Well I survived another AnimeIowa mostly intact.

Last night was the last night of shooting for summer trap league. I shot a 22 in practice and a 22 in the books. I really like shooting between two good shooters, brings my scores right up.

Long long ago in a state quite a bit south of here my dad had a metal stein on his dresser. In it he put his pocket change. I don't know what became of it before my brother and I were old enough to count change. I have fond memories of after. Dad would let us count the change and roll it into rolls and divide it evenly between us. Even if only one of us did the counting and rolling the proceeds were always split. This led to little windfalls of cash for us when we were kids. We loved this. We'd sit and meticulously count it all, roll it all and then divide it in half. Remainders that didn't make rolls went back in the mug. So I was small when I learned that little mountains of change can be large quantities of money. Sometimes in High School he'd still let us have his change long after we'd gotten jobs of our own.

Long ago, but not quite so long as the afternoons on the living room floor with my brother, in college I decided I wanted a dog, so I got a little blue glass jar and stuck all my pocket change and spare money in it, so someday when I graduated I could get a dog. It became known as the "Dog Jar." When I graduated it had enough money to get a dog, so the plan worked. I never really gave up the habit you see. But since it was sort of undirected random savings and the cash had stopped going in, just the change it hadn't seemed important to cash it in at any point. Well recently somebody observed that I had a lot of change. That in fact I had overflowing coin containers in every room. So this weekend I rounded them all up and stripped all the tokens, screws, paper clips and other detritus from the pile. I tried containing it in several things, all too small. Eventually I found a winner in the empty gallon vinegar bottle abandoned in my utility room.

Today I took it to the bank. $239.33. Also they gave me $6 for the chewed up ones I had. I deposited $100, and the rest is going back in the jar, because I'm saving for a shotgun, my beloved BT-99 Micro.

It's an angry Sunday morning in my world. In part I'm angry about things domestic, but small. However the more I think about it the more I am totally pissed of at my dentist. I got a bill yesterday for $104. Now if I hadn't already paid them nearly $500 for fillings, that would have been free if they still did almalgam fillings (I suspect their profit margin is too low on fillings my insurance will pay for) they'd have been free. Also the teeth they filed had never hurt. Not once. Well maybe during orthodontia when I was in HS and all my teeth hurt, but not since. Now? Now I can't chew on them at all. I've waited several weeks before complaining about this because you know sometimes it takes a while to get over a filling or something. But everything from tuna salad or chewing gum, through sandwiches, and on to such challenges as um... peanuts, hurt like hell. So I was irritable, and was going to complain about same when it was time for the other fillings they allege I need. But now?!? with a shiny new bill for $104 for an X-ray set I informed them my insurance wouldn't pay for because it hadn't been 5 years since my last full mouth set of xrays, and I offered to run down my old xrays, before my first visit and have them sent over... they said No, we'll just do them again. I said "But my insurance won't pay." They said "Sure they will." And LOOOK! my insurance didn't pay. I'm really tempted to rip their billing chick a new asshole, and maybe the dentist, and quite probably the receptionist. Because while the hygenist was nice, and they were all very concerned that nothing hurt and that I be comfortable (note these are not things I care about in dentistry) they seem to have all done a pretty craptacular job at the things I do care about.

I want my dental work to be good. I want my fillings to say put, I want them smooth so crap doesn't catch on them, I want them to be useful chewing surfaces. This seems like sort of a minimum standard in dental care. Sadly, it also seems beyond these fools. Also when I ask for clear explanations of what things are going to cost, it might be because I want to pay my bills, and to do this I need to know how much money I have to round up before the event. So lying to me about it doesn't make me happy.

Also I'd much rather put up with a techincally good dentist, who has a crackerjack office staff, but doesn't care if that filling causes me a tiny bit of discomfort during the drilling phase.

In theroy they're filling the cavities on the other side of my mouth this upcoming week. I'm trying to decide if I should give them a second chance to fix my first fillings, and fill the second side or if I should just walk in there demand my file and leave.

I'd like to kvetch about something, and you my loyal readers are going to have to listen, because you're my loyal readers. My vent? Women's pants.

I have a style of jeans I love, and they haven't changed structurally in years. For this I like the fine people at Land's End. Sadly recently they took away too belt loops going from seven to five. This means if you are fat, which I am, and wear a belt, which I do, then your belt rides up over the waistband of your pants in the small of your back. Why? Because many women are slightly swaybacked (I'm one of them) and because women have hips, especially fat women. So I get two belt loops right at the front, two exactly on the sides and one in the center of my spine. It sucks! I'd give up the belt but work has me carrying a phone and a pager, add to that my own phone, car keys, a small knife and a billfold and my pockets are stuffed.

Which brings me to major gripe number two about women's pants. Why is it women's pants have vestigal pocktes. Ok. I realize many, possibly even most women carry purses. But how exactly would it hurt to use an extra couple of square inches of fabric to make the interior pockets large enough to actually hold modern car keys? or modern flip phone? Not to mention the problems these tiny pocket like pockets present in carrying a concealed weapon. Heck nothing would fit in them.

Men, who aren't getting this, stand up, put your hand in your front pants pocket. Insert it to the bottom of the pocket. Notice how your whole hand fits in there? And some of your wrist? My hands, which are small, don't fit fully in the pockets of my latest pair of jeans. Not even dress pants people, which are WORSE! No.. in fact the pockets come to about half way between my second thumb knuckle and my wrist, at their deepest point. Oh did I mention they're only that deep about half way across the pocket too? ARRRRGH!

I think somebody could make a killing selling specialty pants for women who want to carry concealed weapons. 7 belt loops placed so if you wanted to carry on a belt you stood a chance of having a place to put the gun between the loops. Pockets big enough for a mouse gun. I'm not alone. Other lonely women on gun forums bitch about the same things.

Girls on Fire!

This morning we met at the gun club under light drizzle to finish the rained out rounds from Wednesday and shoot the ones we had to skip. Despite being rained out Rebecca came back and got her first crack at shooting trap, she hit 2 and 6. Those are pretty typical scores for a person on their first time shooting trap. She's no Matt, that's for sure, 7 and 14 on his first two rounds. He's a trap shooting machine in the making. I got 18 and 20, both on the practice sheet. Also it was odd during my final round women outnumbered men on the line 3 to 2.

Deanna however was totally on fire today. She hit 20. No kidding. Her average is like 9.6 or something. Sadly this one was also on a practice sheet. I don't know if it's having her husband and kids watch, or getting rained on or what, but I'd sure like to see more shooting like that from her. Woo! I then went and told her husband she needed a shotgun that wasn't my broken one.

Tonight was movie night with Heidi! We watched the Hitchcock movie To Catch a Thief. Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. The costuming was amazing. Grace Kelly had the most fantastic dresses through the whole movie. Now I'm up way too late after the movie is over on the phone.

Rained out. Last night Trap was rained out. Our first 4 shooters got about two stations in, maybe three. Then there was the raining. With lightening. Also the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi fell in the river. So we lollygagged a bit before starting or we might have gotten some shooting in. We're hoping for makeup shooting on Saturday.

Tonight is movie night with Heidi. Hmm.. my life it is dull

test two

trying to fix ftp