Monthly Archives: September 2020

Sep30

Getting in my vaguely regular practice at the range – 22-Sept-2020

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Tuesday, 22-Sept-2020

 

I have various skill sets that I try to keep fresh – driving in the snow, for example.  Not skills that I’d always need, but ones that I feel are important enough to spend time keeping at least vaguely fresh.

One of those is hitting a target with a gun – Not something I’d hopefully ever need, but something that I feel is a good thing to keep at least competent at.

 

So, Laurel and I headed to the range after work on Tuesday.

It’s a range that I’d been to before – it’s actually underground, strangely enough, up in Washington.  Nothing super fancy, but definitely a solid setup.  Good safety precautions, pleasant staff… really all that I could ask for in a range.

We parked, signed in, rented a pistol, and headed in.

I mean… that’s really it.  We shot for about an hour, switching the pistol out once and then renting a rifle to complete the practice.  Just reminding ourselves how to load a magazine, how much recoil to expect, that sort of thing.  The range-master was excellent, and gave some really good tips too.

Simple, easy, and enjoyable.  With pizza afterward?  A good evening indeed.

 

Ohh, and here’s the pictures.  Did pretty well for not having shot in a few years.  Even better – they had a COVID-19 target, so… I saved us, guys.  Shot it dead.  All better now, right?

Sep29

Oregon Wildfires – the air was not good. Mid-September, 2020

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September, 2020

 

Man.

2020 is just… not great, man.

It’s scary – I saw someone say that we shouldn’t think of this year as the worst wildfires in a decade… but instead, think of them as the best wildfires for the next decade.  Every year, they get a little bit worse… hopefully we can reverse it, but realistically…

Well, let’s just simplify it and say that I’ll be buying a heavier-duty respirator, instead of the small one that I’ve got now.  Maybe one of those ones with a self-contained tank, or hip-filter or something?  We’ll see.  I’ll look on the fire-fighters supply store and see what I can source this coming Winter.

For now though, the fires burn, and I stay indoors.

From the 10th to the 17th, roughly, Wilsonville stood on the world stage as having some of the worst air quality in the world – top 10 for almost every day, and literal worst for a few hours on the 10th.  My worksite was closed that whole time, though thankfully I already have a working from home setup, so it didn’t affect my ability to get things done too harshly.

Physically, it was rough – headaches, light nausea, that sort of thing… but again, thanks to already having a full fridge and a good set of facemasks, I was pretty well protected from the ash and smoke.  I just stayed home, and did my best to not refresh the air quality page and the evacuation orders page too often.

 

There’s not much else to say, really… I took a few pictures to give some visuals to it… so sit back and enjoy this quick glimpse into what living on Mars will probably look like.

I guess, since we’re having so much trouble getting a manned mission to Mars set up … we’ve decided to bring Mars here?

Sorry, that was the only viable joke I could think of for this whole thing, so I had to fit it into the blog post somewhere.

Sep27

Exploring Oswald West state park – 12-Sept-2020

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Saturday, 12-Sept-2020

 

Oregon is still burning.

It hasn’t let up much, and Wilsonville’s air quality has been holding pretty steady at “hazardous”, recommending that we wear at least respirators, if not full SCBA face shields.

That… makes trips pretty challenging.

 

But, you know what?  Challenging isn’t impossible.  I have the internet, which has basically any piece of information that I could ever want.  And I have a phone, which let’s me chat with people, and plan adventures.

Marcella and I decided to head to Oswald West – it’s a beach on the Oregon Coast, not too long of a drive, and it looked like the air quality would just be “bad”, instead of in the dangerous ranges.  Coastal breezes, fog, and light rain would hopefully keep the particulate count down, and make the air a bit more breathable.

 

If you’ve never seen Oregon forests through the fog – you’re missing out, and you’ll enjoy the pictures I was able to get.  It’s magical; the forests already have a primordial feel to them, and when you add in a thick fog, with just a hint of smoke, it becomes steeped in some sort of mystic haze.

It’s gorgeous.

The hike into the beach was beautiful, and over nearly before it even began.  Thankfully, it looked like we were some of the only people to come up with this trip plan, and so the trail and beach were almost empty.  There were some surfers, a few beach combers, and maybe half a dozen people walking their dogs… but thanks to the thick fog and rolling surf, it felt like the entire world was completely empty.

 

 

After coming back to the world, hunger set in.  Turns out the empty world of the beach tied into an empty stomach, which led us to the town of Cannon Beach… where we not only met some cowboys (on horses, even), but found ourselves in the Pelican Brewery, eating amazing burgers.

A good day.  A very good day.