Hooked her!

Flipping through Netflix the other day, I saw that they had added the mini-series Winds of War, based on the Herman Wouk novel.  I remember watching it when it originally aired on TV back in the 1980's, and since my wife has displayed an enjoyment for sweeping, historic epics, I told her I thought she should give it a chance...she could get a little romance, I could get some WWII action.

I was correct in thinking that she would enjoy it...she has been quite hooked on it since yesterday afternoon, and powering through it at an aggressive pace.  So...I was right, and hooray for me.

Boo for me though, because...I was wrong...Winds of War was not the series I remembered watching back in the 1980's.  The series I remember watching back in the 1980's was War and Remembrance...the SECOND sweeping historical epic based off a Herman Wouk novel. 

Damn.  It's not a huge error...War and Remembrance is available on netflix, but it's only on physical disks still...and SWMBO likes the first series so well that I have already moved War and Remembrance up our queue.  I am looking forward to it...much more war, a young Sharon Stone, as well as upgrading the other female lead from Ali MacGraw to Jane Seymour...it's a win across the board!

Because we're not like other people...

On TV shows and in movies, you always see people asking themselves 'Did I turn off the Oven', or did 'I turn off the Curling Iron'..or 'Did you remember to take out the trash'?

Only a gun owner will get out of bed late Saturday night O'Dark Thirty Sunday morning to make sure that you remembered to turn off your red dot scope when you were done using it...

Range time!

Got up bright and early this morning to go shooting...too bright and early...I thought the range opened at 8, but it doesn't really open until 9.  To kill time, I went and got a 20oz Hazelnut Latte on which I could then blame all my bad shooting.  I had intended to bring 8 guns, but when I got home my CZ-75 was right on the floor where I had left it, all safe in it's blue case.  Oh well...the trip was still worth it.

I'm trying to get better about going more often, and then not having to spend a marathon session each time I go.  For instance today, I only put 4 magazine through the Firestorm .380, and another 4 through my Kel-tec P-3AT...enough to make sure the bullet was still going where it was supposed to.  Shooting with those pistols was done at 10-yards, a fairly realistic distance with the Firestorm, and a hopelessly optimistic distance with the Kel-Tec.  With the Firestorm, I kept all 28 rounds inside a 5.5 inch circle, which I am happy with...the Kel-tec at 10 yards...well, I think I would be better off throwing the gun at that distance...ick.  Somewhere in my future is either a Ruger LCP OR a Lazerlyte Side Mounted Laser for the Kel-tec.  Maybe someday I'll be as popular as Jay G and manufactures will send me stuff to test and review...it's really the only goal I have left to achieve in life. 

For long guns, I brought my Marlin .357, my Rock River AR, with both the carbine upper and the 20-inch bull barrel upper, and my 35 Whelen.  The Whelen got the lightest work out...6 rounds to make sure it was still grouping 3 inches high at 100 yards, and then that I could ring the 300-yard gong at the range.  That stuff expensive, and my stock is getting low...when the house sells, there will be much 35 Whelen and .380 ordered...

My Marlin continues to be the favorite gun I own...and I think it always will be.  Out to 75 yards or so, with the AR, I am able to get off follow-up shots quicker, but with the Marlin my first shot/target acquisition is faster, and I'm more accurate...the gun also feels lighter and 'handier'.

I will settle for this kind of accuracy over iron sights at 80 yards:

If it wasn't for that one low and on the right, you could have covered all 8 holes with a playing card...now, it needs to be a...slightly bigger cars?  Whatever...I'm not a sniper, but  8 rounds of 125gr Golden Saber's will ruin anything's day...

I'm trying to get better.  I hope with more frequent trips to the range, that will happen.  For so long, I was satisfied just to punch a hole in a piece of paper, and anywhere on the paper was good enough.  When you only get to go shooting 2 or 3 times a year, you try not to let something like 'accuracy' get in the way of fun.

Found one unusual thing at the range today.  Had a box of Magtech 125gr .38 Special + P Soft Points, and found this: 

Although it's a bit fuzzy, you can see the round on the right has a little bit of a bullet seating issue.  I only point it out to point it out as something unusual.  I have used a LOT of Magtech ammo in my guns: .38, .357, .380, 9mm and .223, and it's the first time I have found something like that in a box of their ammo...it was actually kind of cute...

That was underwhelming...

Yesterday afternoon, the local TV stations and news website sent out a flash weather report that conditions were right for us to POTENTIALLY see a some the Aurora Borealis.  Never seen them before, so about 9 last night I hoped in my truck and headed out of town. 

I didn't drive far...headed kind of northwest on highway 240 for about 15 miles, and pulled off the road...not quite the middle of nowhere, but at least a third of the way there.  Then I jumped out of the car and waited.

And Waited. 

While I waited, I made a list.  Bringing a folding chair would have been nice...and some bug repellant also. 

It was just me, and the dark...except for the cars driving by...and on the average, that was only a car ever 5 minutes or so.

I saw a lot of stars, and a lot of sky..  I saw a few satellites moving through the milky way...and off to the north I might have seen a vertical streak of the palest green/white that you coukd make yourself you imagine you were seeing.

Two hours was enough.  It wasn't a wasted night...wife and kids weren't home, and like I said, there was some big beautiful sky.  I consider it a dry run for next weekend...I'll try to drag the family back to that spot to watch the Perseid Meteor's next weekend.  The temperature was a pleasant 73 degrees still at 11...and I did get to see three or four nice shooting stars.  For consistency and reinforcement, I made the same wish on each one...which means when my wife is driving home today, she should see Christina Hendricks walking on the side of the road, and offer to bring her home for dinner...it's up to me from that point....

Oral Fixation

Occasionally, when exposed to someone/thing for the first time, I have a tendency to become very....obsessive.  Usually, this occurs in regards to celebrities...either actor/actresses or singers...potentially it revolves around my jealousy of their talents.  It's probably a good thing that I live in the somewhat isolated eastern Washington desert....not much chance of me turning into a stalker way out here.

The latest target of my fascination is Sara Barellis, and it can be directly traced to the version of Come On Eileen she does with Sugarland(making it all my wife's fault since she is the one who made me listen to it first).   Prior to seeing this video, I could have identified two of Sara's songs from radio play; King of Anything and Love Song, but I would not have recognized her walking down the street. 

Previously, I would have described Sara's music as part pop, part 'adult contemporary'.  According to wikipedia, she is a singer-songwriter and pianist, whose sound is "slightly edgy, stompy piano-based pop-rock that incorporates jazz and soul"  So, that clears it up.  She has several cover versions of popular songs in youtube, from wildly diverse genre's of music...she does some Beyonce, Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay, Still Haven't Found What I'm Look For, by U2(not a big U2 fan, so I LOVE her version), and then finally, this beauty, which, well, it's not as good as the original, but it's the Beatles, so what could be?





If you haven't given her a chance, I highly recommend her.  Luckily, my fixations burnout almost as fast as they come on, so hopefully by tomorrow I'll be able to listen to AC/DC again. 

The worst day of my life.

The worst day of my life happened 10 years ago today.

My wife and I had been married for about 4.5 months, and she was 20 weeks pregnant(yes, the timing is close).  We had recently found out that it looked like the baby was going to be a girl, and had already 100% agreed on a name...Virginia(for the state we were married in) and May, because that is when we found out she was preggers.  Life was good.

The worst day actually started the evening before.  At the time, I was still in the Navy, and was working what they called 'J' Shift...I worked Friday-Monday, Midnight-noon.  I was just getting ready to lay down for a nap prior to going into work, when my wife told me that something 'just didn't feel right' and she thought we should go to the doctors. 

Back then, she wasn't SWMBO, and being younger and much less wise than I now am, instead of just obeying, I pouted about the idea of missing my nap, and asked if she was serious. After several minutes of back and forth, I huffed out a fine, and got in the car and headed to the Naval Hospital in Bremerton.

The nice thing about her being pregnant is we didn't need to mess with the ER, or urgent care...we were sent right off to the OB department, and checked in.  It was less than ten minutes from when we showed up to when they had her wired up with a heart rate monitor, and the nurse began doing an internal check up.

When the nurse says quickly looks up and says, 'Excuse me, I'll be right back'...it's not a good sign.  He was back very quickly with the on duty OB doctor, who settled in for his own look-see. 

The 'just not right feeling' that my wife was having down below was the baby coming out.  The technical term the doctor used was an 'incompetent cervix.'  Essentially, as the baby develops inside, the pressures become too great, and the cervix begins to dilate.  In our case, the baby's feet had already started to work their way out of the cervix.

My wife was quickly placed in the Trendelenburg position(on your back with the bed angled so that your head is at a 30% down angle) and then the doctors pumped her bladder full of saline, and clamped it off, with the hope being that between gravity and full bladder, the baby would be force back in enough so that they could perform a rescue cerclage (essentially, stitching the cervix shut to keep the baby in).  The doctor was straight-forward...best case was that a rescue cerclage would buy us another month or two...worst case...well, if this was going to be the worst day of my life, I'm sure you can figure it out.

During the bladder filling, I left the room to make a few phone calls.  First was to my Chief, to let him know I wasn't going to be making it into work tonight, and possibly the next few days.  2nd, was to my mom, and all I remember from that phone call was letting her know that she was probably going to lose her first grandchild.  She offered to hop in the car and start the 4 hour drive, but I told her I would let her know how stuff went in the morning...and then had the exact same phone call with my dad.

Then the waiting started.  It was almost midnight.  My wife was fairly miserable...head pointing at the ground, bladder filled to capacity, so she felt like she had to pee, but she was clamped shut so she couldn't.  She was given a few things to numb her up, and help her sleep, and they did let her doze in and out...but no one offered anything like that to the husband.  Instead, I sat in that hospital chair, with an Alistair MacLean book I had read about 70 times...and waited.

It was the worst 7 hours of the worst day of my life.  Waiting, waiting and waiting.  Nurse would come in to check every few hours, and the news was not good.  All I could think about was how I had tried to talk her out of going to the doctors.  What if that 5 or 10 minutes was the reason things had gone so far wrong?  Wisdom earned has a price.

Morning rounds finally arrived, and the doctor came in.  There had been very little progress overnight.  The doctor then did an amniocentesis...not for any data, but just pulling 100cc's of fluid out to reduce internal pressure, but a few hours later, it was clear that wasn't gaining us anything either.  The pressure was finally relieved on my wife's bladder, and the doctor said that they could attempt the cerclage anyway, manually positioning the baby back inside.  This wasn't the preferred method, as any handling of the amniotic sac could cause it to start leaking.

I didn't stay with my wife during that procedure.  They doped her back up again, and I went to make round two of phone calls.  My mom had called my mother-in-law the night before, but now it was my turn.  I also called my parents back, and they both started their drive.  The doctor had not had high hopes that the cerclage procedure would work, and much sooner than I expected, the doctor was out.  The news was not good...basically, the cervix was too thin already...he could not place any stitches for few of the cervix essentially tearing, which would effect future pregnancies in a quite negative manner.

My wife and I talked things over, but essentially the decision was mine...she was so doped up, that any real decision had to be mine...risk any chance of a good future pregnancy for a slim percentage chance of making it another 4 weeks?  While we were discussing things, the decision was made for us.  One of the nurses came out and whispered in the doctors ear...whether it was from the handling, or the amniocentesis, or both, my wife's water had broken.  The baby was coming, and there was nothing we could do.

There was also nothing the hospital would  do for her.  Based on several ultrasounds that had been done over the course of the night, the gestational age was confirmed at just over 20 weeks...the hospital said that the baby was not viable, and no actions would be taken to save the baby when it was born.  All they could do was make my wife comfortable, and help things move quickly, which they did with more drugs.

Things went quickly from there...the waiting was over, and there was just the sadness and rage against all of creation to deal with.  There was no surgery left...my wife had to push, knowing with each push that she was ending things.  Virginia was born alive...and then was gone.  The nurses offered to help find some little clothes so we could get her dressed and get pictures if we wanted.  I shared a horrified look with my mom, and we quickly said no without even asking my wife.  During our recovery process, we met a couple who had the same thing happen to them...they HAD taken pictures...I made the right decision.

The only time in the whole experience I came close to losing it is when we had to check out of the hospital...Tri-care being Tri-Care, I had to go settle the co-pay.  The paperwork said child birth, and before I could really say anything, the old lady working the desk said it would take a minute to change the paperwork, because the nurse had forgotten to charge me for my daughters overnight stay in the hospital.  'Oh, and would you like to add her to your account now?'

I didn't destroy her...but I did drip tears on her desk when I explained to her that my daughter didn't make it overnight.  Her face shutdown, and she threw the paperwork away.  Add it to the list of regrets for that night and day that I didn't track her down later and apologize.  Other than that, I was as strong as I could be for my wife...both during, and after.

We talked to some friends, and through the internet found other people who had been through this.  We weren't alone...1-2% of pregnancies have this happen, and it is the leading cause of 2nd trimester loss.  A week or so later, we got a small bag of ashes from the funeral home, and spread them at a park on the shore of Hood Canal. I was glad to see our love for each other helped us through, and we had good support from friends and family and co-workers. My boss let me have two weeks off work(which is one reason I work for him now...NOTHING inside the gate is more important than ANYTHING outside the gate.)  and we moved on.

For a while we talked about waiting, but in the end decided jumping back on the horse was the right course of action.  Bella was born the following June, and was not without her own excitement....but this time the cerclage was done early(a preventative cerclage) and my wife made the sacrifice of several months of modified bed rest.  It sucked.  It still sucks...if you don't think there are tears on my shirt right now, think again...but I have two amazing daughters, and I would not trade either of them to remove the pain and see what might have been.   

Sometimes, you don't question the happy endings. 

That's a lot of lead in the air...

Wednesday evening, the town of Toppenish, located about 20 minutes east of Yakima, was the site of quiet a shoot-out.  

Police agencies were on the look out for one Lance Nanamkin, formerly convicted of 2nd-degree manslaughter and assault.  Having served his 8-years locked up, Mr. Nanamkin was out on a parole...only, well, he wasn't exactly following the terms of his parole.  The article is not forth coming on details about the 'parole violation' but he was also letting people know that he 'was armed with an assault rifle and would not be taken alive'.

Sounds like the police were justified in keeping an eye for this guy.

He was finally spotted Wednesday night, and after being chased by police for 20 minutes, he pulled over, and opened fire out of the back window of his car with his AR-15.

20 seconds later, it was all over.  Initial reports are that 70 rounds of ammunition were fired in that 20-seconds...20 by Mr. Nanamkin, and the other 50 by the 5 police officers who were responding.

Of those 70 bullets flying through the air, only 6 found what they were being aimed at...and luckily, Mr. Nanamkin was the target all 6 times.  Two of the officers reported minor injuries, but they were caused by flying glass.

12% accuracy...that's not even good enough to get past the first level of Area 51.  I am really curious to see a more detailed breakdown of how this shoot went...it sounds like Nanamkin concentrated his fire on one car, so were the hits made by the other officers who could concentrate on the front site a bit more, or did they all just get lucky at some point?

Anyway...in the end, Nanamkin couldn't even follow through on his vow to not be taken alive...despite being hit 6 times(twice in the coconut) he still currently lingers alive in a local hospital.  Wonder how much THAT medical assistance is costing the taxpayers...