It’s a happy day for the Windows Phone 7 team.
I should go celebrate or something but my chemistry set is frowned upon in Redmond.
I’ll probably get some iPhones and Androids to dispose of in Idaho after the carriers start selling in the U.S.
Category Archives: Boomershoot
Rules to remember
Alan blasphemies by questioning the word of Jeff Cooper. Sebastian follows up with similar thoughts.
The NRA put some thought into this topic many, many years ago and came up with three fundamental rules instead of Coopers four:
- ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.
- ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.
- ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.
Notice the rules are all expressed as things you must do.
The Cooper rules are a mixture of things that must and must not be done. This is not good. If you were told to not imagine pink elephants what is the first thing that enters your mind? Yeah, images of pink elephants.
The most frequent questions people have above rules are:
- What about carrying your gun or in the nightstand while sleeping?
- Does rule 3 mean I have to keep it unloaded until I am preparing to shoot a bad buy?
The answer is the gun is “in use” when you put it in the holster on your hip or in the nightstand. Hence, the gun may be loaded while you are carrying it.
I hate to be divisive but I’ve long been of the belief that the NRA rules are much better than the Cooper set. It is because of this I have used them as the basis for the Boomershoot rules for many years.
10:10 10/10/10
This day is supposed to be some sort of special environmental day. But “no pressure”. They will just blow you up and splatter your body parts all over the room if you don’t go along with their agenda.
As the UK’s Telegraph says, “The environmental movement has revealed the snarling, wicked, homicidal misanthropy beneath its cloak of gentle, bunny-hugging righteousness.”
I see.
I would like for the environmental movement to know that they aren’t the only ones with explosives. And guns. Don’t forget the guns. And also, I have earth moving equipment. If needed I can bury bodies very, very deep.
So, with that in mind some friends and I went out and did a little practicing.
First we dug up the dirt. This was the first time Barron had driven a bulldozer. Here he porpoises through the dirt but later he was doing fine.
Here is the end result (after I smoothed things out):
As you can see there is room for lots of bodies should the environmentalist get as aggressive as they are threatening to do. And not only can we dig up the earth to dispose of their bodies but we could use the mounds of dirt over their bodies to use as shooting positions when we release more CO2 into the air when invite lots of people to shoot at explosives.
Here we set off some explosives, releasing CO2 into the air, with guns which also release CO2:
And we smiled as we did it (and don’t fail to notice the big, fuel guzzling, pickup):
Quote of the day—Ray Ash
how funny, two $6k rifles, two $2k rifles, $1k ammo, $1.5k worth of travel expenses going to the boomershoot, a week off work, lost $800 in winnemucca on the way up . . so about $500.00 worth of targets ??? . . i’ll get back to you and let you know how many we can make out of a sheet . . and those are my expenses, there are four of us in my truck…
Ray Ash
Via email on October 4, 2010
[Ray offered to make some steel targets for Boomershoot at no charge and asked how many I wanted. I said:
Free wouldn’t be right.
An equal quantity of Pepper Poppers and Mini-Poppers coming to a total of ~$500.
He thought what I said was funny. He could be right about that even though I didn’t intend it to be.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Wikipedia, Shaped charge
Most of the jet formed moves at hypersonic speed. The tip moves at 7 to 14 km/s, the jet tail at a lower velocity (1 to 3 km/s), and the slug at a still lower velocity (less than 1 km/s). The exact velocities are dependent on the charge’s configuration and confinement, explosive type, materials used, and the explosive-initiation mode. At typical velocities, the penetration process generates such enormous pressures that it may be considered hydrodynamic; to a good approximation, the jet and armor may be treated as incompressible fluids, with their material strengths ignored.
Wikipedia, Shaped charge
Emphasis added.
Found while Wikiwandering from a link at Roberta’s.
[“… may be treated as incompressible fluids, with their material strengths ignored”! That statement makes me light-headed and weak at the knees. The “7 to 14 km/s” doesn’t hurt either.
7 km/s is about 23,000 feet per second. Your .220 Swift is considered a very zippy cartridge but it only gives you about 4,100 feet per second at the muzzle. Hence a shaped charge gives you velocities 5 to 10 times that of a .220 Swift at the muzzle. This is considered high-hypersonic to re-entry speeds.
I have books on computer simulation of shaped charges. I really need to write the software then do some field testing. Supposedly it is pretty easy to punch through three feet of reinforced concrete. I have some large rocks out in the middle of some fields I’d like to experiment with.—Joe]
Noise pollution
I was considering competing in the contest (via Say Uncle) but then I saw the Judging Criteria included this:
Externalities (such as noise pollution, public relations, etc.) imposed onto other businesses which may locate aboard the same seastead and to the overall seasteading movement.
What I had in mind might have “rocked the boat” a little bit.
Now if Microsoft would set up shop offshore someplace where we wouldn’t have to pay such high taxes I’d be near the front of the line to volunteer for the transfer.
Not planned for Boomershoot any time soon
Via Mad Rocket Scientist I found some pictures of much more awesome fireballs than what we do at Boomershoot.
Although we have no plans for anything like that in the immediate future I really haven’t looked into it that much. There are certain regulatory hurdles that appear to be sufficiently high that it makes compliance unlikely in the near future.
We would need to use a different range and I suspect the entry fee would have to be prohibitively high too. All and all it just doesn’t seem like its going to happen any time soon no matter how cool it would be.
Back when I was a boy growing up on the farm
Via an email from Ry I just watched a video made up of clips from a farm on the Palouse (this particular farm was near Colton Washington) in the late 1940s.
I grew up about 40 miles directly east of there. Many of the pieces of equipment were very similar to what we had on the farm about 10 years later. We still have the old pull type combine parked behind the barn. Ours was a John-Deere model 35 instead of the one with the red paint on it. I still remember riding on it. And the D-4 Caterpillar tractor we used to pull it is still in use today. It was nearly identical to the one shown in the video at the time of the pull combine days. It the mid 1960s Dad put on a bigger fuel tank, a wider seat, and the dozer blade. We still use it several times a year even though it is coming up on 70 years old. I use it to move dirt for the Boomershoot site and my brothers use it for other things as well such as clearing snow out of the driveway during the winter. During harvest the tracks would become so clean and polished by the grain stubble that you could barely look at them if the sun was shining.
We even had an old Willy’s Jeep similar to the one in the video.
Mom and Dad have some old video of some of their farming too. We used to watch the videos once or twice a year when we were growing up. I should get that digitized before it falls apart.
Quote of the day—Steve Ballmer
I kiss the ground you walk on.
Steve Ballmer
September 10, 2010
Windows Phone 7 Ship Party 
[Click the pictures to see a higher resolution version.
He also said his trademark, “I love this company.” at the top of his lungs:
He also talked about how important Window Phone 7 is to the company and how much he appreciated all the hard work and how much he really loves his Windows Phone 7 phone.
It is a really nice phone. I took three of them to the Boomershoot site this weekend and did some tests. With one of them I was able to pick up a Wi-Fi signal from an ordinary Linksys router from 1090 meters away. The other two were picking up signal from over 600 meters away. Try that with your iPhone.—Joe]
I should do something like that
Via David I found there is a blog with nothing but videos of explosions.
I go out to the Boomershoot site every few weeks and have the opportunity to do something with some explosives. I rarely do. Mostly it is maintenance and improving the infrastructure. But if I spent 30 minutes or so setting off some explosives doing some sort of experiment (I’ve always wanted to know what two pounds of Boomerite does to a small body of water) and videoing it for posting on this blog it probably would be worthwhile.
I was on site Saturday but just did clean up and inventory. I took my rifle and planned to do some explosives testing but I didn’t have time for it. I didn’t even get all the clean up done.
Live blogging from the Boomershoot site
The nearest houses are at least 500 yards away and I hear just the crackle of the high voltage power line, some birds and a distant combine. I have WiFi and my Windows Phone 7 to blog with. I like it here.
I dropped some stuff off and am straightening some things up. Then I have to drive back to my underground bunker near Seattle. I wish I could stay longer.
Video from the private party
Boomershoot private party
Some people from work followed me back to Idaho on Friday night.
Saturday morning we had breakfast at the Breakfast Club in Moscow with Tim, Barron, and Janelle.
Hiep and Priyanka walking into the restaurant. Photo by Sharath.
We drove to the Boomershoot site and I told them the history, told lots of stories and gave them a tour. They found some .50 BMG bullets and seemed quite thrilled. The picture below is from on top of the berm where the 700 yard targets are placed looking back at the hay field to the shooting line.
Janelle, Barron, Tim (just barely visible behind the grass), Hiep, Sharath, and Priyanka.
I gave them a safety briefing on the chemicals (which consists mostly of telling them not to eat, drink, or snort anything) I had the people from Microsoft weigh the chemicals and my staff mix the explosives and package it into targets:
Sharath, Priyanka, Hiep.
Janelle, Tim (barely visible–he doesn’t want his picture taken because cameras will steal your soul), and Barron.
We ate lunch then placed the targets in front of the large berm at the tree line.
Sharath, Priyanka, and Hiep putting stakes in the ground for the targets.
One of the targets had something special on it (see also here).
I gave safety and basic firearm instructions while Tim, Barron, and Janelle placed the targets on the stakes. Sharath had never shot a gun before. Hiep had only shot one once and that was after he had three years of military instruction in Vietnam. Priyanka shot a gun for the first time last September and then in March took her parents (visiting from India) to the range on her own and taught them to shoot.
Targets ready for engagement. Photo by Sharath.
We then got back a few feet and let the visitors shoot the targets. There were many smiles and much exaltation.
Joe and Hiep. Photo by Sharath.
Hiep once told me he didn’t think private citizens should possess firearms. Only the police and the military should have access. I should ask if he still thinks that.
Boomershoot is a tool for teaching people from all over the world the joys of guns and explosives–the joy of freedom.
Quote of the day–Priyanka
I can eat cake any day. This is the only time I can blow one up.
Priyanka
July 17, 2010
She said this a few minutes before blowing up, instead of blowing out, her birthday cake.
[The white cardboard box contains two pounds of Boomerite.
In the original of second picture (taken by Sharath) you can see bits of the cake high in the air. We were unable to find any of it later.
I expect Barron and Janelle will have video before long. I was playing range safety officer and didn’t take any pictures while the rifles were out of their cases.–Joe]
Quote of the day–Janelle Barnett
I once received an award for best tonal quality in a belching contest.
Janelle Barnett
July 17, 2010
[Even though this was at the Boomershoot site we weren’t wearing any hearing protection at the time.
I don’t think there is anything more I should say about incident or the conversation.–Joe]
Quote of the day–Priyanka
Boom!
I think I got it now.
Boom!
Yeah. I got it.
Priyanka
Shooting boomers at a private Boomershoot party.
July 17, 2010
[She was having trouble at first. Lots of misses and almost no booms. I couldn’t figure out what the problem was. She did fine with dry fire. The gun stayed steady enough for the range we were at (almost entertainingly close). I think there was a problem with her sight picture even though I went over it several times with her. And it wasn’t like was the first time she had shot a gun either. She did pretty well the first time so I was perplexed why she was having trouble this time. She is a smart woman and she eventually figured it out on her own.
I’ll ask her more about it when I see her at the office on Monday.
Update: Priyanka reports she was concentrating on properly placing the post (front sight) of the AR-15 on the target and was neglecting to center the post in the rear peep sight. I’ll have another QOTD from Priyanka and pictures from the event on Monday.–Joe]
Suicide watch
This is a little different than most suicide watches. In this one they are in the process and we are just watching it happen.
After it completes we should all go to the wake. I’ll sign up to bring my famous cookies and maybe my chemistry set.
Bomb squad involved in a crapshoot
Via Ry.
Crapshoot results in stinky day for bomb squad:
A call about a bomb turned into a crapshoot for the Lorain County Bomb Squad.
Officers found a fizzing homemade bomb planted in a portable toilet near a construction site at Turtle Bay and decided the safest way to detonate it was to shoot at it.
After five shots with a .22 caliber rifle, the bomb exploded, spraying the contents of the toilet everywhere. One of the bomb squad members was covered in feces, according to the police report.
As further evidence that laws regulating explosives are marginally effect at best is the type of explosives used:
Officers confiscated a roll of aluminum foil and a stack of 14 military-style meal heaters used to create similar bombs.
Censorship
While at the NRA Annual Meeting on Saturday I wore this shirt:
It got a lot of compliments while on the exhibit floor but something happened that night while at the blogger dinner. I’ve been told that I might have to burn that shirt. I would have never worn that shirt to work and figured as long as I stayed away for places like that I would be okay. But censors are sometimes where you least expect them. Yes, the heavy hand of censorship is threatening me because of that shirt.
On the night in question there were about 20 or 30 bloggers at this bar having dinner, drinking a few, and trying to talk to each other (it was very loud). Alan Gura had expressed, rather forcefully, that it was too loud and wanted to go someplace else so we could talk easier. I was up moving around and trying to shepherd people in the general direction of the door and to a nearby outdoor plaza with a quiet fountain and seating. From a nearby table filled with college students two young women approached me and said they really liked my shirt and they wanted a picture of one of them with me and the shirt. I obliged them.
I later told Say Uncle about it and he quipped, “I’ll bet you never thought you could use that shirt to pick up chicks, did you?” I laughed and said, “No.” That would have been the end of it had I not opened my big mouth later. Later that evening as I was talking to wife Barbara and she asked how my day had gone I told her of the event and Say Uncle’s joke. In the silence that followed I blissfully babbled on and told her of another funny thing that happened. This probably sealed the fate of that shirt.
As everyone was saying goodnight someone said how wonderful it was to meet and hang out with the celebrities like Michael Bane, Alan Gottlieb, and god of gods Alan Gura. I agreed and added something like, and pointing at Mike W, “But you said I was a celebrity.” Mike protested, “But you are a celebrity. You are the Boomershoot guy!” Dixie was standing just to the right of me and said, “You are the Boomershoot guy?” and stretched her arms out with fingers straight, palms flat, and bowed to me.
Barb hasn’t actually said it in words but I’m pretty good at reading the silence.
I think I’m going to have to burn the shirt.
Boomershoot staff hard at work
In my post last night I outlined some of the work the staff does for Boomershoot after the main event is over. I said the sound in the video doesn’t do it justice.
In Jason’s video the sound is a much better but it still doesn’t capture the THUMP that you feel throughout your body but it does hint a little better at it and give you some more clues as to what it means for Rolf to be Entertainingly Close: