Free at last!

It's a good evening. I'm tired, I'm sore, but it's good.

The first weekend of April we spent up with family. We stayed at my older brother's (Dangerdad) and enjoyed an incredibly well-planned birthday party for one of our nieces. It was a Jedi party, as she's crazy into Star Wars right now. It was tremendous fun.

Afterward, when all the kiddos were off for a fun little excursion to Grandma's house, my brother, Bubbles and I went out to a range area. We put holes in targets for a while, and I was gratified to see both the rifle that I'd fixed and cleaned and Bubbles' pistol working very well. Many targets were blasted, and Bubbles demonstrated she's a better shot than I am. I can still keep it on paper most of the time, but she's better. I need practice.

This morning I went to court and had a contract recognized and entered into court records to resolve a matter between a younger brother (not Dangerdad, our families are close). Due to the contract, I can't say more than that, but the process did cost me my relationship with my parents and my youngest brother, who sided with the opposing party. I'll probably never understand why, but my family is safe, and shielded from hostility, and that's what really matters to me.

This evening, after I'd gotten home from work, we planted two maple trees in the front yard. Just yesterday we had a massive ash tree removed from the front (and another from the back). One of the maples needed to go fairly close to the site of the ash, and I encountered some of the biggest roots I've had to deal with in any yard work. I can still swing an axe, and axes still work on roots. I'm going to have blisters, but I think it will have been worth it. I hope that little maple does okay. It has significant cleared space, and once it establishes itself it may be able to wrap around the old dead roots and gain nutrients from them as they decay. I hope so anyway. I may simply be displaying my horticultural naivete.

Here's to a good week and hoping for more to come. Well, maybe with a bit less stress.

Sunday Morning

We have late church this year, so Munch (a.k.a. Spawn) and I get to spend the morning together while Bubbles sleeps.

This morning we did a lot of good talking, and also built Lego ships. Spawn was very excited when I first showed her Legos a month or two back. She immediately wanted to design monster shooting ships. I should have captured our first effort, but it was a rush job and not very aesthetically pleasing.

These are better.



The one on the far left is the prison ship where we keep captured monsters. The smaller one in the middle is my ship she insisted I build so I could capture monsters with her. The one she's holding is her rebuilt model we did today with super uber monster shooters on the sides.

We were playing with the new ships and I let the new monsters know they were going to jail and would never come out again. Spawn promptly said, "You're going to jail forever, and you'll have to pee in a bucket!"

Ready for Next Weekend

Next weekend we get to go visit my brother and his family. The cousins all like to play together, and so do my bro and I. We'll take a range trip. I cleaned and oiled everything today. When you haven't done the monthly cleanings you should, it adds up to a lot of work!

I didn't find a lot on removing the rear sight on a Ruger 10 22 rifle online, and I had to replace mine as it was broken. One forum mentioned these are not robust sights and the guy growing up had to replace his 2-3 times a year when they hunted for small game.

All it takes is a hammer, a nail set and little fear. I padded a vise and carefully tightened it down to keep from marring the barrel, then set to work with the hammer and nail set. It did come out, with more application of force than I'd figured. The hard part was setting the new one carefully into place, as I naturally didn't want to break that. If it's not perfect, it's close.

I also got around to cleaning the 10 22 rotary magazine. Mine had jammed and wasn't working properly. A video helped out.



While I'm at it, I'm going to post this one for when I want to pull and clean the bolt.


Also for reference, full field strip (Replaced the defunct video on 01/25/2014 with a working one.  And I cleaned today):


I haven't yet been brave enough to pull the trigger group, but it looks easy, and my bolt could probably use cleaning.

Penguin Pee

IMing is fun.

Bubbles: Spawn's telling a story about a baby penguin that sat on her daddy's hand and peed.

Monkey: I'll be sure not to let her sit on my hand.

Bubbles: haha

Omnipotent

We were teaching Spawn "How Firm a Foundation" tonight. I realized she didn't know the word "Omnipotent" yet.

"Omnipotent is a new word for you, isn't it?" I asked.

"Uh-huh," she affirmed.

"It means all powerful. God is omnipotent, which means He can do anything."

The awed Spawn promptly asked, "Even backward somersaults?"

My silly child

Monkeyspawn was playing on her computer this morning and she declared, "Circuses can be dirty and wet." I'm not sure where learned that, since she's never been to one, but she often confidently shares random facts while playing on her computer. Or playing with her pet shop toys. Or, at just about any other time. I wonder where she gets that?

I promptly chimed in, "And there can be carnies there."

"What are carnies?" she asked.

Realizing I'd gotten myself in to trouble, since I really shouldn't denigrate anyone based on occupation, even people who smell like cabbage, I said neutrally, "They're people who work at carnivals."

"Ew, yuck," responded my darling child.

Huh. Aversion to carnies is evidently an inherited trait.

Snow Play

Saturday we took Monkeyspawn to the snow for the first time ever. We got in the car and drove for about an hour until we started to see decent snow on the ground, then pulled off the freeway and found a little restaurant that had a mostly snowed-in parking lot. We went in and asked them if we could play in their snow. They said yes so we went out and had a fun snowball fight which consisted of Spawn and I throwing snowballs at Monkey. Then we made a snowman. It was a blast. We weren't there for a really long time, but it was long enough to get a nice taste for the snow and have a little fun. Then we hopped in the car and made it home in time for lunch.