The Return?

Am I back? I'm here in the frozen north for training. Turns out there is another group from my company here too. Last night we all went out to dinner.

There's a girl. She's hot. As the night went on she got more and more touchy. She got up to turn in and held here hand up to kinda high five... Sort of. I obliged. She held it.

That's all there is as of now.

Fear

I hate being in my position. Director of my redneck sport that is. I agreed to do it for selfish reasons. I enjoy the sport. It was obvious to me the guy in charge before was close to calling it quits. If I said no when he asked, I saw the sport dying. I took over so I would be able to continue to compete.

In just over a month, I'm holding a State Championship here. I wake up in the middle of the night most nights and I have a big ball of fear in my stomach. I'm terrified of this match. There are so many things to get done. I obviously can't do everything myself. So I need people. I hate relying on other people. They always let me down. I spent 3 months waiting for someone to contract with a hotel. Another 3 months waiting for someone to contact sponsors. 3 more waiting for someone to publish the application.

On of the people involved is more OCD than I am. Or rather ADD. She has thrown herself into this sport. Her husband was very active. Then, about 8-10 years ago he got Leukemia. He died about 2 years ago. She was close to retirement age anyway. Evidently (or so she tells us.. repeatedly), he left her pretty well off. I guess her way of dealing with it was to retire and immerse herself into the sport. She is now charge of the entire Southeast. I'll call her Lori.

She is also the best scorekeeper/scheduler/registration person. No one here can do what she does on the scale I need (well... almost no one.. I'll come back to that). So I need her. I always say it's a wonder anything ever gets done in this sport. Shooters are ALL type A. And she brings a whole new A game. I love her to death. But she is stubborn, opinionated, and close minded.

Traditionally, we always have a banquet after the match and a "party". Most matches don't do this. Usually, you finish shooting, stand around for an hour, then have the awards ceremony on the spot. The first question everyone asked me when I agreed to do this was "Are we having that stupid banquet?". The very first thing Lori told me was "This match has traditions. We always do "X" for the shooters. We always pay cash for awards. And we always have a banquet. As long as I'm involved in this State we will continue those traditions". I've been stuck in the middle of the local people who absolutely do no want this banquet, and one of the crucial people I need ever since who gave me an ultimatum. Banquet or her.

She also is in charge of the money. Again, I'm stuck between my local club/facility who has their view of finances, and Lori who has hers (I agree with her 100% on this one btw). One of those "traditions" is we pay out most of the money from the match to the shooters. The club's view is the shooters get a trophy and that's it.

My solution was to do a little sidestep, pitch it as the "organization as a whole" stepping in and providing financing etc. The club is getting a flat fee. This satisfied my club. But now Lori holds the purse strings. The whole 3 month late getting the application published had two effects. First, it cuts down on participation. People have to plan vacations. When they're making a choice, they look at a match with an application out and one without and they choose the one they can sign up for now. Second, and more important to me, I can't book anything without money. I can't sign up for the stupid banquet. I can't book food. Can't order trophies, T-shirts, portalets etc. I can't book anything without paying deposits. Without the application out, we have no income. So I was 3 months late getting money.

I could have avoided this problem altogether if not for one little tiny choice I made 2 years ago. That was telling Sandy to fuck off. Sandy is probably the only other person in this State who can do what Lori does. She has worked with Lori enough times to know how she does it successfully. She also has ventured out on her own running the behind the scenes on a much larger match than this one. While she doesn't have the amount of experience Lori does, she is an organizational genius (part of her OCD). She also has at least 1 major match under her belt too. I guarantee this would have been so much better if I could've used her. But, life is about choices and boy did I make one. It was probably for the best for me personally. But it really bit me in the ass in this aspect.

I could go on and on (and I will.. I started to write just a short paragraph but I couldn't stop myself so... skip down some if this is boring you). There was the guy telling me to fuck off when the national sanctioning body wouldn't approve his stages without some very minor tweaks. I don't know why it irked him. I didn't think it was a big deal and nothing I didn't have to do myself on the stuff I contributed. There is the guy who promised to get me sponsors for the match who waited until it was way too late. T-shirts has been another good one. No one would step up. So I designed a shirt. Then people chimed in to take it on. That was 6 weeks ago. Still no T-shirt vendor. AND there's the club. I'm the FNG. You could split the club into 2 camps. The "action" sports (me) and the old school sports (rifle). The "other" side has no respect for the action sports. Even though we bring in the lions share of revenue to the club. I'm having to share the facility with the "other" side. Their match will have MAYBE 10 people. Mine should have at least 150 (I'm hoping for 200). Of course this is once again putting me in the middle of my crew and the club. My crew "What idiot made that decision?!!" (that would be THIS idiot). My conversation with them went something like me: "On this weekend I'm having a major match" them: "yeah so?"

I'm close to being ready. All of the major things that have been eating at me are either done or well on their way. I know now this WILL happen. It may not be the best event we've had. But it will be a good one for sure.

I'm done whining.

We had a major event in our data center over the weekend (ok maybe I'm not done). I ended up coming to work Saturday. Unfortunately, I had planned to build things I need for the match. It poured all day Sunday. I switched gears and worked on some of the things we need. But I'm behind now.

This week is going to be a busy one. I have a vendor in town doing part 2 of what was supposed to be a single go-live. The original engineer threw his back out so we had to split up the work. Then I'm heading to Madison Wi. for training Wed (anyone interested in getting together?? Anyone? Anyone?). Our regular monthly match is Saturday. I won't be back until late Friday night. Hopefully, the regular crew can set it up in my absence.

Addiction

I guess I have an addictive personality. When I decide to do something. I obsess over it. Day and night. Until I'm sick of it. Then I move on.

Some obsessions last longer than others. First, there was sailing. I was all sailing all the time. I bought a boat before I even knew how to sail and taught myself. I read obsessively. I dreamed of owning a big boat and sailing around the world.

Then there was music. I've been a musician since I was 7. I wouldn't say I obsessed over it when I was younger. But after the Ex Mrs and I split up and series of circumstances brought me back to music, I played in a band. We gigged. I thought about music and more specifically equipment day and night. The best PA. The best bass rig. New guitars. Lights.

The shine went off that diamond and I moved on to motorcycles. Then karate and fitness. Of course who could deny my obsession with sex. Or at least the notion of it. The practice fell a little short. But there are 7 years of posts on this blog... SEVEN devoted to the pursuit of it.

My latest addiction? Building AR rifles. The damned things are so easy to do. It's like I'm Bleeding Gums Murphy with my $1,500 Faberge Egg habit. I pull up pictures of components. Piece them together. "No... I don't like the weight on this piece... the handguards have a diamond texture and I want crosshatch... the color doesn't match my eyes".

Every good redneck should have a couple for sure. I mean you need one for the mall ninja in you. Then you need one to be a "match rifle" whatever that means to you. Of course, you have to have one in a non-standard caliber. Once you learn how expensive it is to shoot on a regular basis you just have to build one in .22 "just like my main gun" for "practice". The nostalgia gun built like the original Vietnam era M16. Let's add NFA (National Firearms Act) stuff to the list.. a short barrel and suppressed/silenced (all with appropriate paperwork making it legal). There are at least a couple just for NFA stuff. You can get a couple out of subsonic/pistol calibers. And if you get really crazy you can get the really oddball but super cool .50BMG caliber top end. With that guy you get the quixotical synergy of expense, cool factor, pain and uselessness. Kind of like racing a Ferrari on a go-cart track.

One of the cool features of these things is modularity. Because these are government designs, pieces, parts, and whole assemblies are interchangeable. At the base level the rifle is in 2 pieces, an upper receiver and a lower receiver. The 2 halves come apart with simple push pins. For the most part, upper receivers and lower receivers can be interchanged. So if you have 1 lower receiver, you can swap out top ends of any configuration you like. Thusly, exponentially increasing the variety of rifles.

For me, the way these rifles come to be is almost organic. I started off with one (actually 2 but I gave one to my Dad), then over time I realized I built it without having any real experience shooting the rifle. Around the same time the realization was hitting me, I was beginning to compete in some tactical matches. A friend was selling a 1/2 complete upper receiver geared towards the sport so I bought it and finished it with the parts I wanted. Then I wasn't happy with the lower receiver for competition and built another. The count was now up to 2. I had a .22 already set up as a hunting rifle. Since I never hunted, and the cost of ammo was making practice really tough, I bought a kit to make it just like an AR. I chose parts similar to my competition rifle so it would be the "same".

Somewhere along the line I realized my first rifle wasn't getting any use because it just didn't match my experience. So I rebuilt it to have all of the cool features I had come to appreciate. It is my "Korean and irradiated Japan zombie army gun".

Now I'm working on another version of the .22. I want something lighter weight than my competition .22 practice gun for C to shoot when she's ready. The one I have is a beast. Heavy as hell. Super accurate but not very kid friendly. I researched and fretted. Held up parts. Combined parts I already had. Now I'm 2/3 finished with a new top end in .22.

In my research for the new .22 top end, I discovered the latest and greatest thing for ARs, the 6.8 calibre... suppressed. It's the perfect intermediate range hunting/sniper rifle. Oh I picture myself easing up to a fallen tree, resting the rifle on a trunk. Sighting in on the biggest juiciest hog destroying some poor guy's crops. Putting the crosshairs right behind the ear and ssssskIOOOWWWwww. It's suppressed so the hogs just stand there wondering what the little crack was and why Wilber quit eating..

Do I HAVE a place to hunt??? Nooooo... Have I EVER hunted hogs??? Noooo... but the 6.8 calls. "It's just a little money... you don't have one in camouflage... you have another stripped lower in the safe just begging to be mated to me..."

So quick tally of the cell splitting AR tribbles:

1 simple AR (rebuilt)
+ 1/2 competition upper
+ 1/2 competition lower
= 2 rifles
+ 1 .22 "kit"
= 3 rifles
+ 1/2 .22 conversion (completion parts in the mail)
= 3.5 rifles
FUTURE
+ 1/2 6.8 upper
= 3.5 + .5 rifles
+ 1/2 6.8 lower (because I have another lower just waiting for parts and I want to paint them to matching camouflage)
= 4 rifles
+.... 9mm... + .308 for big bore...

Someone take away my internet, magazines, and credit cards...

The Pull...

Lately, I've been feeling a familiar tug. Low. Deep down. No, no one (or me) tugging at my cock. I mean a nagging feeling. An emptiness.

I let the old Pluff die some time ago. My life was reaching a critical mass of crossroads. I was at a standstill at work. The "extras" in my life were dead weight. Worse than dead weight. They were sucking me into an abyss of insecurity and need. I decided "no more negativity" in my life. Time for me to be an upstanding, decent, hard working, morally pure (snark) citizen. To me the Pluff alter-ego, secret identity, superhero was fueling or perhaps, enabling all of the negativity and angst at the time.

But more than a year later, here I am. I guess the zebra can't change his stripes unless he's in Tijuana. But even then, does he really change them? Perhaps for the last year (plus) I've been under the delusion a sloppy coat of white paint rolled over my stripes would change me.

So I'm going to give this a shot again. If for no other reason than to vent. The proverbial outgassing of hydrogen (or perhaps methane is a better metaphor).

I revisited my first post. It's entertaining reading the Pluff back then vs. the Pluff now. Back then I would have categorized this as a "sex" blog. I talked about sex. Wrote about sex. Fantasized about sex. Tried unsuccessfully to use the blog to get sex. Not that I would turn down a good romp. But sex isn't my primary focus now. Having said that, let me re-introduce myself.

Hi, I'm Pluff. I'm now a 40 something white male living in the deep south. My hometown is famous for it's history and pivotal role in a chapter of American history. It is also famous for my namesake.

I've been married for 9.8 years. Mrs and I have a big one coming up in a little over a month. I have a (now) 9 year old Daughter who is the love of my life. I'm still a geek working at the same place I was back then. I enjoy shooting. I compete. For now, I am in charge of the sport in my area. At the moment, that aspect is the defining part of my life.

I go to work, work out, practice, and go to bed. When I'm not at work, sleeping, working out, or practicing, I'm working on the next competition. In May, I'm running a Championship match. The details are staggering and I'm about to pull my freakin hair out.

In the last 2 weeks, My Boss assigned me to a HUGE project. We will be replacing an old, outdated, poorly designed system with a new one. It will have a direct impact on the community and our bottom line. I'm excited to be a part of it.

This is the part where the old Pluff peeks out. Next week I'm traveling to the Madison Wi. area for training. I'm sure I have dropped off of anyone's blogroll out there. BUT... if by chance any pervs in the area still read this. Give me a shout.

I guess that will do for now. We'll see how the new Pluff goes.