☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈☭̈

So, I'm on a casual quest for the perfect upland vest.

Requires:

Open "sling" type game pouch like what I'm using now.

Dual pockets in front, (like what I've got now)

Drink pocket so that a bottle of water doesn't drift around in the game pouch with dead game.

Secure (zippered) pocket for cell phone.

Easy way of storing gloves when not in use that doesn't involve afore mentioned game pouch.

Nice vents that can be closed off (warm weather, cold weather. Or rather, starting cold, then overheating and risking sweating in 20 degree weather.)

Provisions for dog collar controller. (Someday!)

Given that, also pocket/space for pooch water and treat.

Some of these (like the vents) don't work out with the other requirements. But in a perfect world....

Spent this morning hunting again. This time was preserve hunting, so they were all released birds (put-and-take hunting). A mix of pheasant, quail and a couple partridge thrown in for good measure.

Nearly a perfect day. 28 degrees, about an inch of new snow, no wind, good dogs. We shot most of what they flushed, they flushed most of the birds. My shooting ranged from a couple really good shots at distance to a spectacular pair of fails that were easy shots. I actually do better on the sudden snap-shots than I do on aimed shots.

The Ruger went into the shop last year after it broke a mainspring follower, which meant the second shot was unreliable (trigger wouldn't pull). This was it's first time back in the field and it was like an old friend. Fast-swing, good balance, everything you want except not light weight.

Yes, I like the guns that are comfortable to me.

Oh - and 35.2 grains of Hogdon HS-6 under 1 1/4 oz of copper plated #5 shot ROCKS.

But first...

My email seems to have "healed" Hopefully completely. So it should be reliable again.

Spent Thursday hunting with a friend. The permit I had was for a known bunny hole - no kidding! We saw 24 rabbits and one cock pheasant. Who was busily yelling and squacking at the end of a corn row, and managed to do a classic "double-back and evade" past my buddy and escape unharmed.

Unfortunately, the bunnies mostly did too. We got one. The rest gave us flickers of white puffball rears or sometimes just a wake of disturbed prairie grass.

But it was a lovely day to be outside. Which, really, is mostly the point!

So....

I can receive email. I can't seem to send it without a 12-16 hour delay.

If you really want to get ahold of me, please use my gmail account nrwgauge@gmail.com for a while.

And hope that Mediacom straightens their garbage out.

Subject: Earthshattering Picture Britney Spirs and 4 Simple Slovak

Every time I try to use emacs, I keep doing everything but editing files. Right now I'm toying with Dired, since my otherwise-preferred file manager has recently taken up this obnoxious habit of not actually deleting files when I tell it to.

Surprisingly, it only took rebinding two keys before it was minimally usable, and a few more before it became comfortable.


("&" . dired-flag-garbage-files) ;; marks junk for deletion (.log, .aux, .orig, etc; configurable)
("$" . dired-do-flagged-delete) ;; actually deletes the marked files
("k" . dired-previous-line) ;; some mutt/vim habits die hard
("j" . dired-next-line) ;; but these are "comfort" bindings, not useful ones.
("c" . find-file) ;; dired-goto-file on j wasn't doing it for me
("q" . two-pi-r-quit-dired) ;; currently all this does is: (do-flagged-delete t) (quit-window t)


Overall, dired behaves like mutt, which I've been using for email for years.

It's not likely to take over my mind for editing files, though. I'd have to turn the editing bindings inside-out: I hate incremental search, but it's the default; I prefer regex search, but that's not the default; the regexes are cr\(e\)\1ping horrors (that only get "cr\\(e\\)\\1pier" when you're programming the damn thing) compared to the ones I've got in vim (and everywhere else, for that matter); the split frame modes boggle the mind (split-window-horizontally splits the window into two windows side-by-side --- you know, vertically, like vim's :vsplit); the bindings for getting rid of the splits are equally horrifying: it keeps telling me that I should use C-x 4 C-o RET. I'll… get right on that. (or, continue to use vim, where :q consistently closes stuff…)

This is a really long-winded way of repeating that old geek joke: emacs is a great operating system that has a horrible editor built in.

My next step is to rebind Dired's RET to open up vim if I'm on a regular file. Then my mission (or, journey to the dark side) will be complete.


In other news, finals are over for me on Wednesday, after which I will be going up to the home town for a week or so, then coming back down here, then going to seattle, then coming back down, then going to school for what is hopefully the semester in which I graduate. That's about all I've got for you all right now.

So, my ISP seems to have gotten their email system back running. So if anyone here continues to get email to myself returned as "undeliverable", please let me know. Txs!

Because you need a holiday from all the preparation for the holiday..... End of the year is busy at work too. Hence, the relative silence from our part of the world. Busy with stuff.

That, and email issues. It seems to be straightening out slowly, but talk about frustration!

But less frustrating than trying to order mat board from Light Impressions. I am never doing business with them ever again if I can possibly help it. Poor web interface, not very helpful phone staff. Who the heck ever heard of a company that specializes in museum grade materials for photography and artwork not having ANY matboard in stock?

Dick Blick, however, shipped what I wanted in 2 days for a total of $4 shipping fee for a lot less money.

Took the kids on a candlelight walk in the woods tonight. The park had a bonfire with hot cocoa, which the kids enjoyed greatly. Too dark for photographs unless I wanted to spend some time with it, which kids are not real conducive to. Miss R. had patience for me for a little while, but little fingers get cold quickly.

This week at work will start slowing down as people start trickling out of the office.

For those of you trying to email me (us), our provider is busily screwing up a change in their email system and right now the whole thing is down. It's been bouncing email back for a couple of days now.

If it's important, call us or post a note here on LJ.

amused