Mather

Just installed MT, something I've been meaning to do for a while. I was inspired after seeing Scott Jungling's weblog. I've been meaning to play with MT for a while, seeing how Scott has implemented and used his blog made diving in a no brainer. The install wasn't too bad, took about 2 hours, mainly because I missed the part about the ASCII requirement for cgi files.

This week Nissa and I bought a 42" Philips HD plasma from Costco. Let me just say Wow. What a huge difference in picture quality.

Not a bad deal for a plasma with a built in tuner. I had my heart set on the Pioneer 50", but my wallet couldn't validate the excess 8 inches for twice the price. Little tip: never walk into Costco if you have even a smidge of desire to purchase an hdtv 'someday'.

We didn't even have a truck to carry it home. We were like Wal-Mart hill-billies unpacking the damn thing in the parking lot and sliding into the back seat.

And carrying that thing in the house by myself was an adventure. Let me just say I was sweatin' balls that something bad was going to happen before I could even fire up the dang thing.

- It's up and it is good! -

In Mather using the OTA - Over The Air powered antenna we are able to get:

KCRA - NBC 3.1
KCRA - WeatherPlus 3.2
KVIE - PBS 6.1
KVIE - PBS 6.2
KXTVDT - ABC 10.1
KOVRHD - CBS 13.1
KTXLDT - FOX 40.1
KQCADT - WB 58.1

The clarity is eye popping, I can't believe I am recieving this kind of signal from a pair of suped up rabbit ears. Nissa and I have the bad habit of watching both Apprentice shows and for the current season we have watched all the shows on our CRT recieving the analog signal through E*(Dish).

Just let me say that some of there are some people on both shows that really should not be shown close-up in HD. Facial-features, skin-traits, facial hair (especially for the ladies) are all unforgivably noticible in an HD closeup.

Could this be the death of reality TV?
If people see these jokers up close will they still have the stomach to watch? It will definately will take a intestinal fortitune to watch porn. "Cue the Soft-Focus before I barf!"

Here is a great site for finding what HDTV channels may be available in your area, along with listings.
TitanTV

Saturday my friend talked me into going to the Cordova Shooting Center. Since it's almost in my backyard in Mather I decided to check it out.

Somehow I managed to stay away from the thug-life (sic) I haven't shot a gun of any type since I was twelve. My dad was never a gun owner, but his friend owned quite a few, and even made his own ammunition. His friend owned some ranch-land way out in the boonies of the foothills in Tuolumne County and occasionally he would invite my family to join his family for an outing. On some of these trips we would target shoot. My dad's friend was very strict about gun safety, which was understood if he was putting a .22 caliber rifle in the hands of a 12 yr. old. That was my gun experience up until this point.

Out at the Cordova Shooting Center the gun shop is a trailer about 100 yds from the firing range. All types of shells line the shelves behind the shop attendees. All sorts of hand-guns are under glass at the counter. I inquired about renting a hand-gun, and discovered that I could not rent a hand-gun, unless I had a HSC (handgun safety certificate). I could get a low power rifle without the cert, to get the cert, I had to take a 30 question test, and pay about $25. I thought about it for a minute, and decided to get the certificate, because I came to shoot a handgun not go back to a .22. So they gave me a 50 page booklet to study, and about 30 minutes later I was ready to go. I decided to rent a Sig 9mm a lot like this one.

It was interesting, with earplugs and eye-protection on my friend gave me instructions about the intricacies of the 9mm semi-automatic handgun, how to use the slide lock when loading the clip, how the saftey worked, and how to eject the clip after firing.

After practicing loading and unloading with an empty clip, I loaded up the clip with 10 - 9mm rounds, popped the clip into place in the butt of the gun, released the slide lock, leveled my arm down range, slid the safety to the 'unsafe' position, checked the gun sites, aimed at my paper target, and squeezed the trigger. BANG!!! My first shot, was pure addrenalin, and fear all at the same time. This was no .22.

As I was baptized in the smell of gunpowder and the sound of thunder a gentleman a few booths down (probably a security guard or some form of wanna-be cop) was loading a .50 caliber handgun that I can only describe as cartoonishly big. This hand-cannon did not go BANG!!!, it went BOOOM!!! I was already rattled with the pop-gun I was firing; having this guy firing at the same time within a short distance beside me was a tad unnerving. I managed to squeeze out the last of my clip and took a breather to admire my handy work. I barely hit my paper target 30-40 feet away. So much for accuracy. I reloaded and repeated the same process until I was out of bullets, by my last 30 shots I began to feel more comfortable, and the booming going on around me, bothered me less, and I could concentrate more on my target. I even got within the center ring of my target a couple times. Not bad since I haven't used a gun for a while.

Overall it was a fun experience, although I have no desire to own a handgun, I wouldn't mind going to shoot again.

Updated Firefox with new features like auto updating and a menu and keyboard shortcut to clear 'private data'. A must for any web-surfin fool. Link Friends don't let friends use IE.