Month: September 2021

September 2, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

September 2, 2021 /

As I talked about last week, I had two lessons. This is the second one from my recent experiences. It also might be a little juvenile, but I have found myself in this position in the past as well so let’s get into it.

I haven’t written about it much, maybe not at all. I am a member of the Brotherhood of the Protective Order of the Elks (or Elks). The biggest reason that I wanted to do so was to get involved in the local trap range. The Elks sponsor the local high school trap team by providing the facility to shoot. My son is part of the high school trap team.

Our local state representative is also an Elk in our local lodge. He hosts an annual campaign fundraiser at the trap range and the trap team helps operate the event. I wanted to help out but I had to work that Saturday so I dropped my son off while I went back home. When I went to pick him up, I found him with his shotgun in pieces.

When I asked my son what was going on, he said that his shotgun was not functioning. He took it apart at the gun club and parts were all piled on the ground. People were trying to put the furniture away and clean up to close down the facility and event. I was finally able to persuade him that we should do this at home and not on the ground.

On the ride home, I was trying to figure out what was the problem and why he was so disparate. I got that the shotgun wasn’t cycling so he cleaned it and then it wasn’t firing. He told me that a pin in the trigger group occasionally works it’s way out causing the trigger not to work. He was trying to get the trigger group out at the club to determine if he had already lost the pin when he was cleaning it.

As it turns out, he did lose the pin somewhere on the grounds of the trap club. We probably ought to take a swing at looking for it again just in case but I don’t know where to look and he has been working at night since this happened. Fortunately, Brownells stocks the pin and it is $4 to replace.

I have been guilty of being frustrated and taking apart a firearm in the past. One time I lost a spring to pistol because it wasn’t firing properly and I took it apart in the woods. I have since learned to stop and do things in an appropriate time and place. Sometimes, part are not so readily available as this time.

End Your Programming Routine: In contrast to the story above, sometimes field repairs have to be done. It is a matter of weighing the risk vs the reward of the situation. I would highly encourage that evaluation is done before something irreplaceable goes flying off into the unknown. I even worry about stuff being torn down too long in a controlled environment; stuff gets moved or piled on top of. Another good practice is put the parts in a small box or something to keep them together. I am expecting the pin early next week.

September 1, 2021 – Wake Me Up When September Ends

September 1, 2021 /

Continuing on the theme of music as a distraction today, can you believe that today is September 1? My kids are going to a half day orientation for school today and tomorrow. The summer is for all intents and purposes over. As my wife and I were talking last night, we did some fun things but all-in-all it was another Covid summer. I can say that my kids are looking forward to going to school and having a little bit of normalcy even if it isn’t.

When I was looking up songs to help with the playlist for my father-in-laws funeral last week, I was reading on one song list that ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’ was the number one grief song. It was apparently written about the passing of Billie Joe Holliday’s father in 1982. When you read some of the comments, they are all people hurting, except for today when people just want to comment and be silly.

It is interesting that the video does not actually match the true intent of the song. It does however have current relevance. We don’t know the true story, but it seems like the boy enlists and ends up in either Iraq or Afghanistan where he becomes a casualty. We don’t know his fate, but it seems like the parallel reality to this story is the girlfriend waiting and worrying about the boyfriend.

I am going to diverge for a paragraph here. I was sickened and horrified by September 11, 2001. But to start a twenty year war with two theatres and all of the senseless death, destruction and cost was a total waste. In 2001, I was at the apex of my Republican beliefs but I was on the fence about war. Now, in 2021 I am totally against any form of aggression outside of self defense. I am hard pressed to find vengeance as justification for war. This was George W Bush’s war, but Obama campaigned in 2008 for ending it which he never did, Trump actually set the withdrawal date and Biden finished it. I feel really bad for what is currently happening in Afghanistan but we cannot correct a wrong with another wrong (by staying in country).

I am not sure when things will return to normal at my house. September 13, my wife has tickets to return to Texas to support her mom with cancer treatment. Everything is so much up in the air at this point because there is no return date on that trip. There is a real possibility that this is another trip ending in bad news. There is another possibility that this trip is not just two weeks like the last one. We are going to do our best to stay strong and normal as possible.

You can probably tell from my writings over the last couple of weeks that this family is still grieving. The funeral service was a milestone which I don’t see as the end but rather the beginning of the cycle. People were so focused on the logistics of the service that there was no time to grieve. Now that is over, emotion is boiling.

But, I don’t want to make another post strictly about grief. Sometimes I want to hear a certain song, I will look it up on YouTube and then I let it play. The problem is that when you do that too much, the AI starts to develop a pattern and then it goes into the same genre loop every time. Sometimes I use a different browser so I can try to fake that it is me. I like to have some variety from time to time. It is kind of like Chicago, maybe I want one song and not everything in that particular genre or artist.

In my previous job, I used to frequently create a Friday playlist. You can see it on my YouTube channel still. They were songs that I thought captured the week or were funny or silly. After I set the initial list, I would open it up for the rest of the team to contribute. Sometimes they did and sometimes not, but we would usually put it on while we were working Friday afternoons.

Maybe I should have been a DJ? I am not deep into all of the facts about bands and songs but rather the connection music has with emotion. There is something about the senses of sound and smell that have a more triggering connection to memory more so than sight. It is probably because we are constantly using our eyes, but when we isolate our other senses, then we are specifically focused on that particular pathway.

End Your Programming Routine: If we are not careful, we will wake up in a few short days and it will be October 1. I don’t want to skip through the month, I want to get through the month otherwise we will be at the exact same place as we are now.