Punchdrunkmonkeyman.com

It's been quiet.

That's a good thing, of course.

I bought a Glock.

(I had a longer, probably more boring version of this post, but my login expired and I lost it. Hopefully, this captures the gist of it.)

I bought a Generation 3 Glock 19 last Saturday. I don't like it, but will, in the near-ish term, be using it to replace my beloved Browning Hi-Power as my default carry gun.

I'm retiring the Browning for a couple of reasons:

First, there are some middling complaints about the function of the gun which will take some effort (and money) to get fixed. Nothing has changed here: the magazine disconnect still irks me, as do the magazines that won't drop free, or that the hammer bites the web of my hand. None of this is serious enough to fix right now, but it's all stuff I want to get fixed.

Second, the logistics of the Hi-Power suck like hard vacuum. For a gun that's actually being produced, parts are difficult to find, and cost too much money. Factory anything costs anywhere from 25% to 100% more than it ought to, including the price of the gun itself. After-market accessories and parts exist, but are a bit thin on the ground. Holsters would be nearly non-existent if the Hi-Power weren't about the same size as a compact 1911.

So, it's going to go back in its case and only come out when I can't stand to carry the plastic wondergun or want to take it to the range.

Unlike the Hi-Power, I really don't love the Glock. I don't even like it. It's ugly, has a plastic frame and a striker-fired action. Everybody and their aunt has one and at least half of all Glock owners are rabid fanboys not entirely dissimilar to old-school Mac users (i.e. "I've only ever used this one thing of this type, but let me tell you how much better it is than whatever you're using now."). Disassembly requires pulling the trigger on a closed chamber, which can and has caused negligent discharges and injuries. The factory sights are made of plastic. The factory controls are too small. The grip doesn't feel good in the hand. It doesn't have an external safety other than the trigger blade.

But. The thing is, I didn't buy the Glock because I'd changed my mind and suddenly become a fan. I bought it because it solves the persistent problems I've had because I chose to use and carry the Hi-Power. You can buy parts or accessories for a Glock almost every place that sells guns. And the parts are affordable, they all drop in, and the gun shop probably has at least one guy certified as a Glock armorer, anyway. The guns have an excellent (if overblown) reputation for durability and reliability.

So, I don't like it. It's a choice which does not please me. But, I think I respect it, and that'll have to do.

In the meantime, I've replaced the stock magazine release, will have new sights on order before the weekend is out, and have already got a light and laser installed. Still need a holster and magazine carrier, but my wallet's been soaked enough for one month.

It's been a month and a half.

On the one hand, I had a heart valve replaced on May 30th because, back in February, the doctor picked up on what turned out to be a congenital defect. I'll probably have a bit more to say on that later, but it turned out to be good that I didn't take any longer than I did getting it taken care of. Also, hospital food? Not very appealing, for the most part. It's been (correction: is still) an interesting and inspiring experience, but I'd recommend against doing it unless you have to (but, in that case, do it).

On the other hand, I am (finally) the proud owner of a shiny, new Bush~~amster~~master ACR. You may not give a crap, but I have been anticipating one for five years. I took it apart this evening (I at least field strip most guns after buying them and before shooting ) and put it back together, and mangled an O-ring in the process. It's not a critical part, thankfully, but it's a bit annoying, all the same. Otherwise, I am pleased, and look forward to shooting it as soon as I'm able.

Memorial Day

To those who went and those who didn't come back:

Thanks.

Roomba Rumba

Not quite four-and-a-half years ago, I snagged a Roomba Scheduler off of Woot.com. After about a year, though, the battery capacity had fallen so precipitously that it barely ran at all, and it didn't seem to be getting much out of being docked on the home base. At the time, I just figured the battery was kaput, so I ordered a new one, swapped it, and ... no dice. Roomba would charge fine directly from the wall, but not off the home base. This suggested a problem with the home base, but, at the time, I didn't have the information to confirm this (because it could still have been the Roomba's connection to the home base, instead of something in the home base, itself).

Three years later, I finally got tired of having a robot sitting around being useless, so I did some research, and hit upon somebody else's documentation of diagnosing their Roomba.

Although the model and symptoms aren't quite the same, that turned out to be my problem: the home base was cooked.

The long and the short of what I needed to confirm that:

A voltmeter. I have a cheap multimeter laying around someplace, but can't find it. I wound up buying a new multimeter at Home Depot, but Radio Shack had a cheap one I should probably have grabbed, instead.
A 4.7k ohm resistor, good for at least 1/4 watt. I bought some 1/2-watt 4.7k ohm resistors at Radio Shack. They worked fine
A means of connecting the resistor to either the probes of your meter, or to the contacts of the Roomba home base. One approach is pictured in the article linked above. I grabbed a bunch of alligator-clipped test leads while I was at Radio Shack.

With each end of the resistor clipped to a different probe, it was pretty trivial to check the voltage being put out by my home base. The good/bad news for me is that, instead of rising to about 22.5 volts, my base was falling to 2 volts. Well, as they say, there's my problem.

When the new base arrived, I double checked the voltage on it, just for good measure: it puts out a bit over 20. Not quite as high as it ought to be, but I'm not sure what the tolerance is on that number, and it sure seems to have done the trick: Roomba's been busily eating dust bunnies and getting caught on cables for over a week, now.

The World Is Full of Mystery and Wonder

People, I don't know if you knew already, but I just found out squids can fly. Like rockets.

(Link stolen from SayUncle.)

I was wrong

I did manage to make it to the range in December, which makes a total of three trips for all of 2011 (not counting AAC's Silencer Shoot, which was pretty awesome, you guys). Not a great year, on multiple fronts.

I shot the Hi-Power, an AR I completed back in May, the 870 (purchased last January) and the Sterling carbine (re-received back in October). I had the CZ and Sig Mosquito packed, but they never got brought out. C'est la vie. I emptied the magazine in the Hi-Power, and fired the AR, 870, and Sterling for the first time. Everything worked! Huzzah!

Alas, I am way out of practice, and hardly hit anything.

I only have one magazine for the Sterling at the moment, but shooting it's a gas. There's almost no recoil, and very little noise or blast (pistol ammo through a 16" barrel: go figure). I couldn't tell how much of the problem with hitting with it was due to the sights and how much was me. (I wasn't impressed with the peep sight, though.) Still, fun.

Just FWIW: the Sterling carbine is a Wise Lite build purchased and worked over by the guys at Crusader Weaponry. Fun gun, and I've been pretty pleased with the customer service.

I'm blogrolled where?

I keep forgetting that I'm actually linked one or two places other than the RGSB list, which tends to contain people I have actually met. Just discovered I'm on a list of 'gun blogs', which, I guess, is as accurate a label as any other.

I expect I'll have some relevant content again, soonish. Before the end of the year, surely. Probably not before the end of the month.

So, that happened.

Actually, I did have a good time at homecoming last weekend, but I think my first instincts were right: I should probably have skipped the 10-year thing.

That's not to say I disliked seeing people, but it was too many people in too little space for my liking. I also saw pretty much everybody who came that I cared to see both before and after, anyway.

So, it was nice seeing everybody! But I'll probably pass on the 15- and 20-year gatherings in favor of doing something other than moping around in a room that is too warm and too loud.

(Oh, you think I'm kidding about the lamp? Nope.)

Seems like the thing to do.

Seen here, and here, and here in my RSS aggregator.

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov (Only two of three, though)
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan (Excepting New Spring and the last three volumes)
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
22. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
49. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks (Overrated.)
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

32 out of 100. Not giving myself credit for Verne, or Wells, which entries I've read, but only greatly abridged. Nor for one or two others I've only read excerpts of. Anathem I've got but haven't managed to sit down and read, yet.

Honestly, I found World War Z a bit tiresome. I didn't care for the format, but I also wasn't particularly persuaded by Brooks' ... interesting grasp of firearms. That aside, it's okay.

I think The Road is also fairly overrated, and I'm not sure it really qualifies for a list of science fiction. It sure was damned depressing, though.

Regarding the Foundation trilogy, I gave up early in Second Foundation. I think I was still in middle school at the time, so other than being bored, I couldn't tell you why.