Then why ask

I guess it's good in that the things I do to help will be less and less. I don't get why someone asks for help. Then goes around questioning the help behind my back, finally to throw it back at me.

As I said before, I talked Sandy into helping me with my big event next year. The baggage that comes along with that is she asks me to help her with things. Or rather, she complains incessantly until I offer to fix it.

Case in point, I ordered bullets for my redneck sport. And by bullets, I mean the actual projectile. Not what you get in a store, in a shiny box with brass, powder, primer all ready to be loaded into the gun and shot. For our sport, we make our own ammo. It's more cost effective, but more importantly, there are rules specifying how "powerful" your ammunition MUST be. We load our own to insure we meet that requirement. I've seen a lot of people spend a fair amount of money to go to a championship (entry fees in the hundreds, gas, hotel, food) only to have their factory ammunition not make muster.

Politics being what they are, people have hoarded ammunition components and drove the price sky high. Personally, I've been looking towards cheaper alternatives. It came up in conversation with Sandy. She said "Ooh.. if you're ordering add a case for me". I made sure she understood I was ordering a new type of bullet to test out that is significantly cheaper than what we've been using. But the key word is "TEST". She was ok with it.

Bullets came in. I walked in her house, dropped them off, then left. The next weekend she showed up at a match and started bitching becuase these bullets seat differently and they won't fit her gun. Ok.. not a problem.. we just have to just her ammunition makin machine (something she should've done herself).

So I drove over to her house again. We spent some time adjusting, measuring, tweaking etc. etc. While I was there she said, "Hey, take a look at this other machine I have. It's stuck". The machine is used to take previously shot brass cases and return them to factory dimensions. First, it wasn't stuck. She had a "tricep malfunction". Little bit of actual arm and it worked fine. Secondly, the reason she needed so much muscle was because the machine was actually scratching the crap out of the cases.

In my experience, this happens when you use cases made of a certain material. It becomes brittle at the mouth and tiny little almost microscopic pieces flake off. They "stick" to the steel in the machine and scratch the shit out of the brass. Further, it makes it REALLY hard to work the machine because of the increased friction. I've found the best way to deal with it is to use the proper type and amount of lubrication. I went through this with my own machines. It took me months and tons of time online to figure out what was happening. But once I did, I had NO more issues. Zero.

I took it apart, held it to the light, showed her the tiny little pieces stuck on the dies. She said "is it ruined"? I told her no, you can take a dremmel with a felt wheel and gently polish it to get the flakes out. So I did. I tested it. It works fine.

Yesterday, while talking to her about the event, she said "Oh, by the way... I was at #recent industry event# and talked to the owner of the company who makes that and he never heard of what you told me. I also told him you polished it and he almost fainted.

FUCK.. HER. I actually went to the companies own page. On THEIR own product support they discuss exactly what I told and showed her. Not only that, THEIR solution was to put the fucking thing in a LATHE with 400 grit sandpaper and sand it out.

So I'll just check that off of the things I'm willing to help her with. I think I'm up to 3 or 4 things now. Before long, I think I will be back to a net ZERO on the "owe her for helping me" card.

What the hell am I thinking???

Here I go again...

Last weekend I travelled out of town to participate in my sport of the red neck variety. It was our State Championship. It was one really weird, up and down weekend.

I shot on Friday. I felt like I had a pretty decent day. Consistent. No huge mistakes. Usually I can gauge how well I performed by the other people I'm shooting with. However, I was with a group of guys who's abilities were a little below mine. I had no one to gauge how I was stacking up. I knew I beat all of that crowd. Just not how that crowd faired relative the heavy hitters.

Friday night a bunch of us went to dinner. Late in the evening I got an email from the scoring people with my results. I had a 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 5th, 7th, 7th..(woohoo!) basically all but 1 finish were top 10. Only about 1/3 of the competitors had shot. But I happened to know the probable winner had already competed. So I felt pretty good with a 1st place, couple of 2nds etc. I pulled up the overall placings (instead of just mine) to see where I stood. I was expecting top 5 with those results. I was 9th (fuuuuck). I was pretty bummed. I mean, I thought with those places I really should've been up there. In my head I'm thinking "why the hell do I bother.. I mean I did the best I could and it's not even close.."

Once back in the hotel room I started trying to look at my scores more closely to see what went wrong. Where did I screw up? 1st event decent.. 2nd kicked ass.. 3rd bad but not worth a lot of points 4th kicked ass... 5th... 5th... Beuller... where the hell was my 5th event.. OOOOHHHH I was missing a score (happens.. no big deal it would turn up the next day). I grabbed my copy of the score, did the math and with the missing points I was in THIRD freakin place (woohooo)

The next day was a long day of work for the remaining competitors. In my mind I started thinking, I might could pull off the State Championship (the 1st and 2nd place guys were from out of state and don't qualify for that award). I got all dream sequency.. walking up to applause in front of all of my friends being crowned champion. I needed 2 people to have really bad days and it might could happen. Both of those guys came by and I watched them perform where I was working. They kicked ass (fuuuuuuck).

After it was all over I waited for the results to come out to see if I stood a chance or not. After 20 minutes the sheets with scores started trickling out. I took a look. I got one of them in this event.. he got me in another.. I had both of them here.. they squeaked by me there... ooooohhhh they both screwed up royally on one... I might... just maybe.. did I pull it off??

Then came an annoucement. "Folks, there is a huge problem with the scoring program. We won't be able to get results today. We're going to have to start over to get rid of corruption in the database. A lot of the scores you see are way off" (FUUUUUUUCKKK)

So yeah the weekend was like "meh.. WOOHOOO.. fuck... wait a minute WOOHOOO.. fingers crossed.. FUUUCKKK .. hang on.. maybe?? messed up?!?!? FUUUUUUUUUUCK

Turns out I am not champion. I did put up a hell of a fight. I did win 1st place in my handicap. My overall finish was my best ever at this level. So in the end it was pretty good.

Back to Friday night dinner. Long story short, I am running next year's deal again. This is the same event I ran last year when "the incident" occured. This year will be different. God help me I talked Sandy into helping. I really wanted her to help last year but we weren't talking. This coming year hopefully will be the caliber of event it should've been last year. Praying without another incident.

Lastly, my online experience has been dwindling. I'm still lurking and obviously posting occasionally. But, my attention span anymore is better suited for twitter. If anyone is interested I'm at pluffmudinsouth there too.

Not signing off or saying bye or anything like that. Just more active with 1 liners there. I come here when I have time (not as often as I like).