OT - Back to the grind tomorrow - mini range report too

[Ysabel Kid]

Shouldn't complain. With so many folks out of work it is good to have a job. Just wrapped up being off on vacation for a week and a day, making a 10-day stretch of it with the two weekends. Took the family to the beach for a good part of it. Not really my thing. I like to swim in the ocean but detest "laying out", and the beach is too crowded, windy, and sandy for me to relax and catch up on good gun reading. Still, the family likes it. They had to shut down the pool for half our trip at the place we were renting because some morons figured the signs stating "no glass around the pool deck" and "if your baby wears a diaper he or she must use a swim diaper to enter the pool" didn't apply to them. One night the pool - apparently the largest in SC - got both broken glass and fecies in it. Took a full day just to drain it and clean it, and then another day and a half to fill it with a fire hydrant!

Anyway, got out one time with Y2K to do some shooting. No pictures - sorry! A pair of firsts for him. He fired some "factory" level .38 Specials in my old Ruger Blackhawk. As I suspected, he handled these with ease, and really enjoyed them much more than the "cat's sneeze" loads we fired together out of the same gun a couple months ago. He wanted to move up to "the big leagues" and asked to try my 1911A1. I hadn't shot it for a while, so figured the worst that could happen was he couldn't handle the recoil yet, and I'd get some practice time with it. Wrong. He loved it and I barely got a couple magazines in. Didn't bother me at all. Only thing I enjoy more than shooting is watching my son do it!

Little turd is getting very good at shooting anything I hand him. We were shooting FBI B5 targets at the combat line, so not great distance. He had no problems keeping the shots in the 9 and 10 rings most of the time - with either gun. A guess we had blown out most of the center mass and the dots were starting to fall off, so he placed 5 shots from the Blackhawk in the head of the silhouette (well, 4 out of 5). I decided I needed to remind him that experience and practice does count for something, so put five shots into the little alternate scoring diagram at the upper left corner of the target. He wasn't sure where I was shooting - looking at the head and center mass - so yelled out "you missed every shot Dad!". I just grinned and said "Did I?" and brought the target back to us (cable line), then pointed out the "mini-silhouette" I had been shooting. He loved it!

We packed him up and sent him off to a week of Boy Scout summer camp today. I still can't get more than 6 hours of sleep in at a time on a real bed without my back hurting, so camping is not in store for me this year. Have a couple other medical issues I need to attend to this week as well. I'm missing him a bunch already. If you don't mind, please say a prayer for all the scouts camping this week. It is going to be a hot one...

[AJMD429]

Glad you got some range-time, especially with the kid; it's awesome to see them grow in skills, competence with firearms, and all the other ways they become human beings vs. rugrats. They're generally the main thing we leave behind to show what we accomplished in life. Sounds like you've done well so far, but of course don't forget your daughter! Mine just loves it when she out-shoots her brother...

[gamekeeper]

Jay, you are blessed with a fine family, I too would happily leave the females on the beach to go shootin' with my son. I hope Scout Camp goes well.

[BenT]

Kids love the water, I'm like you I can only handle a couple of days. My son is the same way , wants to shoot anything that he can get his hands on.

[lthardman]

Sounds like a great time. Great time at the range for sure.

I'm with you about aimlessly laying in the sun. If I can't find any shade, I'll just have to make some. And, if I have time to lay in the sun, I must have forgotten to do something (make that anything) more important. The Sun is good for things that are green, but I haven't been that hue in a while.

Besides, the sun will make your beverage warm up too fast.

[Ysabel Kid]

Received a call this evening from one of my friends who's son is in the same troop as my son. He went up to summer camp to be an adult leader/supervisor for the few days. He said it was horribly hot and humid; nary a wiff of a breeze. Despite that all the boys are doing fine, and Y2K's comment was "this was the best day ever!"

Should be. Here are the merit badge classes he's signed up for this week:

Wood carving
Rifle shooting
Tracking
Wilderness Survival
Swimming

We figured that taking swimming at the end of day would be a smart move. Allows him to cool off after a hot day and shower afterwards before dinner.

He's a Red Cross-certified level 6 swimmer (just below lifeguard), so the swimming merit badge is going to be a breeze (but required for his Eagle Scout rank). He's really excited about the "rifle shooting", "tracking" (a 100-anniversary badge only offered this year), and "wilderness survival" - building his "sniper skills" as he put it. Anything that gives him extra trigger time!

Thanks for the ongoing prayers!

[Old No7]

Neat report Jay!

"Just wrapped up being off on vacation for a week and a day, making a 10-day stretch of it with the two weekends."

I just did the SAME thing! And you're right -- that extra day made a 5-day vacation feel so much longer! Will have to do that again.

I... sadly... didn't get any shooting in at all, but I did get out on my new (to me) boat on ALL 10 days, so that was really cool.

Glad Y2K is doing well.

Old No7