Happiness is full mags
2026-08-28 09:35
Would you look at the time? It's been a while.
Last weekend I finished my BATFE paperwork for Class III & submitted yet another set of fingerprints for their database, they have quite the collection by now. I'm not sure how long the paperwork will take to wind through the system but I know I've already been charged for the purchase(s). Of course the dealers get their money first, even if your paperwork takes months to go through. The regulation around class III firearm and accessory purchases is obviously an infringement of your 2nd amendment protected civil right to keep & bear arms disguised behind a taxation scheme. There are no other products marketed with taxation regulation so strictly enforced - I can go buy a bottle of Everclear 190 proof liquor, pay the tax, and transfer it to another person without needing to file any paperwork or requiring them to be fingerprinted or background checked. This type of regulation is reserved for firearms & accessories only.
At any rate, I'm looking forward to the new Q Honey Badger SBR + suppressor kit in .300blk.
Working in I.T. has always been a difficult job of architecting, purchasing, implementing, and managing critical infrastructure for executives and workers/engineers, while balancing needs & wants against senior management expectations & budget restrictions. It's as if management doesn't have any idea what we actually do, and they resent the fact that they have to pay us a decent wage to do it. I'm coming up on my five year anniversary doing DevSecOps for this company and in that amount of time I've had four new managers. Only one of which was even remotely technically competent & he was a Windows admin not very familiar with UNIX/Linux operating systems. For a year I've been warning them that a certain piece of infrastructure needed replaced, and that it would become a problem around February of '26, and become critical around September of '26. Well, it's almost September & we're pushing "Critical Overload". No matter what anyone in management wants, they're going to have to spend some money & I'm going to need some time to implement a solution. It doesn't even piss me off anymore. I'm just tired of seeing the same old song & dance over & over for 35+ years & I'm beginning to lose interest.
Every once in a while I think, "Maybe I should consider retirement a bit more thoroughly." Then I sit around & think about how I don't have to work anymore ALREADY and could retire now at 56. The problem is that I truly just wouldn't know what to do with myself. I'd become one of the old retirees up at the gun range coming in for an hour every day just to chat with friends & have something to do. That would get pretty old pretty fast. Travel sounds fun to some degree but the fact is I get sick fairly often when I travel by plane, and driving a car for thousands of miles gets old after about 3 days - it starts to feel as if I live in the car - so traveling every so often just isn't going to fill in the days.
So it's another Friday, grocery shopping day & household chores. The good news is that I've loaded all the mags for Saturday so my hands won't be worn out. Chris & I will get some lunch over at Charleston's as usual & then I'll head up to SGC with John for an hour or so of target practice. I finally got my custom earplugs from Amp'd Up & simply cannot say enough good things about them. Once I wind these things into the ear canal, they block out so much noise that I don't need over-the-ear noise cancelling earphones anymore. In fact, when I put the noise cancelling earphones over these, things actually get louder. I almost feel as if I should order a second set just as backup for when I eventually lose these. (they're small, trust me, I can misplace them)
Anyway that's it for this August 28 update. It's been a while. Take care.