• There is no quicker way for a wife to get her husband’s attention than for her to go to the basement and then shout from the bottom of the stairs “Honey?  Where’s the Saws-All?”.
• When you tell your lovely wife you want to wait to do work in the basement until the renovation of the bathroom closet she’s in the middle of is finished, you should plan to spend half your Saturday pulling down plaster, metal lath, and two-by-fours that are older than you are.
• You always find the breathing masks 10 minutes after you finish inhaling all that plaster dust.
• It is indeed not necessary to use a reciprocating saw to demo a bathroom closet.  
• Corollary:  Insisting that getting the reciprocating saw out of the basement is not necessary means you will tear it all out by hand with your wife making suggestions.
• It is physically impossible to keep a band-aid on a cut in the palm of your hand from a pry bar.
• The formula for a good afternoon does not include putting your youngest son in a headlock so that the barber can finish the haircut he’s halfway through.
• Mark your  calendars.  Today I got to watch all four quarters of a football game.  Of course, I missed the overtime, but I’ll take what I can get.
• Prepping Fail:  Noting that you are going to be getting some pretty bad weather, you check the preparations for tornadoes and power outages.  You turn on the battery operated radio, and the batteries are dead.  You go to the supply cabinet, and you have no D cell batteries.  So, instead of watching the overtime of said football game, you get to drive through the rain to Superdoopermegamart to purchase a pack of batteries.  Note to self – Order a case of D batteries.

It is by Browning alone that I set lead in motion.  It is by the squeezing of the trigger that the hammer comes forward, the primer becomes flame, the powder becomes gas.  It is by Browning alone that I set lead in motion. 

• I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:  It’s better to be shot and lay on the ground for an hour than it is to be captured, flex-cuffed, and questioned.
• Apparently the United States military is recruiting rhinos now.  One of them powerslammed me when I was uncooperative about being flex-cuffed.
• Note to self:  When being questioned and you are asked what you do for a living, telling the interrogator “I used to be a soldier until I took an arrow to the knee” might be very funny, but it will not endear you to said interrogator.

On this date in 1989, I made my first trip to the Oakland MEPS station to take my initial physical, sign my enlistment contract, and enroll in the Delayed Entrance Program for the Army.  It was the day after my 18th birthday, and I was ready to take on whatever opportunity I could find to get out of the Bay Area.

It was the day I had my first big disappointment in adult life.  You cannot imagine the crushed feeling when I realized that when the recruiting sergeant offered me “M.I.”, he was offering me Military Intelligence, not Mobile Infantry.

I do wish I had a camera to capture the look on his face when I said “Mobile Infantry?  We can do that?  Cool!  Sign me up!”.

Next big disappointment:  I had to stay in the Bay Area for another  8 months.  The next slot for me to go to basic training that lined up with language school at Monterey was in August.

Two in one day, and I couldn’t even have a beer to make it all better.

You know you’re doing something right as a father when your youngest son knows how to stand on the couch, hold a Nerf rifle over his head, and shout “Wolverines!” at the top of his lungs.

Yeah, Mama might not be so amused, but that’s pride burning in your father’s chest, son.

• I have the best wife on Earth.  I got a membership to my indoor range for Christmas and a membership to my outdoor range for my birthday.  They came with an admonishment, on multiple occasions, to use them both enough to justify the cost.  I’m going to have to up my ammo budget.
• The new stock and sights on the 10/22 are great.  Definitely need to do a lot more work with that one so that I can be ready for Appleseed later this year.
• I tested my theory that the 22-A1 doesn’t like the Federal or Winchester bulk pack .22 and I was right.  It does, however, have no issues whatsoever with the Remington bulk pack, so I’ll keep a few boxes of that around just for that gun.  Also, you have to slap the magazine up into the well like it owes you money.
• The stock sights on the 22-A1 leave quite a bit to be desired.  The front post is about 1/8″ wide, which means that at any real shooting distance, I have a hard time finding center mass on the target.  In addition, while I was able to get good, tight groups out of it, they were always left of center.  Adjustments of the rear sight all the way over only moved it a little closer to the center of the target.  I guess I can either use a bit of Kentucky windage to correct, have the slide ground to put better iron sights on it, or take advantage of the rail on top of the slide to put an inexpensive red-dot scope on it.
• To the guy teaching his son to shoot on the lane next to me:  Good for you for trying to bring your teenage son into the fold. One hint – berating him about accuracy on his first time out might not be the best approach.  Seriously dude, handing the kid a Beretta 92, pushing the target out to about 40 feet, and then giving him crap because he wasn’t punching a ragged hole in the X ring is counter productive.  How about you start out with safety, proper grip, sight picture, and stance?  He might get more out of that than making him shoot two-handed, one handed strong and off hand, and pushing the target out further and further.  One final thing, when you’re “showing him how it’s done”, it’s not necessary to do breathing exercises and pump yourself up like an Olympic power lifter prior to bringing that big old 9mm up to bang out a magazine full of bullets.  Also, dude, the second time the nice range safety comes over to ask you to watch your muzzle might be a hint that you need some time working on the basics yourself.
• To the mother and her son two lanes down from me:  Congratulations on your purchase of a Remington semi-automatic .22 rifle with a Leupold scope.  Again, I think that a little more time on the basics like trigger control might benefit your son.  Also, cranking off 30 rounds of .22 in 10 seconds from a scoped rifle might be fun, but y’all might not be learning much more than what the nice range safety told you when he showed you to your lane, helped you unbox your new gun, showed you how to load the magazines and put them in the gun, and work the safety.  I do have to compliment both of you on your safety.  I never felt like one of you was going to cause me to have to spend money on a deductible. 
• I will someday find the engineer who designed the 22-A1 and beat him or her about the head and shoulders with a cucumber.  The takedown on that thing is pretty easy, but putting it back together when your fingers are slippery from gun oil and grease is a pain in the neck.
• Rollerskating rinks are just as fun for me as an adult who doesn’t skate as they were for me as a child who didn’t skate.
• Corollary:  One of the side benefits of being half cave troll is that no ice or roller skating rink has been able to rent me skates since the 6th grade.
• The following “entertainers” are on notice that they can bite my butt:  KC and the Sunshine Band, Rihanna, The Black Eyed Peas, Miley Cyrus, Kool and the Gang, and Britney Spears.  After three hours of listening to them and every other over-produced bit of tripe to come out in the last 40 years this afternoon, I hope they all die horribly.
• To the man at the roller rink with the tattoos all the way up his arm and neck, a well-worn Harley Davidson tee-shirt, and a bandanna, I grant you 500 bonus man points based upon the smile of the wee little girl in the pink shirt you were skating around the rink with today.
• Karma:  The universal force that causes the asshat on rollerblades who almost runs you and your 3 year old son down as you show him how to rollerskate for the first time to lose it in the next corner, crash into a concrete block wall, and have to be helped off the rink by his father.
• To the young boy who lost his balance on the rink and went parallel to the ground before crashing down on his face, who then got up, laughed about it, and took off skating:  Mal Hombre!
• To the ‘tween boy who put on his skates, stood up, lost his balance, landed on his butt, and burst into tears because his “tushy hurt”, the envelope returning your application for a Man Card should be at your mailbox shortly.
• There may be more blatant ways to show your daughter that you love her than by giving up your Sunday afternoon during the NFL playoffs to take her and her friends rollerskating and then having dinner with her and your ex-wife, but I can’t think of them off the top of my head.

I’ve been working for a company with a lot of trucks and airplanes for over a decade now, and I’ve never seen any of them turn into robots.  I don’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

It is a sign that your evening is not going to be uneventful when you come home from work to find the 3 year old running through the house naked and singing “Get Back” at the top of his lungs, while his mother chases him and prays to at least one deity to give her patience.

In the future, do not take a good strong dose of NyQuil, then drift off to sleep while reading first hand accounts of the Western Front during World War I.  Drugged fever dreams about mud, gas, explosions, and barbed wire are no fun.

• It’s a good thing when your child is telling you to hurry up so he can get to school.
• It’s not going to be a good day when you have to pull off the freeway to stop coughing.
• A boss who understands that sometimes you just have to take a sick day is worth his weight in gold.
• A stiff dose of NyQuil, half a gallon of cold water, and some aspirin, followed by 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep, can do wonders.
• When you can’t taste anything, the best thing for you can be some salty tortilla chips and salsa.  At least you can taste the salt and feel the burn.
• Hot apple cider on a sore throat is a wonderful thing.
• A doctor’s office that can’t get you in until the day after you call is not so wonderful.