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This bit is all my own work; and has ABSOLUTELY
no relationship (implied or otherwise) to the policies of PA, AISL,
'Herself', or any other person or organisation... |
August 2010
Arrgghh! The waiting...
My new pistol:
a. Has arrived in AUS
b. Has cleared customs
c. Is in the hands of the dealer
Hopefully, the Permit to Acquire will not be long...
Update on the Baulkham Hills Hilton
As many may know, the residence suffered from a bit of storm/rain damage recently: at least the roof is now repaired and ‘fixed’. A couple of men came, replaced tiles as needed, replaced the 50 year old valleys, resealed the ridges, etc.
Now comes the next part: as part of the repairs, the kitchen will need repainting and once you start on one room...
On ammunition
There are some interesting shifts going on around the country with rimfire ammunition supplies – the availability and range of rimfire ammunition is going down and the prices are going up.
In my own situation, for the last few years my preferred .22LR for 25m events has been Federal Champion #714. This choice was based on the simple premise that in my Hammerli it was a) reliable, and b) gave the best results out of a machine rest. Interestingly, in the last bout of testing a few years back, in my pistol this ammunition gave groups as good as, and often better than, some of the (very expensive) high-reputation specialist target rimfire ammunition. However, stocks of Federal #714 have pretty much dried up and the word is that there will be no more produced by the factory in the USA; certainly it is no longer listed on the Federal website.
The search is on for a replacement brand/type, but this will not get serious until the new Morini arrives…
Once I have settled on a particular brand/type of .22LR I buy in case lots, usually two cases at a time:
· For the ‘occasional’ shooter this might seem a bit excessive, but I see it from the other extreme: to me, a case is only 5000 rounds; and 5000 rounds doesn’t last long:
o A day’s practice session of Rapid Fire Pistol I can easily chew up 200+ rounds: and I have been putting in RFP practice sessions fairly frequently of late – at about a half-brick a session – a case works out to around 20 practice sessions.
o Throw in a regular session at the range most weeks and a few competitions throughout the year (yes, I still shoot the occasional competition!) – this alone works out to about a case per year
I feel sorry for those into a serious training/competition regime. I feel even sorrier for those into a serious training/competition regime for rifle with top-level rifle rimfire ammunition costing more than six times (that’s not 1/6 sixth more, it’s six times more) as much as my usual ammunition!
· For case lots the price/round provides a saving, but it pays to shop around and be prepared to haggle.
· Buying in case lots brings in the matter of secure storage. While the legislative requirements are not quite as stringent for ammunition as for firearms, my ammunition goes into locked containers behind the back-to-base security and secure storage for several cases of rimfire plus the loaded CF ammunition takes up space. Don’t buy in bulk unless you have the secure space.
· Does rimfire ammunition deteriorate with age – part 1? I don’t know: it doesn’t last long enough around here for me to find out – however, I do store my ammunition in reasonably constant, cool and dry conditions. Treat your ammunition storage (with the added secure storage aspect) as you would a fine wine; it might not make a lot of difference, but it cannot hurt the ammunition. Come to think of it, wine doesn’t last long around the Baulkham Hills Hilton either...
· Does rimfire ammunition deteriorate with age – part 2? Almost everyone ends up with small lots of ‘orphan’ ammunition, made somewhat worse when longarms licensing came in and my parents transferred their accumulation of rifles and ammunition over to me <time passes> on a session with a new rimfire pistol I grabbed a package of this hand-me-down ammunition and went to the range to function test/run-in the pistol – amongst the miscellany were .22LR dating back to WW2 production and they all worked (it was a Margolin)…
Purchasing in case lots still seems a strange concept - as a pre-teenager I was allowed one (1 only) more round of rimfire for each rabbit I bagged – certainly taught one to be sure of the shot before pulling the trigger.
Boys and their toys
For anyone running Windows XP, Vista or 7, I strongly recommend you run the freebie Microsoft tool at http://www.microsoft..com/security/malwareremove/default.aspx!
This suite of programs is not instead of your anti-virus program; it should be in addition.
Note: this suite will take some time to check your computer – best to set it running and go to bed to leave it going overnight, particularly if you have a lot of data on your computer.
Despite my efforts on cleaning #1 computer (see May, below), the Microsoft suite found four more infections lurking in the background – fortunately these had not sneaked across to the various other computers that are on the home wireless network.
July 2010
Sheesh! July, already?
How come so many of the things I had intended to ‘get done’ in the start of the year are still ‘to be done’?
Yep! Every time I turn around it seems:
· to be another stint at SISC working at a competition (another weekend down the gurgler, tank of juice in the Daihatsu, and lots of beeps from the e-tag…), or
· another trip to the airport, or
· Wednesday (a scheduled day at the range (provided I am in Sydney…)), or
· Somebody’s computer is playing up (…Spencer… can you help?), or
Boys and their Toys
Some things take a leap of faith, and cloning a hard drive falls into this category:
· Woke up around 02:30 a few days ago (aching hip), made a cup of coffee and switched on #1 working computer (a laptop that sometimes seems glued to my lap) – the hard drive made a few strange noises during the boot…
· Experience has taught me that hard drives that make strange noises rarely ‘get better’
· A replacement hard drive was called for, BUT (!) there is a world of programs (note the spelling), data and files that would be difficult (in some cases, impossible) to replace without mucho dineiro…
· A replacement hard drive was no problem; rip the hard drive out of one of the external hard drives lying around – as luck would have it, the ‘replacement’ SATA drive was spot on, if double the capacity
· A working (as opposed to U/S) CD/DVD drive was no problem; rip the CD/DVD drive out of one of the external CD/DVD drives lying around
· a) look up Norton Ghost as an option: $99 for a one off application (rejected: that’s 150-200 rounds of .22LR);
· b) look up SourceForge, the first stop for skinflints
· c) download Clonezillza
· Spend two nights researching Clonezilla
· Take the plunge and clone the computer’s hard drive to the (still) external drive – LEAP OF FAITH #1 is that Clonezilla will copy the computer to the blank hard drive, NOT the blank hard drive to the computer…
· Change the two drives over
· Boot up computer
· Arrrggghhhh! It won’t boot
· Stop everything and have a long, slow think – all is not lost; I can still put the (hopefully intact) suspect drive back into the computer
LEAP OF FAITH #2 – I can fix it (?)
A simple restart from the original Vista install CD fixed the problem under the Vista ‘repair’ option
Outcome – everything is working without the strange noises and I have doubled the hard drive capacity.
Clonezilla works, but make sure you have taken the ‘correct’ settings!
June 2010
Life is worth living…
Along with the ongoing delight of having Paula…
From time-to-time memories are triggered…
Recently I was browsing for a wine to accompany a chicken/rice dish: a nice rosé? a light pinot noir? – alas, all had the dreaded 220 (sulphides); “…known to provoke gastric irritation, nausea, diarrhoea, skin rash, asthma attacks and difficult to metabolise for those with impaired kidney function, also destroys vitamin B1 (thiamin), and should be avoided by anyone suffering from conjunctivitis, bronchitis, emphysema, bronchial asthma, or cardiovascular disease…”; including the imports.
Working my way along the shelves I found some Beaujolais – ‘thinks – now there’s something I haven’t had for a while’ – and on checking, no preservatives!
In a different life I used to sample a goodly range of European (read, mainly French) wines, including Beaujolais – soft autumn evenings, good company, good food, lots of foreign accents, and when the food suited, Beaujolais.
Bottle-opening time preceded Herself’s return from a tutoring appointment, with me in the kitchen (slaving over the cooking), and NATURALLY I sampled a glass to make sure it was not ‘off’’ and it all came flooding back – Ah! That taste…
No doubt a picnic basket, lush afternoon, crisp apple and some good cheeses and a really fine and cold bottle of Chablis lies in the future?
May 2010
While not in the league of the true ‘power users’, I feel that I can be classed as a ‘heavy’ user of computers and I certainly spend enough time working at / playing around with computers. Given the amount of time connected to the internet with a fairly open network it is not surprising that:
a) my network comes under attack from time to time, and
b) the computers get exposed to viruses, trojans and various malware.
These various malevolent attacks and infections normally get intercepted and dealt with by the various antivirus and other defence programs on the network and the individual computers…
…normally!
Finally, the law of averages caught up with me. My #1 computer got infected; and it was a doozie!
It has taken about three weeks to ‘clean’ the computer.
Step 1 was to identify (thanks to Microsoft’s knowledge base) and neutralise the infection (thanks to Microsoft’s recommendation to some third-party programs). I am not a complete novice, but this part of the process took over three days…
Step 2 was to assure myself that there were not remnants of the infection tucked away in one or more files on the computer (there were!) – the main infection would re-emerge each time the computer was booted up.
Step 3 was to assure myself that there were not remnants of the infection tucked away in one or more files on the various USB sticks I use (there were!)
Step 4 was to work my way through the other computers that had been on the network – at least for these, the system seemed clear
Step 5 was to try and figure out what damage had been done. I knew that a number of incoming e-mails had gone missing, but to discover that a goodly number of ‘sent’ e-mails had been redirected to a hidden folder instead of being sent was a new tweak to me. The twist to these two e-mail problems was that is was random incoming or sent e-mails that were diverted – I think I have found all the ‘missing’ sent e-mails, but the diverted incoming e-mails are still missing…
All up, I have done everything I can to ensure that the system is now clean, and I am confident enough to send e-mails, post things to the websites and forward files to other people.
But, for over four weeks I have been using a computer that had not been connected to the network since before the infection appeared for e-mails and any posting and forwarding of files – this has severely hampered my computer activities as most of my usual ‘current’ files were on the infected computer.
This leaves me in catch-up mode. The three weeks of cleaning, plus another week to make sure that the infection did not reappear has put everything that was on #1 computer severely hampered by the back-log.
Oh, well! It has been an interesting experience.
Over the last 30 years there have been quite a few rebuilds of various parts of this organism: bits put back together, bits chopped out, bits reengineered; but apart from a few fillings in the teeth essentially as ‘manufactured’ – but now, Electronically enhanced (at last!)
Put together:
1. Childhood disease that left me partially deaf (not a lot of hearing loss, but enough to be noticeable)
2. Fullbore (.303) as a weekly pastime back in the days when wearing hearing protection was an indication of ‘lack of manliness’
3. Exposure to industrial ‘noise’ during the early 60s (OHS was not dreamt of in those days), followed by…
4. …some years working underground with 2000-6000lbs of explosives set off during most shifts, followed by…
5. …30 years of working with industrial tools in the worst possible locations (lots of daily exposure to +140db)
6. And the occasional thoughtless sod letting off loads that made lots of noise (because REAL men use lots of powder)
are all going to leave a body fairly deaf…
…in my case, very!
I knew that the right ear was cactus except for low frequencies, but in the last few years the left ear has caught up
7. Admit defeat and try to catch up with the world
Electronically enhanced = hearing aids!
Day 1 – fitted
Sheesh! The world is a (VERY!!!) noisy place!
· Keys rattle on key rings
· Being in the same room as someone opening a packet of crisps is an interesting experience
· Being in the same room as someone unwrapping the polywrap from a newspaper is an interesting experience
· Turning the pages of a newspaper is a noisy occupation
· Small children should be banned (or gagged) when in public spaces – particularly shopping malls
· The Daihatsu has rattles
· Clocks tick and tock (ask anyone who has stayed at the Baulkham Hills Hilton, and they will tell you that there are lots of clocks that tick/tock, chime, cuckoo, etc)
· A remote control to play with
· Discover that Baulkham Hills really is under a flight path
· Have I already mentioned that small children should be banned (or gagged) when in public spaces – particularly shopping malls
· The TV volume CAN be turned down
· The volume on radios can be turned down
· Road traffic is noisy
· Toyota Priuses are not totally silent
Moving through to…
Day 4 – learning to live with hearing aids is a progressive thing
· Getting better at learning to use the settings to advantage
· Can hear ‘herself’ (without lip reading)
· Turning them off (or to mute) stops the Daihatsu rattles
· Turning them off in general areas in shopping malls almost makes small children bearable (if they are well behaved and very quiet)
· They do fit under ear muffs when on-range (seemed like a good idea at the time)
· The remote control for the aids is fun
8-10 days in… SISC for AusCup 3
· Shots from various pistols sound different (NO! I do not purposely stand on a range without hearing protection while shots are being fired…)
o The sound of shotguns down at Cecil Park Shotgun club have more treble than the whoomp that I thought was the sound of 12g
o 50m rimfire rifles do make considerable noise
o 25m is noisy, even in the off-line areas of the venue
· SISC tunnel is even noisier than I thought
Booked a flight recently and on the last page of the Qantas on-line booking I noticed a link to ‘add to your calendar’.
Intrigued, I clicked on the link:
· Downloads a small program
· Automatically adds the details for the booked flights to Outlook
· I should not be surprised, but (in its own small way), wow!
I have accused Bigpond of being one of the slowest website around (it cannot be due to lack of technology!), but wish to advise all of a new contender, Vodafone Australia.
1. Is there a Guinness book of Records category for the ‘s—l—o—w—e—s—t website’?
2. Why is it that technology company websites are some of the slowest?
The main computer caught an infection – one of those ‘scareware’ bits of malicious software that:
· pops up notices that you have a virus (looks like the real warnings from my usual anti-virus and defender programs)
· stops the real anti-virus and defender programs from running
· locks the internet browser to their website with an order screen for a US$50 scamware antivirus program
There are ways of cleaning a computer infected in this way, but it ain’t easy! You will need access to an uninfected computer with internet access and only take info and programs from genuine sites (start with Microsoft). While in this case the Microsoft ‘malicious software tool’ did not do the job, they do recommend some non-Microsoft programs
All up, it has taken 4 or 5 days around AusCup3, mothers day and various other things that have kept me away from the computer, but I think I have cleaned the infection.
Being a good citizen, I have avoided sending e-mails, etc. from the problem computer rather than risk passing on the infection – what a hassle: using ‘Herself’s’ computer is the easy bit, but it does not have my address book, current e-mails, etc.
Regards to all