Just About What I Expected. Sigh....

So I run off to the "MyFordSyncisAwesomeClass" or whatever tonight at the dealership.  "Free drinks, prizes and more"!  If some dude tells me for 5 minutes how he is a nerd but a cool one that owns a "Standard Poodle" (whatever the hell that means) what, the dog does not have air conditioning? WTF?  He met Bill Gates?  I don't care. I know this is not going to go well. 

He fires up a PowerPoint. Lists vocal commands for the system. He hits the part about using the system to stream IHeartRadio and Pandora apps from the phone and looks at the class and says that nobody probably knows what he is talking about.  Dude. I am sporting some grey hair and my other companions in the class are sporting more (or none). But still.  You just lost me there.  How condescending.  So I finally speak up.  I ask him if I must have the app running on the phone before I invoke the verbal command to the system. Now we get some crickets in the background. 

He does say that they are working on an app start feature.  NEVER underestimate your students based on appearance. I have "nerd" degrees older than him.

So one cool tidbit came out though.  I do not have a touch screen on the new ride but can send Google map directions to the ride for voice navigation. I have the Garmin but I thought this was cool.  Lets try it out. 

Well, it seems if you are driving a FORD, this app is useless. So much for that.  I will never be able to get to Pineville Gun Store again.  Sad.  They have a lot of parts and cool stuff and a hoot to deal with.  

To add to my displeasure, while he is EXITING the PowerPoint to fire up a Browser (IE) to demonstrate the browser session (with Mapquest) I am thinking: Dude, did not Bill Gates tell you how to switch between applications with Alt-Tab? 

Sigh.  

I think I previously demonstrated my skill in operating the thing. 



Sigh again.  One plus though.  Back in the day tags were mailed to your house.  I had to pick mine up at the dealership.  Got that out of the way too.  

 

 
   



 

Bullitt Updated

Pay attention! Great homage to a great film. Recognize the green VW?  It seems that traction control HAS been turned off!




Oh, it seems the 1968 390 Fastback did not suffer from this problem:

I seem to need a software update! LOL! 


 

From the Bench!

A simple field strip and cleaning. Mr. Curmudgeon seems to hand me broken stuff and things to be cleaned. Something I am proud to do for him. 

 












The much derided Colt Series 80. This is a Combat Commander in .45 ACP.  There were several reasons to make such an argument. The Series 80 firing pin safety is in my opinion a solution in search of a problem.  I however do not notice the difference in shooting this Colt .45 with older ones. You can remove the firing pin safety if you want. There is a shim from Brownells to take care of it if you choose to do so. I did in one of mine so my comparison is valid.

The second argument was the fact that there was a strike by the UAW at Colt. This handgun was derided as a scab built gun. Know what? This thing has never had a failure to feed or fire. More importantly Mr. Curmudgeon carried it for over 20 years across this land (I mean ALL across it). He didn't have a sleepless night worrying about it not doing what it needed to do if he put his "booger hook on the boom switch". It still does so.
  
I am glad to have this pistol here right now. I will return it to its owner shortly. 

    

From the Bench....

First congratulations to my new shooters and CCH class students over the past weekend. Y'all rocked! 

Here is a sad Browning BDA-380. The BDA-380 was introduced in 1977 and discontinued in 1997. This one was manufactured in 1981. 

It is one of Mr. Curmudgeons favorite handguns. I can understand why.  It is a "sweetness and light" kind of pistol. Fun to shoot, works great, and the bullets go where you point it. 

For now however we have this:

  








A broken trigger spring. I await the replacement! 

Remember the Easy-Off Enfield wood? Just got the second coat of Lin-Speed on it tonight. Sorry for the really bad pics, but it should give an idea on how far the wood has come. 

 






















I 'll knock the stuff back with 0000 steel wool and see how it looks, but so far so good! 

Busy Weekend!

First up Mr. Curmudgeon reports the trigger spring has broke on one of his favorite pistols. The Browning High Power .380.  I get to it and order what he needs. 

Tomorrow is new shooter or "Basic Pistol" class. Followed Sunday with State mandated Concealed Carry Class for those that want a permit to do so. 

I stuck Murphy's Law wood for the Enfield into the Easy-Off bath and the result begged for some Linspeed.  I finally got a coat on the wood tonight.  

Better pics later. The wood soaked the stuff up though!  


Tomorrow's load out looks like this:

There are more tools at the range for the students, these are for class except for the M&P. That will be on my hip during class. 

For Concealed Carry class Sunday I have a special show and tell object. The gracious and kind The Trooper's Gal and her partner the Trooper sent me a purse designed for concealed carry.

 

  










That is what is so great about this community.  She would take nothing for covering the cost of the item or shipping. The request was to pay it forward.  That meant much and thanks.  She sent the full info on it while I was in Culpeper. I will do so. It did make the cleaning person at the house freak out, so bonus points for that! 

Oh, the new ride?  Well it seems that I am figuring it out. 





"Alice" is indeed ready to go!

You can actully change the colors of the "halo" and gauges. I went with the most retro I could get. Go figure.   

 



    

A Shotgun That STILL Shows Up and Colt Update

In several previous posts on humble Blog I comment on the K-1200 High Standard Shotgun.  Guess what.  It seems the movie industry loves the thing even now.  

That is one from the movie "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" with uh, Milla Jovovich boosting one from a police cruiser. The story of how I got here is a bit strange. I noticed a car at work that had an "Umbrella Corporation" parking sticker on it for Level 3 Hive. I Googled it and found these movies. Fired up Amazon Prime streaming and I am now up to the 4th movie. So far I'm ambivalent about the movies except I need to create a drinking game while watching them (hint, finger of booze when the whatever firearm should have run out of ammo, etc.).


Remember the Colt Official Police?  It had an annoying "throw by" in that after a shot, the cylinder would rotate past the stop locking the revolver up.

It needed one of these.

   















Bolt spring was toast.  I hope to test this weekend, but a new shooter and CCH class is on the books for this weekend.  Looks like this though:

I will give the little spring a pass as it is over 60 years old. 


Oh, Kathy Jackson has started a Blog and has decided to go full time into firearm training and related areas.  Go check her out here. I consider her my goto resource for female specific issues with firearms.  



 
 


 . 

Another Day at the Office!

It concerns some mildly disturbed electrons.  After putzing around all day with a "Allen Bradley with Cisco Technology" Network switch here comes this. The City wants to do some work on one of the 5 electrical service entrances to the plant.  This one however powers all of the critical stuff. PBX, AS-400, life safety,, etc.

The City gets to it. 

 











Secondaries on transformers that supply three phase 208 VAC feed into the facility. As soon as the switches were cut, this kicked in. 

 












Every time I hear this thing fire up I feel the need to get a new CAT ball cap. It was here when I got here. A nice little 85KW generator. The amp meter is dead, but no worries. I have new instrumentation on the transfer switch. 

So that was my day! I hope y'all had a good one!  

Don't Worry Ladies. Your Younger Sister Has Your Back

I'm a softy for the Mustang, y'all may have figured that out though. 


So yesterday I wander off and pick up a 2013 Mustang GT. 

I introduced the younger sister to some of her siblings. 

The younger sister does indeed have their back! In the back on the left is a 1966 Mustang GT, on the right a 1971 Mustang Mach I. Not pictured but to the right is a 1994 Mustang GT. If nothing else I am consistent it seems. 


Here is the 1994 power plant. A 302 HO.

Rated at 215 Horses under the hood.  It works, but you need to know how to work it.  I did not put all the "run fast" goodies on it. It has served admirably even after being totaled. A good friend that will continue to serve as daily driver.  I had to tell her that so she would not get jealous =)!

So.. Let us take a look under the hood of the new one.

  






Holy Henry Ford! THIS is a 302?!?! I did not get a tape measure out but it appears to be wider than a 429 Cobra Jet! 

This 302 "Coyote" is rated at 420 horses. I doubt FoMoCo will suffer the embarrassment of the 1999 Cobra engine with an expensive recall in real dyno vs. stated horsepower again. 

It seems that as much attention was payed to stopping as well as going.  Not so much back in the day!

19" tires with Brembo brakes on the front.

Sigh, here is a portion of the sticker.

There is a "Fuel Economy and Environment" portion? Really? Oh and why is there a .gov link to anything on this ride? The sticker says that the car emits 473 grams of CO2 per mile. Rated rather low (sucks in other words). The sticker also says that the BEST emits 0 grams CO2 from the tailpipe. That may be true unless the freaking Volt thing catches on fire and burns your house down! Whats the CO2 rating on that .gov? 

So guess what for tomorrow? Road Trip! 

I am weak

There are a lot of buttons on this thing. I am most interested in these right now.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Its not the First Time....

So while doing research on the 2013 Mustang GT I run across this little tidbit. It has no spare tire. Nope, nada! It has what FoMoCo euphemistically calls a "spare tire mobility kit". I thought tires WERE mobility kits. Sheesh. I'm getting old!

Really? Are you kidding me?!?!? It looks like a cheesy air compressor with a can of fixaflat attached to it. 

And that is exactly what it is! One hose for the sealant, the other for the air to pump it up afterward. The warnings even after a successful repair are dire. Do not remove nail or whatever is in the tire. Drive 4 miles. Check pressure. If ok, do not drive over 50 miles per hour. Do not drive more than 120 miles on repair. 

There was a time where if you could figure this sticker out on the inside of your trunk lid you could go about your business with a short delay. 

I just happened to have a spare decal for scanning from the 1966 Mustang. 
 
Beat the hub cap back on and ta-da! On the road again!

I really wanted to get angry about this then it hit me. The trunks of Mustangs has always been a bit less than roomy. Throw a spare tire in it and it gets worse.

This is the 1966 trunk.  

 

























This is the 1971 trunk. It sports the original spare! It has never been in service. 

I could probably Ebay this thing off for a kabillion dollars for the people that want to have all the points at the Mustang Club of America shows, but I never got into that. If you cannot drive it, it's in a trailer and dusted before the show, what good is it really? 

Oh, I digress. Sorry about that! The happy space saver tire made it's apperance on Mustangs in the late 60's. 

A can of compressed air and a tire. It appears to some extent history does repeat itself! 

Sad Mustang and Other Random Stuff

So all the cool kids are at Blogarado this weekend. Me? I have a sad Mustang. 

Still lacking a functional Air/Fuel delivery system. Another thing on the list. 

The Easy Off thing? It cleans wood great! Never fear if you visit statley manor, the guest bathroom fixtures will be sweetness and light (uh after I'm done here)!

More to be done, but a marked improvement!


A long time friend sent me this on my birthday this year. It has a place of prominence here. 

 
















A very thoughtful gift! 

Meanwhile winter projects are stacking up. Here is this kit. 

An AM transmitter kit. 

Again tonight I have guests. On both ends of the front porch. I don't know how the builders got all of this wrong, but feathered friends are enjoying it tonight. 

Fall is coming. The Hummingbirds are almost gone after the frenzy of the summer. There is an occasional traveler late on the journey that stops by on the feeder. 

The sun sits differently now. Shadows and light are a subtle reminder that winter is coming.