God and my wife laugh when I make plans

I had great plans for yesterday. Most of them are now great plans for today.

We had drop-in company.

Mrs ERJ had to run errands and I was tasked with watching Quicksilver. 

My truck got stuck out-back.

The trailer I went to go look at had been sold.

I took a nap.

On the positive side

After about 10 days of being drunk-and-disorderly, I pulled myself together and went for a run. I only went two miles but it felt fast. I felt like I was gliding.

Let's see, digging potatoes, my back hurt, I helped somebody move, dental issues. All good reasons to take a pause. But now it is time to go back to work. 

And I did a few deadlifts with the concrete-and-black-iron-pipe dumbbell after that same 10 days off. Nothing outrageous. I dead-lifted it once and held it fifteen seconds and then slowly put it down. I repeated that three more times over the course of about an hour. The concrete-&BIP dumbbell is a set 205 pounds so there is no warming up with a lighter weight. As Yoda said, "There is no "try". There is only "DO"."

I have an appointment with the dentist for November 10 to deal with the missing filling. 

And I tilled the parts of the potato patch that we had already dug. 

This is the "Before" picture. From the west end, looking east.

 

This is the "After" picture. From the east end, looking west.

My intention is to scatter red clover seeds and let if fallow for a year. Red clover fixes nitrogen. Maybe not enough in a year to get a full crop of potatoes but perhaps enough to allow me to sprinkle less of it and still get a full crop.

Another thought from yesterday on the manager at Quality Dairy

People calibrate based on your "normal". In instrumentation, it is called auto-ranging. If "F-n-c-k" in some form or another comes out of your mouth three times in every sentence, then one more "f-n-c-k" will not get anybody's attention. But if you very, very rarely resort to strong language, then using it once will electrify people.

If your verbal interactions point out the positives 75% of the time then the 25% of the time when you have to make a correction, it is much more likely to be taken to heart.

The positives cannot be BS. They have to be actions that you want to reinforce and want to see repeated. "Susy, those bronze sparkles in your hair go well with your eyes" don't cut it. "Denver, great job picking up a broom and sweeping for five minutes while you waited for me to get back to you" does cut it.

The boss who practices using the minimum amount of "correction" in their tone has a lot of head-room when they need to amplify the signal. 

Phoenix Suns

 If I was superstitious, I would bet on the Phoenix Suns to win the NBA championship. Quicksilver is now "into" combinations of purple-and-orange.

At first, I was afraid that she might be a Minnesota Vikings fan...but the colors more closely match those of the Phoenix Suns. If I read the odds correctly, they are a 15,000-to-1 long-shot.

Hornady H2266

The Hornady H2266 is a 55 grain, .224" diameter, "soft-point" projectile often used in the .223 Remington cartridge.

It is available as Hornady #80255 as loaded ammo. 

It has many limitations: It loses velocity like a beachball thrown into the wind, accuracy suffers from cross-winds, its light weight means it cannot breach barriers and reliably perform on flesh.

However, if you work within those limitations and can keep the impact velocity between 2300fps +/- 400fps then it works surprisingly well on deer-sized animals.

At 2500fps it offers 14" of penetration on ballistic gelatin, full mushrooming with 40 grains of retained mass. Higher impact velocity means less penetration and more violent mushrooming. Lower impact velocities mean deeper penetration and less mushrooming and weigh shedding.

A broadside shot through a typical deer's ribcage is only 6" or 7". Not all shots are broadside so the hunter has to use discretion. That is not a total deal-breaker, though. Even guys shooting 300 Winchester Magnums have to pass on shooting when the only part of the animal they can see is the rump.

If you are considering it for defensive purposes, be mindful that it might only offer 11" of penetration at across-the-room distances and that the "BOOM!" will be deafening in a closed room. 11" is less than the FBI standards but only by the tiniest amount.

An aside: I melted the lead core out of a H-2266 and determined that the copper-alloy jacket is 27% of the mass of the projectile. That compares to 33% for a 180 grain, Remington Core-lokt projectile from a 30-06.  More copper means a harder, deeper penetrating bullet. They are in the same neighborhood.

One final complication: The actual muzzle velocity will vary between what the box bases its claims on rifles chambered for .223 Remington and what it will actually deliver out of a rifle chambered for 5.56x45mm NATO. The 5.56NATO chambered rifle will often have measured velocities that are 300fps slower than the listed velocity. That is actually to your advantage because 2950fps is much, much closer to the 2700fps-to-1900fps sweet-spot for adequate penetration.

Since the bullet loses about 100fps for every 25 yards it travels, the projectile out of an AR pattern rifle in 5.56NATO will be at the upper-end of that sweet-spot after traveling about 50 yards. 

Indiana natives: Ungovernable

 

Technically, if you are traveling in reverse then the driver is in front of the steering wheel.

Bonus image