Weekend Waiting and Other Happenings

Did you ever have a problem with coming up with a blog post title? Some just fall into place and others leave one searching, sometimes vainly, for some thought that instantly informs and intrigues as well. Maybe it is the fact that the big “66” milestone has been passed. (And no, I don’t mean Route 66 which travels through Oklahoma City.)

Saturday morning got us up and about to meet up with our youngest son, Eric, and go shooting at H & H gun range here in Oklahoma City. (H & H Gun Range sells all kinds of firearms and archery equipment. They also have ranges for archery, air rifles and pistols, and ranges for handguns and rifles.) After shooting, we were going to go to Mustang and pick up one of Jo’s medical prescriptions and then go out for a belated birthday meal for me. It was belated because at the time of my actual birthday, other things were planned to prevent that small family get-together.

Prior to leaving for the day’s activities, Jo was commenting on how she was irritated that we had not even gotten a notice of shipment for the enclosure for my “Life” on the hard drive for our computer. So, she go online to see if there was any word yet and she found out that the enclosure is in Oklahoma City but delivery won’t be until Monday. They are fulfilling the promise of a 3 day delivery, but we got it without the notice of the shipping of the product.

So, it appears that we will soon see if the “light at the end of the tunnel” gets any better with regards to “Life.” I am still a bit antsy about this whole affair because Eric had some device that was supposed to help one turn a stand-alone drive into an external capable of being seen as a drive and thus copied. However, his device wouldn’t work, apparently because it was somehow related to Windows 98. (Sorry, I don’t understand all that.)

So, off to the range we went. We got there early enough that it was no problem for us to get two lanes next to each other so that we could get our shooting done faster and allow others to shoot as well. Suffice it to say, we had fun putting rounds downrange, but I was reminded of a couple of things, neither of which did I either think to photograph or want to photograph.

First reminder is that one doesn’t want to “mess around” with Jo. At one point she showed me her silhouette target and every one of about 20 rounds was between the heart and stomach areas and inside the outline of the silhouette. One thing I should say in regards to this is that Jo can do that regularly without using the sights on her firearms. It’s kind of like a computer mouse in that you just “point and click,” or in her case it is “point and BANG.”

The second thing I was reminded of was what NOT to do with one’s thumb in a two-hand hold while firing a semiautomatic handgun. (You experienced shooters know where this is going.) Instead of having my left thumb in the right place, it ended up behind the slide of the semiautomatic and the slide’s rearward and forward motion managed to clip the very tip of the thumb. (The reason for no photos of the thumb was because it wasn’t really pretty, even though it wasn’t really bad.) I grabbed my handkerchief and held my thumb in it to apply pressure and continued with shooting, but with one hand instead of two.

As you can imagine, the process of holding a handkerchief to one’s thumb while trying to shoot two-handed leads to being unable to see the sights. Huh. Maybe I ought to follow Jo’s lead and just “point and BANG.” I wasn’t doing as well with my shots as I was trying to sight in carefully and was “anticipating” the recoil, thus shooting off my intended target. Some shots were even out of the silhouette.

We went to Mustang and got Jo’s medicine and then headed north to Yukon to look for a place to eat. While driving up there, we got to talking about camera lenses and Eric had been trying to find a 70-300mm zoom lens that was made by Tamron. So, I suggested that we check at Baker Photo and Video in Yukon to see what they had.

While checking out the lens, the lady helping us attached it to a used Nikon D300 camera body for Eric to see its capabilities. Eric asked if they would “throw in the camera” with the lens. He was joking of course, but the lady said that she couldn’t but told us the price of the used D300. Jo turned to me and told me to go get her purse from the pickup. Eric’s birthday is June 13 and Jo just found, purchased and presented Eric with his birthday present. I know he is pleased, even with a used one, since his camera is a D40 and he has liked my D300’s capabilities.

Baker Photo and Video is conducting a training class with DSLR’s on the 14^th of this month, so Eric and I are both thinking of attending. They told us the class would consist of us using our cameras and lenses and getting one-on-one training with them, all for only $45 per person. Who knows, Jo may decide to take it as well.

The birthday gift for Eric and the birthday meal for me was followed by some shopping for embroidery thread and our normal weekly grocery shopping before going home.

Sunday saw us all getting together again at our other son’s home with his wife and the 4 grandkids. We took our Coleman grill up and grilled hot dogs, had some fun playing with the kids, offered to watch the four kids sometime so Kevin and Amy could have a “date night.” We also found out that Kevin was just hired for a new job with a private company and he will be leaving the Oklahoma Tax Commission in the middle of the month for a better paying job.

Then later today, I received an e-mail from a blogger that I have been following. It is Ted and Cheryl who take about 4 months a year and roam around the different national and state parks. They take some great photos and are avid hikers and kayakers, so they get some great shots. You might check them out at two different online locations. The one with their earlier postings is at:

http://www.outindewoods.blogspot.com/

In our e-mail communications, he commented that he has moved over to WordPress with a new blog as he wants to get away from Google’s tendencies to share user data with others willing to “pay the price” for that personal data. His new blog, which is really a continuation of his old one, is at:

http://outindewoods.wordpress.com/

Following the communicating we did, I checked out both WordPress and Windows Live Writer. I’ve been using Blogger and Windows Live Writer and like the way Live Writer works as a tool for blogging and inserting photos and videos. To my surprise, Live Writer is also capable of working with WordPress, so I am thinking of changing myself. It also appears that one can import Blogger posts over into WordPress, so I am definitely interested. If you are a follower of my blog, stay tuned as I might just be changing the internet address where my blog is located.

Perhaps the “light at the end of the tunnel is getting better since “Life’s” enclosure is supposed to be here tomorrow.  Stay tuned for the exciting news of either a disastrous crash (if it doesn’t work) or happy times for all in my family (if it does work.)