Author: jcalvert

Earlier this week I took my Sierra Pro back to Wal-Mart for an exchange. I had read that maybe there were some quality control issues around this air rifle. The lady behind the returns counter was not going to let me exchange the Crosman; something to do with a no gun exchange policy. In the end, after calling her manager and the sporting goods department, I was allowed to exchange the airgun. Luckily for me, there was one other Sierra Pro in stock.

Yesterday I opened the new gun and two things immediately noticeable. First, this gun was new; it contained some extra packaging that was not included with the first gun. I am pretty sure that the first gun was used because the seal was not tight, muzzle break was not clean, and in retrospect it was definitely missing some of the extra packaging described above. Second, the included scope does not have any markings on the horizontal and vertical dials that will allow me to zero in on a neutral (or default) setting before trying to tune the gun.

Out of the box, without the scope, I was shooting much better compared to the first gun; groupings were tighter and I was much closer to the bulls-eye on my targets at 10 yards and 20 yards.

I put the scope on earlier this afternoon (halftime of the Falcons’ game), and I was quickly back to not being able to hit the side of a barn. While the first gun was always too low (at longer distances) and almost always too far to the left, this new gun seems to be always high and to the left.

I run out of daylight, and while I am still making some adjustments, I am not encouraged because the vertical dial did not “click” when I first turned it. The two screws holding it in place were sat at an odd angle, so I decided to take them out and reseat the top of the dial; now it clicks. The documentation mentions taking off the protective caps, but this scope does not have any caps. At least I cannot find any removable caps. The cover that I took off did not have anything that could be easily adjustable, so I must be missing something. I really have no idea where the dials should be set to start shooting. For what it is worth, the scope included with the first gun had some sort of range indicator that showed clicks to distance, but this one just includes click numbers. If I cannot figure this scope out, I may have to call Crosman to see if they have some advice, or maybe exchange the scope.

A squirrel hunting I will go … after I get the gun sighted in correctly.

It is always a good day when Ferrari finishes at the front of the pack. As I alluded to below, I hate that Ferrari clinched the Constructors’ Championship on a technicality (Mclaren being dismissed), but I love Raikkonen and Massa finishing one-two this morning at Spa.

Switching to the Chase, I hope we will see another tweak in the format next year. I hate that Gordon’s points lead was dismissed at the start of the “playoffs,” but I do like the idea of awarding bonus points for victories. There should be some sort of “home field” advantage for winning the “regular season” – say a 20 or 30 point bonus, which would be equivalent to 2-3 wins. I am going to go with Gordon or Stewart to win the Championship; too close to call … going to say Gordon.  [edit:  forgot that Gibbs is leaving GM, so that is really going to hinder Stewart’s chances; Gordon is still the pick.]

The Falcons will take another one on the chin today, this time at the hands of Jacksonville. It will not be pretty; the Jaguar defense will stifle the ATL’s rushing attack, and poor Joey will suffer sacks, hurries, and another couple of picks. 27-13 Jacksonville.

Planet F1 has an interesting on Stepneygate, the regular spying that goes on among the F1 teams, and some details of how Ron Dennis handled what could only be described as a blackmail attempt on the part of Alonso.

The fact that the FIA cannot demonstrate exactly where Mclaren gained a technical edge from Ferrari indicates a case not entirely proven, but proven enough for the FIA to send a big warning shot across the bows of any other team that might want to develop a relationship with an unhappy employee in a rival team. They have shown that Coughlan tried to get a lot of information out of a willing source and then denied most of it.

Something had to be done, be it a hard line on Constructor points, huge fines, or drivers points. I am glad that the FIA did not decide to rebalance the Constructor points; kick out Mclaren and be done with it. To be honest, I do not know enough about the ins-and-outs of what happened to know if Mclaren actually gained and used some advantage(s) that should in turn have lead to being excluded from the 2007 Constructors’ Championship.

With the revelation that Fernando Alonso might have threatened Ron Dennis with going to the FIA clucthig his e.mails unless he was made No.1 in the team – forcing Ron to go to the FIA himself – adds a further twist to the case. If that is so, why didn’t Ron just get his I.T. department to send the various inboxes.

This is pretty damning and shows sad desperation (win at all costs) on the part of Fernando. Ron had no choice except to go to the FIA to put the ducks on a table.

In the end, this is just a sorry state of affairs that shows how far F1 has fallen, the power of corruption, and does nothing to inspire confidence that the sport can return to happier days.

Plenty to write about today, but I am going to summarize.

Dale Earnhardt Jr will drive the No. 88 car.  This is a pretty good move.  Junior gets to stick with the 8 theme, Bush already owns the No. 88 in the Bush series, and the 88 has Cup Championship pedigree.

Belichick got off relatively easy, with a 500K fine (or about 10% of his salary).  The loss of draft picks is hardly a punishment since the Patriots already have a stockpile for the 2008 draft.  Some cheaters always win.

By now everyone following the spy-gate crap in F1 knows that McLaren was fined an unprecedented $100 million and expelled from the 2007 constructors’ championship.  That is a lot of cabbage.  The biggest surprise for me was the implication of Alonso, who has not been penalized because he received immunity for his testimony.  Pretty crazy stuff.

Greg Oden is done before he started.  Not even sure what to say about this one.  Unreal.

Much to my surprise, there was a Wii waiting for me when I got home tonight.  Yesterday ebgames said my order would ship September 14, but the darn thing was already at home today.  If I knew it was that easy, I would have ordered one a long time ago.

Since this is for the kids (technically that is what I told my wife) I have to wait until Christmas before I can give it a go.  After all, Santa is going to place it under the tree.  Let me go on the record and say that there is a hell of a long haul between now and Christmas.  How can I have a new system for 90+ days and not even check it out … “just to make sure it works.”  My wife would string me up if I just decided “Happy Columbus Day” or some such.  Of course the kids would get over it, but I would have to endure the life of a monk.  Thanks, but no thanks.

I still think I am going to have to figure out a way to check things out.  Just to make sure the Wii works.  And if a little Madden gets in the way, so much the better.  After all, it is my duty to make sure the kids are not disappointed Christmas morning.  How else will I know if the thing is busted?

Last night I preordered the kids a Wii Play Bundle from ebgames.  I know that I have been anti-bundles, but in this case, I did not have to order anything extra (i.e. no crap games and accessories), and I only ordered what I wanted.

My wife and I decided that the kids needed (yes, *needed*) a Wii for Christmas, which means that in a few months I will have something new to write about, and more importantly play.  I would not have done the preorder deal, but I have not seen a Wii in store for months, and these days, I am feeling much too old to do the stand in line thing.

For $349.96 plus shipping and tax (which really means $402.26) I got a Nintendo Wii system (including a remote controller, nunchuck, and stand), Wii Play (which includes a Wii remote), a Wii Memory SD 2.0GB, and a second Nunchuck Controller.  Not a bad deal if it actually comes before Christmas (shows it should ship before September 14), but I have no idea if I actually need the stand and the memory card.

I assume we (er, I mean the kids) are going to get a few sports games like Madden, but Christmas is still 90+ days away.  Of course my kids may rather have a an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock that actually tells time, but that is what having three boys is all about.

Over the last few days, I have inadvertently picked up a new hobby; something else to compete with my limited videogame time. Air rifle target practice. The targets being standard paper targets, beer cans, and backyard squirrels. Those pests have gone too far – chewing up pecans that trash the yard and deck, running across the house (maybe even getting into the attic), and the critters get into the crawl space. The squirrels need to die. Seriously.

Labor Day weekend I picked up a Crosman Sierra Pro 1000 FPS Break Barrel Rifle from Wal-Mart. Fancy stuff for a pellet gun. I probably should have done a little more research, but the squirrels were becoming a bit much, and this .177 pellet gun seemed like a good solution to the problem. Silly me. I decided that I “would give them a chance” by going with a single pellet shot instead of a bb-gun that took a lot of pellets. No bang, bang, bang with this puppy.

I am getting ahead of myself.

Out of the box (after spending 10 minutes to attach the scope) I had a hell of a time getting the rifle sighted. My first thought was that I just suck. I cannot see (-4R and -3.75L), so why would I expect to actually be able to hit the side of a barn with a gun? Everything with the scope was low of the mark, so after adjusting the scope to the highest setting, without much success, I decided to take the damn thing off. Straight away I was much better, but figured that something still has to be wrong because I was still a little low. After messing around for a while, I decided to try to remount the scope. Why include a nice 3-9×40 scope if it is worthless? Besides, I need to be able to hit squirrels in the pecan tree, so I am going to need the power of the scope to take out my targets.

After putting the scope back on, I finally got my shots to group pretty well at about 15 yards out. Not bull’s-eye good mind you, but good enough to start thinking about the squirrels. Or maybe a target a little further out. After moving my targets an additional 10 yards out, I was really low on my aim, but my grouping seemed to be OK. I could not figure out if the pellets were losing a fair amount of velocity over such a short distance, or if the gun/scope was just not sighted correctly.

All in all, I was fairly frustrated because I felt like I should be hitting dead center on my targets more often than not. After doing a google search or two, I learned that there may be some quality issues with this air rifle. Apparently it is made in China (as if that says it all), and is not known for its accuracy. For those of you interested in this sort of thing, the best I can tell is that the Crosman Sierra Pro is a Wal-Mart branded Crosman 1000 or Remington Summit; kits and maybe muzzle brakes are slightly different among each model.

I decided that maybe there was a problem with the gun, so I took it back to Wal-Mart, but have not checked out the new gun yet to see if it affords me better results.

Grouping problems notwithstanding, I have been having a blast shooting at targets and trying to get the gun sighted. Yesterday I also had a moment of truth. One of the varmints decided to show itself, and I took prompt action. My aim was accurate enough to take the sucker out in a single shot at about 20 yards out.

Stay tuned. More air rifle action on the way.

What went wrong? Where to start?

• Georgia was 3-for-18 on third down conversions.
• Georgia receivers dropped 3 passes within a yard or two of South Carolina’s goal line.
• Knowshon Moreno had 104 rushing yards on 14 carries. I put this one here because of the next item on the list.
• Matthew Stafford was 19-44 for 213 yards (one INT on the final drive). Why throw the ball 40+ times when the running game could have been a better option?
• Inexperience on the offensive line. I am not sure how many sacks Stafford suffered, but he was constantly under pressure. I bet he feels bruised and battered this morning.

I am not taking anything away from the roosters; they deserve a win over Georgia once every 5-6 years (last win was 2001), so the Dawgs were bound to take one on the chin sooner or later.

For all of Stafford’s brilliant moments, he is clearly still very inexperienced. The South Carolina defense was also much superior to the one Georgia faced from Oklahoma State last weekend. Stafford was inaccurate, but when he did put the ball in the hands of his receivers, it was not a sure bet that the receivers would hang onto the football. Stafford will have to develop touch; instead of gunning it in most situations, he is going to have to trust that he can slow things down.

Moreno looked brilliant. This kid needs to touch the ball 20 times a game, but Georgia did not seem that willing to play smash mouth football inside the redzone. Too often, this has become all too typical of Mark Richt’s teams. No, I am not down on Richt, but I want to see the team man-up between the tackles.

The good news is that the sun still came up this morning, and the loss came early in the season. Inexperience on the o-line will come into play again this season, and if the Dawgs are going to salvage the season, they are going to have to figure out how to score in the redzone.

This one is an instant classic:

“Aerial Assualt”
Sometimes quotes are used in writing to indicate sarcasm. This is one of those times. Joe Horn used to be a stud. He is now 35. In terms of someone who is paid to be faster than other people for a living, that is bad news. Almost as bad a bit of news as waking up in the middle of your life and realizing that you’re coaching a team in which Joey! will be throwing to White, Jenkins and maybe Finneran. Night-mare. You know what? It’s too painful to talk about. Let’s just move to other side of the ball.

I still cannot find more than five wins this season.

Thursday night does not really count, even if the SEC was in action, and Friday night was wasted on northern and west coast football.  Ah, but Saturday means Georgia football is back!  It also means beer, great food on the grill, and bourbon.

This morning I loaded the family into the minivan, and took them to breakfast.  Next up was the purchase of Georgia t-shirts for the whole family (OK, jumper/one-piece thing for the baby), which is going to have the makings of a new annual family tradition.

For the rest of the Labor Day weekend festivities I have hamburgers, hotdogs, brats (and cheap beer for the brats bath), and a nice looking rack of ribs.  Plentiful beer as well – the cheap stuff (that would be Miller Lite), the good stuff (Terrapin Rye Pale Ale), and some miscellaneous stuff to help make things interesting (Michelob Ultra, a couple of 24 oz Coors Lights, and for the sake of comparison a 24 of Miller High Life and High Life Lite.  Oh, good times indeed.

I know it is a little late, but before I get to my predictions, I tried some Bulleit Bourbon Frontier Whiskey yesterday.  Sort of a non-distinct bourbon; not as smooth and sweet (say vanilla-like) as Makers Mark, but not as biting as Knob Creek.  I would never profess to be an expert or anything, but for my everyday bourbon I love Makers, while I keep Knob around for my top shelf every once in a while sipping pleasure.  I have learned to appreciate going neat, but I think Bulleit is better served as a mixing bourbon.  Certainly better than some others that I have tried, but I did not find that special something that would make me want to purchase another bottle after this one runs dry.

Moving on to SEC predictions … yes, I know the Florida game has already started, but it is not like I am not going to pick the Gators over some Hilltoppers (WTF is a hilltopper?).  I would have picked LSU over the bullpups from Mississippi State, but I would let that one rest.  Winners are Florida (no reason to waste time on that one), Mississippi, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Auburn.  Yes, all the SEC teams except for Mississippi State have week 1 wins.

Best chances for SEC Shame of the Week go to Ole Miss and Tennessee.  Memphis always plays Mississippi tough, and while I do not respect the PAC-10, I think California has a chance if Ainge cannot throw the ball due to the pinkie injury.  I think the whole “Oklahoma State has a chance against Georgia” thing is grossly overblown.  Not going to happen.

Welcome back football, welcome back!

It is always a good day when a Ferrari finishes at the front. Massa drove a brilliant race this morning to win his second consecutive Turkish Grand Prix.

I caught the last hour of the IRL race at Infineon Raceway; what a disaster for Franchitti. I am not sure what he and Marco were thinking, but you would think someone on their command center would play traffic cop.

Jacques Villeneuve to NASCAR Cup racing next year? First up is a test and then a few races for Bill Davis Racing in the Craftsman Truck Series. Trucks? Villeneuve? Toyota? Count me in! I have always liked Villeneuve.

Congratulations to Warner Robins, Georgia, on their Little League World Series victory. That makes it two in a row for Georgia.

Does anyone really think the Joey Harrington led Falcons are going to do anything this year? Even the most ardent Homer has to expect Atlanta to stink up the Georgia Dome.

• Wins by week: Minnesota (1), Houston (4), Tennessee (5), Tampa Bay (11), Tampa Bay (15)
• Loses by week: Jacksonville (2), Carolina (3), NY Giants (6), New Orleans (7), San Francisco (9), Carolina (10), Indianapolis (12), St. Louis (13), New Orleans (14), Arizona (16), Seattle (17)

5-11 is actually pretty generous. I am assuming that Tampa Bay will suck, Minnesota will have QB issues, Houston will not be significantly improved, and even the magic of Vince will not be enough for Tennessee to win. Trouble is definitely ahead.

I decided to throw Namco Museum (PSP) and Madden 07 (PSP) on eBay to help clear up my PSP collection, which does nothing these days besides gather a significant amount of dust. Namco went up primarily because the analog nub sucks for the maze games, and the digital pad pretty much is worthless. Madden was pretty solid, but as I said, I want to thin out my PSP collection. Maybe I will decide that I cannot live without a portable Madden; doubt it, but maybe I will come back around to portable gaming at some point.

I do not write about Little League stuff very often; I think it is completely over exposed – too commercial.  Of course I had to congratulate the Columbus, GA Northern team last year because I grew up playing on the same fields.  Yesterday the team representing Georgia won the US Championship, and will go for the Little League World Series title today.  While I wish them the best of luck, I will not be watching the kids on TV this afternoon.

We are close; darn close.  College football kicks off Saturday, September 1 when Oklahoma State visits Georgia (nothing else before that game matters).  Man I cannot wait!  I guess I need to get some predictions up pretty soon or the naysayers will doubt the powers of my prognostications.

Still not in the mood to write about Vick, and as a matter of course I have pretty much written off the Falcons this year.  Of course I will watch.  The bright side of this mess is that I hope to pick up season tickets next year when I suspect tons of current season ticket holders will bail.

Yesterday Blu-ray versions 300 and The Fifth Element (remastered version) arrived from Amazon.  I watch 300 last night.  I am not going to say that it was a movie, but it was a ton of fun; good, solid, action flick, based on semi historical facts.  Probably not great reference materials, but this is the type of movie that I will actually watch again in a few months and probably will listen to the commentary.

I did run into my first strange (or problematic) PS3 experience.  With about five minutes left in the movie, the move stuttered and paused for a few sections.  Then with less than two minutes to go, the movie pretty much stopped, and the screen turned black.  I took out the disk, restarted the PS3, put the disk back in the PS3, and went to the final chapter, watching without any problems.  I am not sure what caused the skips/hiccups/pauses, but this was a brand new disk (right from the case to the PS3), the system does not have much mileage, and the PS3 was not in use prior to watching 300.  Will have to keep a watch on this to see if it happens again.

In mid July the Braves were within striking distance of the Mets, at only 1.5 games back, but things have not worked out that great since picking up Teixeira.  It is not Teixeira’s fault; he has been fantastic for the Braves.  In 23 games, Mark has 27 H, 19 R, 19 HR, 30 RBI, good for a .303 AVG (1.103 OPS).  The Braves 7 games back on the Mets; they can kiss the NL East goodbye.  The Wild Card is 4 games out of their grasp; you would think they could make that up, but I do not see it happening.

Last night I cooked my wife a killer meal – rib eye (perfectly medium rare), grilled sweet potatoes, and some asparagus (also on the grill, in a cast-iron skillet with virgin olive oil, garlic pepper mix, and a dash of oregano).  Of course plenty of red wine (a nice California zinfandel – forget the label) to go with the meal.  Let’s just say that it worked out well for me.  Life is good!

It’s been a while since I had a beer post (maybe all of a week or two), so I figured now would be a good time to set things straight.  First up is Ultra – always refreshingly light and sort of wholesome.  Not sure if the low carb thing really matters.  Follow that up with some Miller Lite and happy days are here again.

Breaking out the good stuff I guess, because my first born son turned nine today.  Hard to believe that Joshua is nine today, but that last bit about the Ultra Lite being good stuff was sarcasm at its best.  Well, at least it is the best I can do no short notice.

Kind of late for a Tuesday update, but I do what I can for our reader. Monday was power outage night – 7 hours of hell in the hot GA night – so no internet, no HDTV preseason football, no PS3, and more importantly, no AC. Tonight I am not really in the mood to write, but figured I would get a couple of things posted before enjoying a Makers nightcap.

The first AP Poll of the year was released over the weekend, featuring six SEC teams in the Top 25. LSU (2), Florida (6), Georgia (13), Tennessee (15), Auburn (18), and Arkansas (21). I have never cared much for preseason polls because they are almost pointless, unless you happen to get a good ranking. Why does Florida end the season as #1, but start off #6? How does Georgia move up 10 spots without playing a game?

I could post about Vick, but I do not think he is worth wasting time on right now. Maybe later if I get a burr.

It looks like the HD format wars are going to continue thanks to Paramount and DreamWorks going exclusively HD-DVD. I have seen this posted all over the place, but since I own a PS3 and not a HD-DVD player, I am biased. Check out Blu-ray.com for the story, a couple of other links, and some pissed off Blu-ray fans.

Makers Mark on the way …