Mantis

It was perched up high on the side of the (white) garage; not an ideal place to pretend at being a stick. I put it down in the tomato plants, maybe it can get some of bugs in there for us.

Arachnaphobia, I hope you don’t have it

Right out the back door, on top of the swamp cooler:

This picture was taken a couple days ago; the spider has since caught at least one more bug this size, and its abdomen is probably about twice that diameter now.

Can spiders pop?

Tomatoes

Going in the dehydrator. We’re going to have a lot of dried tomatoes this year…

Morning

On the Counter

On my person

Never really done one of those “what’s in his pocketses, precious?” posts, so I thought I’d throw one up this morning.

That is everything I had on my person yesterday as I drove.  Kershaw pocket knife, 642, XD9 (I had both on because I was really worried about encountering terrible riots amongst those thuggish young Mormons in UT and ID), keys on belt hanger thingy, hackey sack (never know), Swiss army watch, 8gb flash drive, leatherman, crumpled receipt, little composition notebook, what is that–about 8 cents, a bandaid, wallet, chapstick, speedstrip, beltman belt, earplugs, rubber bands, lighter, matches in waterproof container (went through the wash once so I know it’s waterproof), vaseline in a little tube thing, dental floss, the little pouch I made to keep random stuff in, cell phone, and a OD bandanna.  All in some cargo shorts.  I should have also included my sunglasses, but I left them out in the truck.

Pretty sure you could pick any half of those things and I’d still be on some sort of FBI watch list.

And I was able to sit comfortably all day in a vehicle going about 75 mph (except for the section of interstate in ID where there was a wreck involving a semi truck hauling propane and they closed all lanes and routed traffic onto little country back roads and then a bus stalled out on a hill and turned that into a 1-lane situation.  And speaking of that, what do you make out of this sign I saw on the backroads of Idaho: 

“Deaf Person Area”? That’s great! Ummm… what am I supposed to do with this information?  But I digress).

So now the trick is going to be trying to get all that into some “nice” khaki pants that don’t have cargo pockets (I don’t understand how they can be nice pants when they don’t have cargo pockets) and a tucked in shirt for the wedding this afternoon.  I may have to forgo the XD and some other little things.  But we’re in MT, and the happy couple had a picture of them on a dirt bike posed with their pistols for the wedding invitation, so there will probably be backup if the riots start in backcountry MT. 

So, off I go!

Before and After

From Saturday.

Before:

After:

Got those pop cans good. Won’t be having any more problems with that infestation, at least.

Summer Photo Randomnosity

1) Remember that houseboat that was so disgusting? It’s all completely rebuilt now, and floating in Lake Powell.  How do you like the look of the new cabinets?  This picture is of the same location as the first one in the link.

2) Speaking of cabinets, here’s the planer that I picked up for my uncle.  We stopped at a winery along the way because we were running a bit low; this one is my mother’s favorite.

3) Even though it’s almost August, the river is still running at levels we usually see as high water in June.  Crazy.

4) This was the crowd at the Otis Taylor concert last week.

5) And the corn in our garden is taller than me, now, and starting to tassel.  Probably another week and we’ll be having corn on the cob every day.

Sky Crane!

This just flew right over my head when we were walking the dogs.  I guess there must be a fire around here somewhere; it’s all dressed up in red and has the big orange tank.

I love living in the landing zone of the airport!

Good Morning!

(I don’t know why I like to take pictures looking into the sun.  Just one of the things that makes me who I am, I guess)

Onion and Butterfly

Sounds like the name of a bar, or maybe a famous sandwich at a bar, but really, it was just a visitor in the garden while I was watering.

As for the drink, tonight I think I’m feeling like a grog of some variety.  So many rums to chose from…

Last night’s sunset

Over the canal right behind my house

Another Day, Another Set of Grips…

I recently purchased a set of “Hideout Grips” off of Brownels, basically because they were cheap and didn’t have finger grooves.

The fit and finish as they came was, quite frankly, atrocious. They almost seemed to have been built with a different sized and shaped gun in mind. But, there was too much material instead of too little, and as the material is only a polyester plastic, some sand paper and a Vicious Circle later, they got to be NEW AND IMPROVED! and CUSTOM FIT! or whatever.

Since I find most grip manufacturers have terrible, terrible websites that don’t show you nearly enough angles and information on whatever you are conceivably plunking your hard earned cash on, so here are some pictures of these grips as they are now, after a couple hours of elbow grease:

I’m still pretty sure that I haven’t found the perfect grips for my S&W 642, and I’m not even sure that I like them better than the stock rubber grips but I was able to get 50 rounds of 158 gr ammo on the target (a 4″ radius circle) at 20 yards with no more discomfort than when using the rubber grips, which was surprising to me. Hold on for dear life and blast away!

In other news, I’m still taking suggestions for grip ideas (and now that I have a *temporary* job, I might even be able to spend money on them! Yay!).

Oh yeah, and [three letter government agency whose name I can never remember] disclaimer: You may have noticed the word “PURCHASED” that I used in the first sentence? Ok, now shut up.

Flag Day

A repost of Independence Hall from my trip to Philadelphia last year: