I just called my dad and that was a pretty short lived call.  He actually sounded very good in health, but the effects of the dementia are becoming more and more profound.  At the same time, he's 85 years old, so it's not like his life is getting cut short.  I talked  with his wife for a few seconds and then got on the horn with her son who wanted to exchange phone numbers.  I'm, uh, going to have to figure something out here in advance.  Both my dad and her - his wife - are having their own sets of health issues and he, her son, wanted my phone number in case something happens to her and someone is going to have to come down to take care of dad if she ends up in the hospital.

If I were in Phoenix that would be possible, over here?  I dunno. I think there are services that will come in and deal with medications and all of that stuff - but at the same time can you leave a person with Alzheimer's on their own?  I know my brothers won't bother to do anything, so I guess it's all on me if something does, indeed, happen.

I talked to my mom and told her  what I wanted for Christmas and that it's on sale today for less than half price.  She was all over that.  After we got off the phone, she ordered it and that's that.
She has no idea what she wants for Christmas, her mind is on the move, coming quite soon.  The 7th of next month to be exact.  Maybe she'll need something for her new house.

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Moving on and a different day.  My agenda today was to get out of bed, find a shooting range and go fire off my new Taurus.  Which reminds me, I need to take it apart and thoroughly clean the manufacturers oil coating that they put on it - that I thought was part of "good" oil for the gun and found out much differently today.

Well anyway, the first thing that popped up was a shooting range only 12 minutes away.  Got over there to find out it's $20 to shoot. That's a bit pricey, frankly, but I was there.  They have a yearly rate that was $90 today only otherwise $120. I didn't buy the year membership,   But super nice people working the place and extremely knowledgeable including having their own gun smith. Yeah, well anyway, I got out there and I was the only one there.  It had just opened and it was in the 40's outside.  Which didn't bother me a bit, but apparently kept other shooters at home.  I dunno, but shortly after starting using the Taurus - it jammed up.  I got a bit irritated with that considering it's a brand  new gun.  I cleared it and it jammed again.

Well, this old codger opens a door in this old building and took me by surprise.  I didn't know anyone was in there. I mean, it is the building you are at, outside, to fire off your rounds.   He threw some golf balls out onto the range and proceeded to quick draw his gun and started firing at them and yes - he was hitting them!  I think he was putting on a show, but it was cool to watch.  He came walking by and turns out  he is also the gunsmith there, like a dude that knows literally everything about guns?  He takes my gun and disappears with it.  2 of them come back out.  I mean, how many people are in there? rofl

The codger - I don't mean that in a bad way, just a way to describe the look and way that he carries himself - comes out, rummages through my rather large gun handbag without my permission - though I can't say it bothered me, just was funny to see him digging in there - produces my large can of spray oil, slams it down on the table and says, There!  I looked at him funny I am sure.  What?  You need to oil this thing!  But look at it, I replied, there's oil all over it!  The other dude stepped in.  Yes, but that is that junk they put on it at the manufacturers.  It's thick oil and they only put it on there to keep the gun from rusting while it's waiting to be sold, something newer that they are doing, not knowing how long it might sit on a dealer's shelf.

You have to clean all of that sludge off of there or yes, it will jam up your gun.  Well, for a temp fix I sprayed the crap out of the sliding areas of it and yes, it worked.  This gun has a lifetime warranty, if it fails, I need only take it back to Academy and they will ship it back to Taurus to have it repaired.  So, I haven't cleaned it yet, I'll get to that tomorrow.  It was a really nice shooting gun though.  No extreme kickback, but the sights need to be aligned and honestly I am not going to say I am going to be good at doing that.

I think maybe I'll go back and leave the gun with them and have them sight it in.  I would need someone to show me how to do that.  Or perhaps there is a YouTube video. Seems nowadays there's a YouTube video for any and everything. I fired off 110 rounds in the new gun and fired off 100 rounds on my .40.  I like that .40, it's powerful and I have it down now.  I can hit the inner circle probably 50% of the time and hit the next circle out most of the rest.  That's good enough for any "situation". I'd get better if I went more often, but really, if you're hitting anywhere in center mass, you are hitting it where it counts.    

The other show today is when the dude came back out of the shack with a gun with a very long banana clip on, put the butt  end against his leg and started firing it.  Fully auto assault rife, I couldn't count how many rounds went off in a few seconds time.  It was just spraying them out.  I should have asked what kind of gun it was, it wasn't an AK 47, much smaller, just no idea.  I also found a concealed carry holster that also doubles as a open carry.  I  don't really want to open carry excepting if you are out in the wilderness.  Yup, no problem open carry there.

Besides the new gun jamming, it was an enjoyable experience that I will probably do once a month.  I think that's enough and even practice rounds aren't cheap.  I may order 500 rounds online for each gun and save some significant dough there. As it stands I need more hollow point rounds.  And, I could have brought the 12 gauge and the .22 rifle, next time I will bring all of it. It's quite the rush to do the chink-chink on a 12 gauge shotgun and then fire it off.  Really, firing off guns is entertainment in itself.  Just not cheap entertainment, lol.

Well I stopped for gas and a coffee on the way home, this time with the 9mm concealed on my side.  It's a bit large of a gun for concealed, though not that it doesn't conceal well, just a lot of metal pressing up against your side.

Well, upon getting home a guy that contacted me off of my FB yard sale post showed up to rake the lawns.  This a new one, the last one decided to stand around the fire last time he was here for an hour and ten minutes doing absolutely nothing and getting paid for it.  Not with my permission, trust me.  The dude today is just a flat out hard worker.  He thought it would be easy at first but soon realized that the yards are far more work than what it appears.  The front yard hasn't been done in quite a while and was covered in leaves, acorns and fallen, nasty smelling fruit.  It took him much longer than he initially expected.

The leaves are still smoldering out there with occasional bursts of fire.  Likely will be well into tomorrow, it was a huge pile.

I also got busy with this long stalled pond project out front and got most of the blocks cemented into place.  I can only hope it isn't going to rain tonight as the runoff fills that hole right up and that would surely knock that wall over.  I am going to put rebar in behind the wall to fortify it, but regardless I don't suppose the mortar is going to set for quite a while in this cold weather.

After that? Well the bottom of the pond was muddy and I was covered with it on my boots and pants.  I decided that was enough for today.  Day 3 of 4 days off almost over, one more day and back to the work grind. But it's been an enjoyable time off.  I can only hope for some serious OT opportunities this coming week or there will be a small paycheck en-queue.  That's the hard part about taking time off. It's flat 40 and though it isn't  insurmountable, it is a factor to be taken into consideration.

As for the political front, I took a few days off from the debate group, then got tagged back into it from the owner who wanted to show me pics of her Taurus and asking questions about  mine. A totally non-political thread that was enjoyable to be in.  I looked at a bunch of posts saying how racist Trump is and a lot of other bs and decided to not engage in any of that garbage.  Then, the owner of the group tagged me again with pics of her new doggie - of which she hasn't had one since she was in her 20's I think she said and so I obliged her request and told her the story of Adler - on that debate forum rofl - how I acquired him and life  with him since then.

In fact, this lady is tagging me all over the place, I'm only guessing that she needs another moderator for she doesn't do this kind of tagging and hinting to anyone else in the group.  And yes, she needs another moderator.  I "Report to Admin" posts that are blatant violations that also could get the group in trouble with Facebook TOS and also stupid posts that have no bearing in reality, much less a debatable topic.  The racist stuff is getting old and I am ignoring them for now.  The people posting these posts are insufferable and bigoted, some of them reverse racist blacks that hate white people with a vengeance.  I find no good reason to get involved in such threads, for I have been involved in them before.  I have been in that group for a while now and at least have as much respect as one can expect to garner in a group of 16,000 people and the regulars, most of whom I do not agree with and they do not agree with me, but, mostly, it remains civil.

Well, Black Friday is over.  I will try to get my new C-7 lights hung tomorrow.  Just the porch, 3 25 food strands which should be sufficient.

Can I just interject here that John Wayne's horse in the movie El Dorado is absolutely stunning? What a beautiful horse!  They've been showing a lot of Wayne in the last several days.  Still one of my favorite actors of all time.  He made such excellent movies. They simply come up with nothing even remotely comparable today. The trash the Hollywood comes out with now......

Well that's it.  For this one anyway.  I'm in good spirits.