8-9-10 Happy Birthday to Me.

Not a bad birthday today but the celebrating was a little understated and distributed over a few days as I had to work today. In any case I got the opportunity to celebrate it.

Last Thursday, Lagniappe's Keeper came for a quick visit and we went to the local pistol range as he relates in his blog.

I shot my new-to-me Colt Official Police in .38 Special. Considering I just turned 38 today I thought it was a fitting caliber. The revolver shot very nicely indeed, even though the double action trigger left much to be desired.

Looking ahead two years, I then practiced with my Glock 23 in .40. I also found that I enjoyed shooting LK's HK 2000. It certainly felt a lot smoother than when I shot it earlier - his intensive use of it seems to be smoothing the LEM trigger a bit, making it much more enjoyable to shoot, as well as easier to shoot accurately.

We did some low light and barricade shooting that was definitely worthwhile practice. The Crimson Trace laser on the Glock made target acquisition easy even when the targets were nothing but shadowed silhouettes, but a positive off button would be nice. The flashlight practice was also quite instructive.

Yesterday I got up early and dove Union Lake with Chad and Keith. As the lines are really ripped up we went out and did an exploratory dive to try and find the far section of line that had been missing for quite awhile. We tied off a reel to the end of the line and started off on our heading. It was pretty neat as I had never been in that section of the lake before. The viz was better than near the boat dock which, thanks to the boats was about 3-4 feet. We hit a depth of 41 feet and eventually found the far post and the old thick line that had been laid down years before. Lots of large crayfish and one huge bass were hanging out in that area of the lake. We then turned around and headed back after a great 60 minute dive.

We had a feast for dinner that night - steak, corn that I cooked on the grill and then finished up with some homemade cherry cheesecake perfectly made by Tash.

This morning I got some happy birthday hugs and kisses from the kids that made the day start off right, and a homemade birthday card from them that was very sweet. Then to work and finally home again, dinner with the kids and took them to their swim class where they're both really improving. Abby is even jumping into the water from height, something she wold never have tried before, and liking it.

So goodbye to 37, hello to 38 and onwards we go.