Today's Picture

My 1989 production (JK date code) Sig Sauer P226 made in West Germany. 9mm, of course. This thing is beat to hell and got carried a lot for the 19 years before I bought it... and then it got carried some more. It's my Every Day Carry gun when I'm just out and about, and resides in my car when I'm driving around town. I've upgraded it with a Wolf stock weight spring and a solid stainless guide rod from Top Gun Supply. I keep it stocked with hot 124 grain Gold Dot loads, running 18 round Mec Gar magazines.

Blackouts Suck

"There's only two things to do during a blackout: get drunk. Hmm, one thing." - Nathan Explosion, Metalocalypse.

So true. Well, that storm two nights ago knocked out our electricity for around 28 hours thanks to our town's antiquated above-ground power line network. Fortunately our kitchen runs on natural gas, so we could still cook without resorting to a grate over the fireplace. Speaking of fireplaces, we used ours for the first time in around three years - it's nice to have every now and then.

Some stats:

- 28 hours without electricity
- around 18" of snow
- 5 shoveling excursions
- 4 beers consumed
- 1/2 liter of single malt consumed
- 40 lbs of wood burnt
- 8 episodes of Dexter watched via my laptop
- 6 hours of runtime on my Surefire 6P LED
- 0 batteries consumed on same (current batteries still kickin' after almost 3 months)

Good news is, the power finally came back. I just got a call from a friend who isn't so lucky, so I offered up my house as a refuge. In exchange, he volunteered to buy a bottle of Jack and bring over his Xbox 360. Fair trade, I think.

This Here's What We Like to Call "Drinkin' Weather"

Well, for once the meteorologists were right. Westchester County, NY is getting slammed with a constant dumping of the slushiest, heaviest snow I've seen in awhile - pretty nasty stuff, truth be told. The roads seem to be fine though, so I'm going to drive over to a friend's house to play Modern Warfare 2 and maybe have a few beers. Hopefully I don't get snowed in, but I'm prepared with emergency rations of beer and Redbull. I think I'll survive.

CSU Carry Ban

Well, it happened: Colorado State University finally banned concealed carry on campus by permit holders. You have to wonder where the logic lies in this - virtually every mass shooting to ever happen, has occurred in areas where firearms weren't allowed; Columbine, Va. Tech, the list goes on. Simply put - those who would senselessly kill others aren't deterred by laws against murder, so why would they be deterred by laws against guns?

The fundamental basis of this law is the belief that the presence of guns will somehow cause violence - clearly a deeply flawed belief; firearms are simply tools and nothing more. Concealed carry weapon (CCW) permit holders were the only ones allowed to carry on campus other than law enforcement, and these people undergo background checks and proficiency training in order to obtain a permit. Statistically speaking, permit holders are significantly less likely to commit ANY violent crime than your average citizen, let alone a mass-shooting. In other words, we should WANT these people around - their very presence equates to a first-responder capability that can save lives and prevent a tragedy.

More here:

Coloradoan Article

Daily Picture

My Remington 700 SPS Tactical .308. Bushnell Elite 4200 4-16x50 optics, some cheap rail, Leupold PRW rings.

Shooting 168 gr. A-Max handloads over IMR 4064 at around 2650 fps, groups about 0.3 MOA! Not bad for a $550 factory stick.

Projects, Purchases, and Poverty

Well, let's just get this out of the way: I love guns. Especially evil black ones (EBRs for short, tongue planted firmly in cheek). When I was 18 I bought my first EBR - a Bushmaster Varmint Special, which is an insanely accurate rifle. In a bit of horsetrading, I sold it to my dad in order to pay for a new Steyr AUG A3. While the AUG is awesome, and I'll never sell it, it's no replacement for a good AR-15. Thus, my love of tinkering and my enthusiasm for the AR platform met, and I decided to build my very own EBR.

It's not finished yet, and probably won't be for the near future. It's just not the most important thing on my list right now - I already have a 5.56, need a compact handgun for CCW, and am setting up for a suppressor purchase in the future.

However, I do have most of the parts I'll need; I figure another $600 and it'll be finished. Here's a parts list:

- Tactical Innovations T15 Multi-Cal lower
- Vltor MUR upper w/ forward assist
- White Oak Armament 18" SPR Stainless barrel, rifle-length gas system
- DPMS small parts for lower
- Timney 3# single stage trigger
- KNS Mod 2 anti-rotational pins
- Magpul UBR stock
- Magpul MIAD grip
- Vltor gas block
- AAC MITER mount / BLACKOUT flash hider

Still needed:

- Larue 13.2" Quad Rail
- BCM Full Auto bolt carrier
- BCM Gunfighter mod 3 charging handle
- Someone to assemble the upper (lower is already built and functional)
- ADM mount, optics, BUIS, etc

It should be obvious that I'm going for the Special Purpose Rifle thing here - a 5.56 weapon capable of first-round hits up to around 600 meters. I eventually intend to swap the UBR for a PRS, but that's about all I think I'll change. In terms of optics, I'm looking at a Leupold Mark 4 M/R T 2.5-8x in an American Defense Mfg Recon mount.

This is a damned expensive hobby. I figure I'll have around $3k in it when I'm done... could have just bought a Noveske. But where's the fun in that?

What I'm Drinking This Week

Well, after being in Europe for so long, I'm finally back in the land of the microbrew. Thank god.

Being back in NY, my selections are fairly limited due to a lack of large beer stores in the area. Thus, I'm stuck with what I can find at the Shoprite - not necessarily a bad thing, as they carry beers from Magic Hat and Stone Brewery. So I've been drinking a lot of the MH #9, a Pale Ale with a hint of apricot, and Stone IPA, a very bitter India Pale with 6.9% ABV. I've also been drinking a little of Stone's Arrogant Bastard, which is an even more intense IPA with something like 8.0% ABV. It only comes in bombers at around $5.50 each.

For my daily ration of scotch I picked up a liter of The Balvenie Doublewood 12 year at Heathrow Airport before I left. It was something like 29.95 pounds sterling, so not completely unreasonable considering it was duty free. The name Doublewood comes from being aged in two different kinds of barrels - the first, standard oak for ~10 years, then another ~2 in Sherry casks, which both finish up the aging process and take a bit of the edge off, creating a very smooth yet simple single malt.

In two weeks, I'll be back in my hometown of Fort Collins, home to New Belgium and Odell's microbreweries, among others. New Belgium's new Ranger IPA is supposed to be delicious and extremely hoppy at 70 IBUs (International Bitterness Units). I'm excited.

Now and Zen

Taken 11/07/2009 from Sentinel Mountain, CO, facing east. Quite a nice way to start a day of elk hunting.

Click the image for desktop size.

Only About One More Month...

... until the ice melts in the mountains. I can't wait until I'm tossing big, ugly streamers to big, hungry Browns, freezing my ass off, accompanied by a flask of single malt and a touch of frostbite. There's nothing quite like ice-off on Rocky Mountain streams.

In other news, I recently began the long and tiresome process of acquiring a certain item... more on that in the future.

Daily Picture

I'm not very good at this whole photographin' thing, so yeah. 1943 production Remington Rand 1911A1, .45 ACP obviously. Complete with original Boyd's holster. Simple but very effective.

Click for "size enhancement"

Raison d'Etre

I recently discovered that I enjoy writing, and some people seem to enjoy my writing for some reason, so I figured that a "blog" (I despise that term) would make sense. A little bit about me:

I live and work in the Colorado Rockies, or at least I will shortly. I just got back from a 2 month backpacking trip through Europe, so I'm still getting back into the groove of things.

My interests, in no particular order, are guns, cars, scotch, watches, hunting and fishing, and beer. Sort of an urbane mountain man, if you will. Photography also interests me, and so I will try to post interesting or cool pictures as I take them.

My goals for this page: I'd like to put up a good, long post at least once a week, if not more often. I want to share some of the good Rocky Mountain life with some of you who may not be so fortunate as to experience it. Most of all, I want to share my love of all things awesome with like-minded people.

More to come later.