That Time of the Month Again?

Yes! It seems like 17 or so new shooters will be present tomorrow. An indeterminate number will be present for Concealed Carry Handgun class on Sunday (don't ask, we never know until we go).

Wish me luck! I always enjoy it. If you get a chance come meet me at Elite! I always take a break every hour on the hour.

Thank God They had a Gun!

Wife who can't load shotgun uses it to club bear attacking husband. 

Oh, wait......

 

True That!

One of the Blogs I follow hit one out of the park. Here is the link.

Don't Forget!

Sunday, May 12th is Mother's Day! 

If you are blessed enough to still be able to call, write, or go see her, do! I still do love this nice yard too! I Visit every chance I get! I will save the view from the front porch (to the right of this photo) for a retro Sunday. Simply breathtaking! If you need to see a "mill town" I have it in spades.

Ah. The 80's.

Yeah if you did not live through them you would not understand. Here is a tune from Steve Winwood back in 1986. When MTV played music videos! Warning! An ad before the video!




For those that need to ask the parents about the really old tunes, he has more substance than this. Even older. A great tune with lyrics that speaks volumes.  He was the producer of this Album. 

 







In oh, 1971. I will never give up this album. My Grandmother gave it to me. She worked at a record store and I hear this album cover is worth some cash. No matter.  A great tune that still has meaning today.  I spin the record up on occasion. 




Yeah, another ad. 



My Grandmother gave me the gift of music. She loved it in all of its forms. R&B, Jazz, Country, Metal, etc. 

I am so happy to have this gift from her from so long ago. 

Whatever You Have.

Tools are important. Mindset just as much. For over a decade I was denied the right to self defense with a firearm as I taught at a local community college in my local version of Mordor. I had this.

Looked like a cell phone case back in the day. It in fact housed this.

I liked it! Two shots. Equipped with a safety. Was not sensitive to temperature variations. 

Then we get to the Kimber Pepper Blaster II. Same thing, but better ergonomics. It has sights and a little grip. 

 














Then we get to this if the standoff weapon does not work. 

 











One thing about a knife fight, you will get cut! I would prefer not to get into one. 


Then it goes here. MANY have disturbed electrons in this space about what caliber stopping round. I get that, but if I can stick this in my front jeans pocket, that counts for much. 

  























Yes the trigger is much like pulling a sled across a gravel pit! S&W Bodyguard .380.

Guess what. If I can stick this in my pocket as opposed to the duty rated belt and an M&P or a Colt Defender for short trips I will take it. It DOES beat a stiff word and rolled up newspaper! 

Tools are important. The mindset and awareness to use them is more important.  Mindset to not even get into a situation to get to this point is even more important to me. 

I don't care what you are carrying as long as you can use it effectively.  

The AGC.

Many commented on my previous post. You can see the heart rate of Neal Armstrong go up as the AGC (Apollo Guidance Computer) starts throwing 1201 and 1202 alarms and really wants to put the Eagle LM in a crater. 

Here is all you need to know about the AGC.  


Here is what happened during the landing. 

PGNCS generated unanticipated warnings during Apollo 11's lunar descent, with the AGC showing a 1201 alarm ("Executive overflow - no vacant areas") and a 1202 alarm ("Executive overflow - no core sets").^[9] The cause was a rapid, steady stream of spurious cycle steals from the rendezvous radar, intentionally left on standby during the descent in case it was needed for an abort.^[10][11]
During this part of the approach the processor would normally be almost 85% loaded. The extra 6400 cycle steals per second added the equivalent of 13% load, leaving just enough time for all scheduled tasks to run to completion. Five minutes into the descent Buzz Aldrin gave the computer the command 1668 which instructed it to calculate and display DELTAH (the difference between altitude sensed by the radar and the computed altitude). This added an additional 10% to the processor workload causing executive overflow and a 1202 alarm. After being given the "GO" from Houston Aldrin entered 1668 again and another 1202 alarm occurred. When reporting the second alarm Aldrin added the comment "It appears to come up when we have a 1668 up". Happily for Apollo 11, the AGC software had been designed with priority scheduling. Just as it had been designed to do, the software automatically recovered, deleting lower priority tasks including the 1668 display task, to complete its critical guidance and control tasks. Guidance controller Steve Bales and his support team that included Jack Garman issued several "GO" calls and the landing was successful. For his role, Bales received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom on behalf of the entire control center team and the three Apollo astronauts.^[12]
The problem was not a programming error in the AGC, nor was it pilot error. It was a peripheral hardware design bug that was already known and documented by Apollo 5 engineers.^[13] However because the problem had only occurred once during testing they concluded that it was safer to fly with the existing hardware that they had already tested, than to fly with a newer but largely untested radar system. In the actual hardware, the position of the rendezvous radar was encoded with synchros excited by a different source of 800 Hz AC than the one used by the computer as a timing reference. The two 800 Hz sources were frequency locked but not phase locked, and the small random phase variations made it appear as though the antenna was rapidly "dithering" in position even though it was completely stationary. These phantom movements generated the rapid series of cycle steals.

A shout out to Michael Collins. He was the command module pilot orbiting the moon while all of this went down.