew rest

For the past 3 generations, the USAF has had the Crew Rest system to have alert aviators flying airplanes. You go in Crew Rest 12 hours before your mission briefing time (or reporting time if you report to an ALCC).

During Crew Rest there is no drinking ("12 hours bottle to throttle"), and you are supposed to get 8 hours sleep.

So, I started crew rest for the Boomershoot trip at 1600 for a 0400 departure which should put me there before noon tomorrow. time for me to hit the rack for my 8 hours.

Crew rest started strenuously, with the rest of the load-out I didn't do over the past few days. Old Blue is almost ready to hit the highway, only needs the computer put in and some small duffel.

If I had any thoughts of ignoring the time-tested Crew Rest procedure and boogeying this evening, they went away an hour ago with a snow-pellet shower we just had at only 340 feet elevation! That weather will be in Central Idaho tomorrow, and I damn sure didn't want to be crossing any high terrain at night in THAT shit. There is a new coat of white above 3,000 feet in the Oregon Cascades, and the coldest air of this northerly trough hasn't gotten here yet. fortunately, there's not a lot of moisture for the cold air to work with, so it should just be cold, and not cold and snowy-miserable.

The next post will be from Boomershoot, hopefully.

Twi-nighter?

A few thoughts of a twi-night drive out to Boomershoot are kicking around the 'ol Rivrdog's mind now. I have a funeral to go to shortly, then a wake after the funeral, and I COULD then start on the road to Boomershoot about 5pm or so...

Let's see: Advantage: Won't miss anything except the blogger day (today).

Disadvantage(s): It will get dark just as I get into the mountains of E. WA and ID. Unfamiliar country and highways, deer and elk moving about near the rivers I will be traveling next to, maybe some snow in the hills I have to cross, even shakier roads as I get close to Boomershoot. Arrival at midnight.

Plan B: Hit the rack at dusk, sleep until 3am, leave at 4am, sunrise over the high desert, full daylight for the mountains, sun will melt any snow on the hills by the time I get to them, deer and elk will be mostly bedded down and not trying to torpedo my truck off the road, arrive at Boomershoot maybe in time to prone out and shoot at some steel in the pm.

Yep, suppress the get-there-itis, you old fool, that's for the kids to drive half the night.