Next year I will do a better job of planning for Blogorado.

Doing a twelve-day work week right before the trip, which itself consisted of one full day of travel, two days at Blogorado, and another full day of travel back to home, and then going right back to an unusually hectic week at work has left me just completely spent.

Let it be said, the trip was great. FarmGirl and all of FarmFam were wonderfully gracious, generous, and all-around awesome hosts. And damn good cooks. FarmMom’s chicken-fried steak richly deserves its reputation, and the scrappy nibbles are far tastier than calf testicles have any right to be.

The bloggers were all great, too. Every single person there was fun and entertaining and I wish I’d had more time to chat with everyone. We usually had three or four parallel conversations going on, all interesting and worth following, and it was impossible to take it all in. Hell, we could’ve kept going for WEEKS if that pesky “real life” hadn’t gotten in the way.

Sadly, real life came back with a vengeance and kicked my ass all week, so it’s off to bed for me…

Twelve-day work week is behind me, thank $DEITY, and I’m using my days off to prep for Blogorado. Today’s big project was getting my Pelican 1750 ready for the trip. These cases come with three layers of foam inside. The top and bottom are used as-is, but the middle layer is meant to be cut out to accommodate the items you’ll be transporting.

I followed this guide over at arfcom, though I bought a commercial foam cutter instead of making my own. It worked pretty well, too. If I were doing it again I’d affix the template to the foam with double-sided tape or glue instead of tacks, since long thin parts like barrels can get a little wiggly.

The result:

The three shiny things are silica dessicant packs to keep the inside of the case nice and dry.

Here’s the templates and trimmings…

If you’re going to do one of these yourself, I’d recommend having a helper on hand to hold everything steady. The cuts are easy at first but get tougher the further you go, since the foam starts flopping around.

Fun and easy? Not particularly. Frankly, I’m just glad it’s done and I didn’t ruin anything.

Alright, I’m hoping to take a couple of rifles out to Blogorado in a Pelican 1750 case. I’ll be flying Delta one way and Continental the other. I can’t seem to get a straight answer on whether or not rifle cases are exempt from the usual oversize baggage fee. The airlines’ websites aren’t real clear on the issue, there’s conflicting information on the ‘net, and their “customer support” call center people can’t even seem to wrap their minds around the question.

Anyone know the straight poop? Got contact info for a clueful person at either airline? Anything?!? Someone’s gotta know…

As promised, here’s the .303 Brit.

A rollmark I never thought I’d see…

And the .303 next to its big brother, the .450/.400 Nitro Express 3″. A very British pair.

The Nitro Express on top has a 24″ barrel with a medium-heavy contour, while the .303 Brit has a light 22″ barrel. The big gun is also outfitted with a NECG white bead front sight and an NECG peep sight on the rear scope mount base. The .303 will be getting the same sight set-up in the next few weeks.

.303 Brit and .450/.400 rounds. Few know it today, but the original Cordite load for the .303 was almost a perfect Mini-Me of the standard load for the .450/.400. It drove a heavy, long-for-caliber 215-grain bullet (sectional density .318) at 2050 fps, while the .450/.400 launched a 400-grain bullet (sectional density .338) at 2125 fps, give or take.

I’m hoping to get both guns out to the range on my next “weekend” (two weeks from now) to get zeroed before Blogorado. The Nitro Express just got fitted with a new, slightly lower front sight and the .303’s never been fired, so both guns need some sighting-in work.

I wasn’t going to buy any more guns this year. Hell, the last two I bought haven’t even been shot yet for want of free time to get out to a rifle range. Then Ruger had to go and build something I’ve wanted for about 20 years, and only make one small batch…

2 1/2 years ago, in a post about things Ruger really ought to build, I said:

“And finally, build the No. 1 in .303 British, with a 26″ light-contour barrel, open sights and Alex Henry forend. Well, at least build one gun like that. Just for me. Please?”

Well, Ruger didn’t do exactly what I asked for, going with a 22″ tube instead, but otherwise my wish came true. A small batch of No. 1-As in .303 British was produced, mostly for export to Canada and Australia. Scuttlebutt on the ‘net holds that only 50 of the guns were kept here in America, for distribution by Lipsey’s.

So much for not buying any more guns this year. I dashed over to Top Gun Shooting Sports and asked them to check with Lipsey’s. The .303s were allocated, but fortunately Top Gun was able to snag one for me. Pix will follow as soon as I find some free time during daylight hours.

Frankly, I’m damn surprised that Ruger made these guns at all. The .303 calls for a groove diameter of .311″, vs the .308″ common to American .30 calibers. That means Ruger either had to tool up to make appropriate barrels or order them in from a vendor. Curiously, Ruger’s Mini-30 uses .308″ barrels instead of the .311″ usually used for 7.62×39mm. It’s odd that Ruger wouldn’t make proper barrels for the Mini-30, which has been in regular production for at least 20 years, but apparently they went to some trouble to get a very small batch of .303s right. In any case, I’m very, very happy to finally have my .303.

After a few nervous days and $300 in vet bills, Clancy is back to his old self.

Oddly enough, I never could get him to touch his prescription wet food, but he’s taken to a prescription dry food just fine. I’m not sure whether I’ll keep him on it permanently. It’s expensive and only available from the vet, but apparently cystitis is pretty likely to reoccur after an initial episode.

Right now I’m just happy to have my little buddy feeling better.

My little Clancy has feline cystitis. I rushed him to the vet this morning, where he got a bunch of fluids injected under his skin, along with a dose of antibiotics. He’s also going on a prescription cat food, at least for a short time.

Have any of you folks been through this with your cats? What treatment(s) worked best?

It’s official, my girlfriend and I will be at Blogorado this year. Plane tickets have been purchased, motel room has been reserved, heavy-duty (and hopefully airline-proof!) Pelican rifle case has been ordered. It’ll be my first vacation since the NRA convention in Phoenix last year, and with the way I’ve been working lately, I’ll need it. Can’t wait to see old friends again and meet Internet friends for the first time in real life!

It’s another six-day work week here in Unforgivingville, with Monday clocking in at double-and-a-half time. I’m hoping to get up to Williams Gun Sight on Tuesday (my one day off) to (finally) get the recoil pad installed on my Ruger No. 1.

That’s been on the back burner for… uh… only 11 months! Not even a full year! But I figured I should finally get my arse in gear so I can bring the gun along to Blogorado and let people shoot it without getting thoroughly pummeled.

Oh, yeah. Blogorado. I suppose I really need to look into booking some plane tickets and a rental car and a motel room and maybe some Pelican cases for the guns…

Damn, I’m gonna NEED this overtime pay!

One of the side projects that’s been consuming my little remaining free time is the new PC I built for myself. That’s another post for another day, but when you build a machine with brand-new, not-yet-supported hardware and you plan to run a relatively obscure open-source operating system on it, you can expect to spend some time tossing patches back and forth with developers, compiling custom kernels, filing and following up on bug reports, etc. It’s been time-consuming but fun, and other people will benefit from the work as this hardware gets more common.

All I really wanted to do today is show off my fancy new keyboard, a custom Unicomp Endurapro. What the hell is that? Well, it’s basically an updated IBM Model M keyboard, equipped with a ThinkPad-syle Trackpoint and a USB connector. If you don’t know what makes Model Ms special, go read Marko’s ode to the One True Keyboard.

Mine’s a little different; see if you can figure out why:

Yeah, the nice folks at Unicomp were kind enough to build me a custom keyboard with blank black keys. Not only were they willing and able to indulge my eccentricity, they did it FAST. I called them on the 22nd, they built and shipped my keyboard the very next day:

And yes, it’s the One True Keyboard. Big, heavy, solid, clicky, and really, really easy to type on. As a longtime ThinkPad user I love having the TrackPoint on there. I’ll still probably keep a mouse on my desk for the occasional game, but 95% of the time a TrackPoint is faster and more convenient since there’s no need to move your hand from keyboard to mouse and back.

Unicomps aren’t cheap, but they’re high-quality, made in America, and backed by excellent customer service. Recommended.