Category Archives: Home Life

Stuff going on in my personal life.

The furnace works now

Posted on by

I noticed it was a little cold when I came home Friday night and the furnace wasn’t putting out warm air even after I turned up the thermostat. In fact there wasn’t much air at all coming out even though we have the fan on continuously. Great. Another chore to do this weekend. Scratch the IPSC match on Sunday because Saturday was committed to visiting my parents and doing some construction and the final fall prep for the Taj Mahal.

Last night, hoping I could get the furnace going and have time for other things today I pulled the dirty air filter out, washed it, and put it back in and got decent air flow but there was still no heat.

So today I verified the pilot light (gas furnace) was on and the thermostat was set to “heat” rather than “cool” and the thermostat setting was for several degrees warmer than the room temperature. Still no flames in the burner. I then used a couple of small screw drivers to short across the terminal block for the thermostat, to simulate a thermostat closure, directly on the furnace controller. After a few seconds it was “flame on” with a puff of flame that came back out of the furnace–toward my hands:


Photo by Xenia

My back of my right hand now has stubble on it (the hair on my palm is just fine).

[Side note: Xenia thought it was gross and it took me a while to convince her to take a picture. I don’t understand her concept of “gross”. She intentionally got a hole punched in her face and a little singed hair is too gross to take a picture of?]

I removed the thermostat from the wall and did a similar trick from there and also got the furnace burner to start working. It must be the thermostat or the connection. I finally examined the batteries to the thermostat and discovered on of them had leaked and corroded the battery contacts. I removed the old batteries, cleaned the contacts, put in fresh batteries, and now the furnace works again. Now I can head back to the Seattle area tonight, then to Reno on Thursday and not worry too much about the Huffman-Scott compound (guarded by Caleb, Kim, and Xenia) freezing while I’m out of town.

Grumble… There are just too many things getting in the way of the things I want to do.

My daughters and I now belong to the tribe

Posted on by

Kim’s last name isn’t Huffman but I’ll send an email to get that fixed. Check out our pictures with the other People of the Gun.

Playing in the park before going to the sandbox

Posted on by

Xenia made a video of John and her in the park. John is now headed back to the sandbox to guard convoys with his video game.

Good luck and thanks John. Please come back in one piece.

Making them squirm

Posted on by

Goody Guns by JPFO.

[Heavy sigh] My youngest is in college now so this just wouldn’t have the impact it would have 10 or 15 years ago. Maybe it would be a nice gift for some nephews and nieces.

Animals of Glacier National Park

Posted on by

Yesterday we went to the east side of the park and again saw stunning beauty. Here is but one picture of mountains and a glacier:

I also took pictures of some animals. While still in the car we were able to get amazingly close. One of them, with a little coaxing got into the car with me and I took it back to the condo where it spent the night in bed with me. I know it will never be domesticated but even if it is wild it’s fun to have in the bedroom. It’s the last picture below. I call her Barbara.

Vacation pictures

Posted on by

Thursday night we left the Huffman-Scott compound in the care of Caleb, Kim, and Xenia and headed to Missoula Montana. The next morning we went on a walk along the Clark Fork River:

We continued on to our time share condo in Columbia Falls and today went hiking in Glacier National Park. We hiked to Avalanche Lake. It is stunningly beautiful country. But it is also Grizzly bear country. And of course operational firearms are “illegal” in National Parks. I put illegal in quotes because the people that enacted and enforce that “law” are in violation of 18 USC 242. I’m hoping the Parker/Heller case will be a stepping stone to fixing that issue.

It’s a small world. Over two miles off the road up a rocky hiking trail, at the edge of Avalanche Lake, we had the couple on the left offer to take our picture together. We agreed (picture above this one) and we took a picture of them together with their camera for them. We talked a bit and Barb asked where they were from. “Idaho”, they said. “Where in Idaho?” we asked. “Troy”, was the reply that shocked us. Troy is about ten miles from Moscow where Barb and I have our home. It turns out that Barb works with one of their friends and knows several of the people they know.

There is a loop at the bottom of the trail, about 1/2 of a mile long, that is suitable for wheelchair bound people. Some of it is almost artistic in layout.

We are still in Columbia Falls at our condo. No easy Internet connection. I’m sitting in the lobby of the lodge to get a connection. Blogging will be light for a few more days.

Quote of the day–Xenia Huffman-Scott

Posted on by

I think I probably am spoiled. But that is okay.

Xenia Huffman-Scott
September 27, 2007
[Her sister Kim further noted that Xenia is in fact spoiled rotten–two cavities were discovered today when her teeth were cleaned.–Joe]

Gun porn–Saiga 12

Posted on by

I probably will get in trouble, as I have before, for using the word “porn” in the same post with one of my daughters. But I’m 300 miles away at the moment and figure everyone will have enough time to cool off before I get home.

Anyway, on Saturday I took some pictures of our daughter Kim as she checked out a Saiga-12 with a 10-round detachable magazine:

Caleb, my son-in-law, says he always listens to Kim and does what she tells him to. I think she was telling him to do something when I took that last picture above…

Halo 3 propaganda

Posted on by

Speaking of propaganda… I received an email at work yesterday saying something to the effect that the Halo 3 release will be the biggest release event in entertainment history. At least that is what I remember it saying. I don’t pay that much attention to games or publicity events.

What struck me was the number of copies they have ordered for employees. At the Redmond company store alone they brought in 25,000 copies. There will be additional shuttles from all over the main campus to the company store to help alleviate the parking issues that would result if people tried to drive themselves.

I asked James when he was going to pick up his copy. He told me that he pre-ordered his a year ago at some retail outlet so he could get some special edition version. Wow…

I stopped off at the company store yesterday at lunch time to pick up some software for Caleb. He told me no big hurry but I just know the store will be a madhouse the rest of this week. I saw a big empty space in the middle of the store where I expect the product will be stacked when it opens later this morning.

I also saw some Halo 3 hats on the shelf:

Steel match pictures

Posted on by


Joe (a different Joe) ROs Don as he blasts through a stage. Yes, Joe’s shirt says “INFIDEL” on the back (and the front).


That’s Adam with the “air gun” practicing for the next stage.

 
As I mentioned in the QOD yesterday Xenia’s boyfriend John went with me to the match.

 
Michelle and Adam as he ROs while she shoots a few rounds.

We also had an anthropology grad student, Michelle, from Washington State University show up. I asked if she knew “Joan”, an anthropologist from WSU who has studied the gun culture. She claims to not know Joan Burbick (and here and here). Michelle has only been in town for a few weeks having just arrived from Iowa. She also said she is a Evolutionary Anthropologist while Joan is probably a Cultural Anthropologist which means they wouldn’t be as likely to meet each other. Since I was wrong about Joan being an anthropologist it’s quite believable.

We managed to talk her into shooting a little bit. She also claims to have only fired one gun on one occasion. Had it not been for her poor posture while shooting I, and probably everyone else, would not have believed her. In her first six shots I think she only had one miss. She did amazingly well for a completely new shooter. She emptied two magazines out of two different guns and didn’t develop a flinch which is quite common with new shooters with a fairly large caliber handgun.

I spent several minutes talking to her and answering questions. The questions had some anti-gun bias and I finally asked what her sort of opinion she had on guns. She said as anthropological observer she was not allowed to have an opinion.

Quote of the day–Greg Hamilton

Posted on by

If fact the whole culture of certain units is competition. They shoot “matches” quals, standards, stages, etc all the time. In that world everything is graded and the results posted for all to see.

These guys could be very good competition shooters, instead they are very good at killing our enemies.

Greg Hamilton
September 18, 2007 8:34 PM
[Greg teaches military, law enforcement, and private citizens how to shoot. He is very, very good. Not just at shooting but at teaching, thinking, understanding what he is doing, and explaining it.

On a related note–Xenia’s boyfriend just came back from “playing in the sandbox”. He went to a steel match with me today. His shooting has improved considerably since the last time we went to the range together. I still did better than he did, but he did make me proud. I should have some pictures up soon.–Joe]

Complete Heinlein archives online

Posted on by

Wow. It’s ALL here.

Too bad everything costs money to view.

Gun porn

Posted on by

Son James and I watch DVDs of some Science Fiction TV series together nearly every Monday evening. Until we got all caught up with the releases we were watching four episodes of Stargate SG-1 each get together.

About three weeks ago Sean and I checked out a gun store that he had never been to and I had only been to once about 18 months ago. The wall looked like this:

James has been saying he needs to buy a gun. And right there, in plain sight, was a suppressed PS-90 TR (Triple Rail, semi-auto version of the P-90 used by SG-1 as they battle evil aliens from all over the galaxy). I tried to get James to buy it with his bonus money but he was too smart for that. It’s space-a-roma (I think that was the word Sean used) appeal is very high but neither James nor I have a use for one.

Place your bets

Posted on by

IBM put 35 programmers on a free OpenOffice offering that will compete with Microsoft Office. I don’t know how many programmers Microsoft has working on Office but I know they take up most, if not all, of buildings 16, 17, and 18. Each of those buildings are large three-story buildings.

IBM versus Microsoft. Free versus expensive. 35 versus hundreds (include our son James).

Hmmmm…. place your bets with your broker. I put all my chips on Microsoft.

Bumper stickers for gunnies

Posted on by

Reader Rob pointed these out to me.

Setting aside the ones that appeal to my sick sense of humor and the one that would piss off my vegetarian daughter I think the pro-choice one is my favorite.

Xenia had a migraine

Posted on by

Both Kim and Xenia appear to have inherited something besides their good looks from their mother. For several years Barb has had headaches that didn’t quite qualify as migraines but were stubborn and painful. Kim had some mild migraines, if there is such a thing, in High School. Last night Xenia had one. A scary event because it involved her loosing her vision in one eye for a while. She posted about it on her Live Journal. I wouldn’t have normally linked to that post but the video she made brought a smile to my face.

Jason is back in the news

Posted on by

Nephew Jason Scott lost his arm to an IED in Iraq nearly two years ago. He’s back in the news as the first recipient of a scholarship here:

Amputees from the military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, patients at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., for the past year have been watching the progress of a new structure as it emerged from what used to be the hospital’s deeply sloped backyard. They are excited, anticipating the opening of the 31,000-sq-ft Military Advanced Training Center, which will help them resume productive lives.

Gun Blogger Rendezvous itinerary

Posted on by

I finally stopped procrastinating and made our travel and hotel reservations for the Rendezvous. I’ll get our registration in to Mr. Completely later today.

We are flying in so that means even if the range would allow “Joe’s special recipe” for reactive targets I’d be blocked by the TSA from bringing my chemistry set.

Barb and I will arrive in Reno on Thursday morning and leave Sunday evening. I’m hoping to see the same participants as last year as well a bunch of new ones. Will you be there?

I think I can see the resemblance

Posted on by

Mother/wife and daughters via Xenia:

Montana Gold

Posted on by

Caleb and I loaded up about 500 rounds of .40 S&W for the practice and match last weekend. We shot up almost all of them too.

The load we used was 180 grain Montana Gold CMJ’s over 6.1 grains of True Blue using Winchester primers. I’m not entire happy with this load. There is enough room in the case it would be very easy to get a double charge in there. I wouldn’t be surprised if a triple charge would fit. A friend suggested Competition instead. I’ll probably pick up a pound to test out. I have used N350 (6.2 grains) for years and it’s a great powder but a bit expensive and hard to find. I was thinking True Blue would be my replacement but now I’m not so sure.

The Montana Golds sure are pretty:

I have thousands of bullets to contribute to the cause. I went to Wade’s Eastside Guns today to pick up a few thousand primers but they don’t stock reloading components anymore. I’ll have to get them someplace else, I’m thinking Kesselring’s could use some of my business and they usually have N350 as well if the price isn’t too much different I’ll get a few pounds of N350 as well as a pound of Competition if they have it.

I hope the Brady bunch appreciates how much thought and effort I put into making this a special day.