Reloading Press

I really enjoy shooting..  I always have..  In the military I would go to the range every weekend and throw some rounds down range just for the pure joy of it..  And while I would sometimes shoot my pistols, I prefer rifles..  I dunno what it is, but there is something very peaceful about the focus and presence of mind you need to effectively shoot a rifle..

I liked it because when shooting, all the cares of the day seemed to kinda slip away..  You had to focus on what you’re doing and not be distracted by anything in order to hit your target, especially at range..  I have missed it..

The main reason I have missed it was due to cost, and distance..  Simply put there aren’t any ranges near where I live, and since my primary round is 7.92x57mm Mauser it can get a tad pricey..  Enter reloading..

I have wanted to get back into shooting something fearce and have been trolling several shooter forums trying to find a new inexpensive round that I can shoot that would afford me the accuracy I require in a cost effective manner..   A lot of people have suggested .223, .308 or even 6br.. But that would require a whole new rifle, not exactly a cheap solution..

So instead, I have started to reload my old used 8mm brass..  It’s so easy too!!  I have to admit I’m shocked at the simplicity of the process.. Plus the saves are about 50% a round..

Previously the el’cheapo stock ammo purchased off the intertubes went for about $1 a round or as much as $2.50 a round at the range — reloading my old brass comes in at $0.53 a round.. Yay!!    And the nice thing is I don’t have to buy a new rifle..

Having said that I would love to get a new rifle..hehe  For now I’m going to just keep reloading the 8mm stuff and shoot the guns I have, but I still like the idea of getting something else.. Plus I spent a good deal of time pouring over the Savage Arms website, and I must admit some of those guns made me drool a little..

But they are a tad pricey..  Plus I’m back to facing the chambering issue.. what should I get?  I’m sort of leaning towards a bench rest gun since the range I go to doesn’t allow for freestanding or prone shooting.. (They say its for insurance reasons..)

My friends suggest .223 and .308 because they are common rounds.. Of the two I’d be more likely to go .308 over .223 because its a traditional round that can be used for anything where as the .223 is more of a varmant round..  But the 6br (.243 basically) has a lot going for it too.. I dunno..

Right now it’s a moot point because of cost..  A good rifle to fire any of those rounds would cost $1500 new.. And that’s only half the cost.. without good optics you might as well be throwing rocks..   It’s insane how much a good scope can run you..

Oh well.. I’ll keep reloading my mauser and dream..

Electric Violin

So I had said previously that my musical talent ended pretty much at the ability to play the radio, and that I hated that..  I wrote that entry back in July of ’08 and I still hate it..

I have been looking around for ideas of what to play and am still undecided.. I have a nice piano so my investment there at this point would be only time, but I am not interested in it — it still doesn’t inspire me..  I still like the idea of the Chapman stick but the cost is just unreasonable and frankly the alternative is not as pretty (yes that matters) not to mention they have horrible business tactics which I don’t appreciate..

I thought about getting a guitar and may still do that as there’s a ton of info out there for free as well as an awesome assortment of equipment.. So baring anything else.. I’ll do that.. I can get a guitar on the cheap and I have 4 or 5 friends that have offered to loan me an instrument..

Having said that, of late a coworker of mine has gotten me interested in learning the violin or viola..   Plus I have done a lot of looking online and I have to admit they look fun..  The concept of an electric violin appeals to me.. hehe

I think I like the sound of the viola more than that of the violin but it seems to me that everything out there is aimed more at teaching you the violin, and then you convert that knowledge to the viola or the cello..  As I understand it the knowledge transfers quit easily and I wouldn’t be surprised if way back in history “Violin” translates to “small Viola”.. heh

What’s really funny is I like the idea of an electric violin the most.. Primarily because I know its something that I could build..  I know.. whacky.. but I’m a damn good carpenter and frankly they don’t look hard to build..  I have watched quite a few videos of them being made and to be honest, the only thing I need is the measurements..

Not sure how the sound is picked up though — it appears to be a crystal in the bridge which makes sense, since unlike an electric guitar there are no metal strings.. Beyond that making sure strings are correctly isolated and that the measurements are sound it seems easy..

I’m not going to rush out of build one of course.. I mean if you can’t play it what’s the point..

I have purchased several books and am reading up on the violin though as I think it’s something I’d like to start doing.. I have wasted enough of my life sans music, it’s time to start picking something up..  I found a place here in town that rents very nice violins for as low as $20-$30 a month and they have a looong list of instructors..

I have told the wife of the plans and she seemed opened to it..  Good thing too as I’m sure for a while its going to sound like I’m torturing a cat to death..  I also have looked into various forms of “muffles” for violins so that I don’t drive her completely insane..

More reading and video watching though to try to make sure it’s what I want to do..

On a side note;  I have watched a lot of YouTube video’s recently of people playing all manner of instruments and I’m just stunned and amazed at the varitey of talent there is out in the world..

Some of you are fantastic!  Some.. not so much.. heh..  Gotta take the good with the bad I suppose..

But it just amazes me the number of people who record themselves performing their art for others to watch and even critique.. (though to be honest you’re better off just closing the “text comments” and never ever reading them again.. It’s also stunning how completely rude people are considering folks are opening themselves up to constructive comments, not unhelpful bad-mouthing by someone who couldn’t even perform to the level they are bashing.)

Kelly Iverson (“The Lady”) and Mark Allen (“Doc Parsons”) are a fantastic example of people who love what they do and do it for our enjoyment.. they also show nicely that a well played guitar sounds wonderful with a well played violin.. Thanks guys, well done..

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Some of the instruments are .. uh.. odd.. to say the least.. For example, the following is a nyckelharpa and a hurdy gurdy duo — Stick around for the whole thing:

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Wasn’t that great?!  I mean two instruments that absolutely fill the space with sound.. I’m not sure another instrument would fit in there.. heh

I had never heard of a Nyckelharpa before but apparently it’s a traditional Swedish instrument from the 14th century.. Very cool.. There are a lot of youtube videos of people playing them and they are neat..  The hurdy gurdy is I have heard before in person and you really can’t appreciate it until you feel the buzz.. It’s a wildly expressive instrument.. It’s very cool that people not only still play these but are darn good at it..

There are a lot more examples too of folks willing to put themselves out there.. Kudos to you all.. Aint the internet cool.. =)

My lack of musical skills came gallingly apparent one year at Halloween when everyone in the company showed up playing some instrument or another — and I had nothing of the sort. One of the co-workers asked with complete honesty and earnest, “What instrument do you play?” as if it were a foregone conclusion that I had to play something..

My response was, “I can play the radio..” Which got a chuckle from everyone who heard it, but it left me a little hollow inside. I really do want to learn something I just am not sure what. Or rather, I wasn’t.

Firstly, why did the aspirations die? Well band in middle school was something we did to get the required credit and to avoid any sort of P.E. ~ I’m lazy and playing an instrument sounded a lot more fun that running laps around a track. And while it filled that need nicely, it really did nothing to foster musical desires or competency on my part and I largely didn’t enjoy it..

I think the primary reason for my lack of enthusiasm was that I wanted to play the saxophone, but was assigned the trombone. Back then the players had virtually NO choice.. Had I showed up with a sax of my own and could form the correct embouchure I’m sure I would have been a shoe in, but since we didn’t own a sax and I had no clue what an embouchure was; I wasn’t even remotely in the running for the job. I was handed a trombone and told to go sit down — I made do. But I didn’t like it.

I enjoyed the baritone more, but didn’t get to play it for long before they decided they needed me carrying the sousaphone around. That effectively ended my band career in my mind. I quit the band and spent the next 4 years swimming on the swim team.. Hey at least I wasn’t running laps ~ just swimming them. Low impact I tell ya! (trying to put a positive spin on it)

So whats changed? Well.. Nothing. I still don’t play anything and really would like to. It’s something that I want to get into as a hobby. Just something I can piddle around with.

Part of the issue is my other major hobby is software engineering — programming. I very much enjoy programming and it’s something I do often, but it’s also what I do for a living. And nothing will rob you of a hobby more than being forced to do it.

So I need a new hobby. My usual waste of time comes in the form of playing games, but that’s still massive amounts of time with ‘ass in chair’ really not expanding my horizons.. Playing games is fine and all but it doesn’t broaden the mind much. Entertaining, sure.. Growth educing, not so much..

So this has made me want to look at musical instruments again. I have always had a fondness for music and really would like to learn to make my own. When I listen to music I often imagine myself playing the instruments and what that must feel like..

I thought for a long time that I’d like to learn to play the piano, and even got one. I have a very nice Yamaha S90 piano that I really have never learned to use.

It’s an excellent piano with all manner of very nice bells and whistles, but for what ever reason it didn’t inspire me like I thought it would.

I tried, and had a friend start to teach me but it just didn’t do anything for me. It was a bit daunting of course because of all the various buttons, dials and widgets but so long as you just focused on the piano keys themselves it was fine. It played nicely as far as I could tell but I really didn’t get much out of it. I certainly didn’t do it any justice and at this point its a shame the machine isn’t being better used. I don’t feel it was too hard for me, it just didn’t inspire me.

I still very much like the idea of learning to play the piano but it still doesn’t grip me like I thought it would. I think each person to their instrument and this one simply isn’t mine.

For a long time I wanted to learn to play the guitar and that still entertains me to some degree but no more so than the piano. I know several folks who play the guitar and even dated a woman many years ago who was into it.. Classical acoustic guitar sounded very warm and soulful and I think would be a lot of fun to play. I may still get one at some point, but it doesn’t really drag me away from my other hobbies right now.

I was digging around on the internet when I stumbled across the Chapman Stick being played by Rob Martino in his song “One Cloud” on You Tube.. Nice job Rob. Well done my friend.

This instrument has been around since the mid 70′s but is completely new to me. I never new it existed until recently (a couple months ago now). When I saw Rob playing it though I immediately recognized it as a “Baliset” which I thought was a completely fictional instrument played by Gurney Halleck (Patrick Stuart) in David Lynch’s move Dune.

This was a favorite movie of mine when I was a younger man and so I had seen the Baliset scene many times. So, I was stunned to find that the Baliset was a real instrument, sorta.

I’ve been looking into this for a couple months now and the chapman stick really kind of speaks to me. One thing I like about it is that, from everything I have read it is the perfect amalgamation of keyboard and guitar — in one.

I am going to keep looking into it, but I think I’d like to learn to play one. So far from what I have seen they are brutally expensive.. but I have a nice keyboard I can sell in order to get one, or atleast part way to one.

I have read a couple folks say that learning the guitar first is good, while others say because of the “free hands” tap method used to play it learning the guitar first is actually a hindrance.. I don’t know of course.. and comments are welcome..

I’m going to keep looking into it though.. I have nothing but time so this is no rush.. but I think I’d like to learn the stick. Getting setup with one might be the hard part.. but eventually..

If not the stick then something else.. I know that most of this is likely a pipedream, but I want to learn something.. I need to unplug a tad from all my gaming and programming ~ this seems a good direction..

One of the games I find myself playing is a space game which, to be fair, isn’t very good — in fact it’s bad. It’s just not a very good game, yet for some reason I find myself continuing to play it — as does a lot of other folks. It’s strangely popular. While playing at just about every turn I see things that could not only be done a little better, but done WAY better. Not just game play wise, but technically as well. Their HTML is bad, they clearly don’t understand CSS and their PHP is poorly written (from what I can tell.) So, this of course always lead me to the line of thinking that, why shouldn’t I try to make my own?

I have a lot of irons in the fire right now so it would happen after I get the WPMU thing up and working, but if they can make a popular game, and it’s in that condition — anything I make should be at least as popular.

I want to make a game, everyone knows that. I want to make a space game, most know that too. I already have some ideas as to the game itself, but the majority of the time my idea was to make a game in C/C++/Java or some other language than the one that I’m familiar with.

I think this outlines a colossal error in my thinking.. I’m a professional developer of web applications.. I consider myself to be an expert in php, javascript, xhtml, css, etc.. I should use those, since its what I know. It’s only a minor rewrite of my core ideas to make them come inline with a web based game.

The hard part will be figuring out the specifics.. I mean web based games by their very nature are turn based games so this is the paradigm you’re stuck with.. if I can adopt my ideas to a turn based game then we are good to go!

I’d love to see a Masters of Orion like game made into a web based game, but how would that work? That game has a definite start and end to it and it seems to me that most games that work that would would tend towards alienating your players every time the game “ends” and restarts..

I almost lean towards a persistent world where by the game doesn’t end, it just continues on.

I’ll have to ponder this.. I’m pretty keen on it.

I have been working on a lot of back story, history and game lore this time. I find it’s a lot easier to create game play ideas when you have some back story to work off of.

This marks the 5th implementation of this project. The others didnt’ fail, but rather taught me quite a lot and lead me to here. Every time I get a little closer and I’m starting to get excited. Formerly called “Galaxy Incorporated”, The Periphery will adopt most of the game play ideas I had down previously but with lore changes. I have finally answered the “WHY” question, and got some pretty neat ideas as to the history.

I am still knee deep in the game treatment.. I figured before I had anything really tangible, I’d need a good plan of attack. Thus I have been writing quite a lengthy storyboard of the entire game. I am using a “BDUF” (Big Design Up Front) methodology, but keeping it flexible enough to change. I think it’d be more accurate to describe it as Big Ideas Up Front. Ideas can change, design can’t always change as easily.. heh

I have also changed my mind on the engine to be used. Previously I thought I would be using the Torque engine, but to be honest I don’t much care for it. It’s not the engine for me. The reasons are numerous, but I’ll just leave it at “Feh.”

My second choice of engine was to use the Multiverse engine, which is still a good engine but they couldn’t do a couple things I needed. Too bad really, nice bunch of guys.. (I think they have fixed some of their issues since I first looked at it, but its too late now.. heh )

I have decided to go with the C4 Engine, which impresses me at every level. And its written by one person! Which just appeals to me greatly. I have been playing with the engine and I really like what they are doing in it. I really can’t wait until I get some cutting edge art in there and see how it renders out.

Stay tuned!

111859672.0 – Humanity becomes dominate life form on planet

118068795.0 – Humanity defines it’s dominant religion

121721219.0 – Humanity starts Gregorian calendar

122378655.0 – Humanity has an industrial revolution

122436115.0 – Humanity begins space exploration

122454626.0 – Humanity receives first confirmed signals from the Lagoon Nebula

122464854.0 – Humanity has first contact with advanced alien race

122464854.3 – Humanity dies.

June 9, 2036 at 7:12pm Earth and Humanity is attacked and wiped out by an advanced alien race. Earth is left in ruin, unable to sustain life. Roughly one hundred thousand people were captured and taken as slaves – the exact number is unknown. The rest were left on the planet.. to die. Don’t you just hate Mondays?!

At 122655036.9**, what would have been February 21, 2557 at 7:27am, Humanity is given a new lease on life – I guess Mondays aren’t so bad after all..

Earth was attacked by the Arvidians, a powerful and technologically advanced race of long nosed bi-peds with an even more powerful enemy they refer to simply as “The Enemy”.

The Arvidians and the Enemy had been embroiled in a long and bloody interstellar war that was finally swinging in favor of the Enemy. The Arvidian Empire had far superior technology, but the Enemy had scale and numbers. The Enemy through sheer will and brute force had managed to beat the Arvidians off of the majority of their colonized worlds, destroy or take all of their systems and push them into the last corner of their galaxy. I believe you’re familiar with it – the Milky Way.

When the Arvidians swept through the Orion Arm of the Milky Way on their way “outward” to the tail end of the Perseus Arm, they destroyed everything in their path. Their logic was simple – if they couldn’t have it, then the Enemy wouldn’t either. Their plan was to create a vast expanse of dead space, with lifeless worlds that the Enemy couldn’t use, and wouldn’t want. Thus creating an immense buffer of destruction for protection.

In their interstellar flight, the Arvidians only came across one other “Semi-intelligent species”, Humanity. Keeping with their destroy everything policy, Humanity and Earth were doomed. Humanity was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The majority of Arvidians viewed Humans as beneath consideration – a curious little race to be pitied or scorned. Most Humans were killed outright; those that were taken, were taken as slaves. However a very small portion of them were taken more as pets. Still a slave, but looked upon fondly.

Over the course of the next 500 years the Arvidians opinion of Humans did little to improve, but it was becoming politically incorrect to “own” another intelligent being – even lowly Humans.

Humans were made free – to a limited extent.. The Arvidian Empire in its benevolence gave humans sub par ships built specifically for the humans, with the intent of giving the Enemy something else to worry about.

So, there you have it. We were free. So long as we perform meager tasks and assignments for the Arvidians they leave us mostly alone. Or you could just tell them off and set out on your own.. But with the Arvidians behind you, the Enemy in front of you, you don’t have much of a home.

That new home? A vast dead region of space with nothing but war torn worlds, vast fields of space debris and little prospects called; The Periphery.

** All dates in the game will be in basic julian plus 120M.

Off to home depot I went and I got the Ryobi 9″ bandsaw.  I was happy as a clam — or as happy as clams can be when they are forced to use Ryobi, but thats for another post..

I had set it up in my garage workshop and had everything humming along nicely.  It cut the little wood blanks I use for pen turning and the polyester resin I use as well — the world was a better place.. Or atleast my crafting was easier.

Well not two days after I started using it the motor burned out.  I was very disappointed, but not shocked after all it was Ryobi.

I figured I would just take it back but couldn’t find the receipt anywhere… *sigh* my dumbass must have thrown it away with the boxes..  Oh man.. I was unhappy..

But, I took it all back to home depot, sans-boxes and receiptless and they took it back and gave me a new one on the spot no questions asked!

That’s it.  End of story.  Home Depot kicks ass – they make things simple and good, even when they could have easily turned me away.  That kind of customer service is exactly what keeps me going back..

It’s a fun hobby and I enjoy it – it allows me to be creative on a completely different level than anything a computer could ever give me (Unless I managed to turn one out of wood).

A week or two ago my father sent me a PDF about making pens from a polyester resin. Basically instead of using a “blank” of wood as seen in the pickture above, I would use a blank of this hardened resin. Well add to that the fact that I would actually be making the blank from scratch and my interest was piqued..

Whats amazing is how easy it is. You just have to buy the resin and collorants, mix them up.. let it set.. zing! You’re done. Oh I’m sorry did you expect it to be hard? It wasn’t.
Here’s basically what I did:

1. Buy a 1 gallon jug of polyester resin and the catalyst hardener.
2. Buy some collorants to mix into the resin before it sets .
3. Find a roughly blank sized mold, in this case I used a ziplock container
4. Fill it with water to find out how many oz. it is. (it was 14) Pour out the water.
5. Fill the mold with the resin and put in 7 drops of the catalyst for ever ounce of resin.
6. Stir.
7. Stir some more.
8. More stirring please..
9. … More cowbell! er.. stirring! for about two minutes actually.
10. Now grab some of the collorant powder and mix it in. I used 4 big scoops, I should have used 6.
11. Once the collorant is stirred in and you see the pretty swirls.. walk away man..
12. Go have a coke and a smile.

Thats pretty much it. It took probably 15 minutes for the liquid resin to go into a gel state.. about 1 minute for it to go from a gel to a rubbery solid and maybe an hour for it to completely set. It got extremely hot too – gotta love that chemical reaction.

I then cut a couple blanks and tried my hand at making a pen out of it. Here is what I got – click for full sized image;

It’s not perfect. I clearly didnt add enough collorant because you can see through to the brass tube where the resin gets thin.. so mental note: add a touch more next time. But really I’m very happy with the results.

This stuff is easy to work with and it’s much less expensive than wood. I have a feeling I will be making a lot of resin pens.