Telling it like it is

Only without the hunting and fishing part. Mike and I went out to the west desert today for some shooting, or as he put it, "to get rid of old ammo". We shot 20-gauge and 12-gauge shotguns, .45 and .22 handguns and an AK-47 just for good measure. It was loud, and fun, and we went through probably $100 in ammo or more. The whole load of photos is here : Fun with guns . Classic "idiot with guns" pose: Oh - and I swear the Colt 45 photo below is not photoshopped - Mike caught the expelled cartridge and the puff of dust on the ground: Arty-farty shot of spent shotgun shells:

Batten down the hatches, top up the antifreeze, get the icemelt ready, bring the logs in to the dry and check the snowblower. Winter is upon us. A four day monster snowmaker is on the way, starting friday night through to tuesday. Weather advisories put us at over 6 inches of snow in the valley by saturday night alone.

For those of you reading in England, sorry to tell you this but I just paid the equivalent of 29p / litre for a tank of petrol. That's with the conversion from US gallons as well as the weak pound. For those of us in America, the UK is currently paying about $5.50 a gallon even with the depressed price of oil. (Although it was up around $14 a gallon this summer due to the stronger pound and the wholesale raping of the motoring public over there). This is nearly as cheap as it's been since we've lived here. The first tank of petrol I put in the Subaru in 2001 was priced at $1.49 / gallon. Today I paid $1.63.

I guess I spoke too soon. We're heading for 7 inches of snow in the valley today...

We saw this a few weeks ago at a book store in Portland. I thought it was so funny it was worth a cellphone shot. I particularly like the plastic fish and plastic loaves of bread. Also I'm not even faintly religious but even I don't recall the bit where Jeebus' hands glowed...