Good weekend

[mousme]

There will be backdated posts for Saturday and Sunday. For now, there will be summing up.

Weekend was great, but exhausting. I passed my PAL with decent grades (98% for the written, and 96% for the practical because I was REALLY stupid and let my ring finger brush the trigger guard when I was PROVEing a bolt-action rifle: let this be a lesson to everyone else).

The RPAL I passed with flying colours. 100% on both the written and the practical tests. See? I can be taught. I am royally peeved with myself for that massive fail wrt safety procedures. I'm kind of glad that it wasn't ground for automatic failure.

As Alastor Moody would put it: CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

Nonetheless, I passed, and all is well with the world. Now I just have to wait for the Canadian government to rubber stamp my tests and send them back to me. This will take a minimum of 30 business days. Then I put the rubber-stamped form along with my application form, and send it right back to them, which takes another minimum 30 days to process, and from most reports it will take closer to three to five months. *sigh* Good thing I'm not in a hurry. Oh, and my RPAL costs $20 more than a PAL. fearsclave calls it a "tax on evil." I think he may not be far wrong. ;)


Today was very busy. Breakfast with fearsclave and Carolyn, then a quick jaunt out to the Coalition Stronghold to deliver maple syrup to ai731 and t! who was working from home. I gave Carter a good number of pats before leaving, as well.

I stopped at Canadian Tire in Alexandria, where they knew what I was talking about when I asked after the indoor greenhouse/staging area that fearsclave has. Sadly, it appears that the thing has been discontinued. So I am SOL for that. I will have to find something similar elsewhere.

Then I drove back into town, stopped at IKEA for shelves, got some stuff from the dry cleaners, did the rounds of various places to get copies of receipts for my taxes (one more paper to track down and then I'm golden), and came home.

Unloaded the car (gym bag with clothes, five tomato seedlings that fearsclave generously gave to me, two bottles of booze from the LCBO, my shelves and other assorted bits from the weekend), fed the cats, patted the cats, called my mother, checked email, caught up on LJ, and am going to go to the Parental Units' place for dinner in about an hour or so.

The cats are Very Unhappy that I was gone so long, but appear to be getting over their snit. There will be more pats soon, and maybe then they will forgive me.

I have done more driving in this one weekend than in the past year combined, I think. I haven't calculated the distances yet, but I definitely cleared 500km. Bleah.

Comments

[fearsclave.livejournal.com]

That wasn't massive fail. Massive fail is opening and closing the bolt, removing the magazine, and visually examining the bore from the muzzle; in other words, pointing a loaded gun at your head.

Saw that happen in my Ontario Hunter Safety course. The worst though was the guy during my PAL class who swept the entire class and the instructor with a 10/22...

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Wow.

EPIC FAIL.

I assume he got his ass booted out of the classroom? In Bartlett's class, that's an automatic failure...

[fearsclave.livejournal.com]

Sadly, no. The guys running my PAL class were sadly much more laid back. I should note that this was during practice, not an exam, but still, I think that waving the shooting iron at people should be an automatic fail/retake, regardless.

[zercool.livejournal.com]

Touching the trigger GUARD is a no-no?

Jebus, they'd have kittens about how I handle my babies.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Technically, it's getting your finger inside the trigger guard. I brushed up against the top part of the inside of the trigger guard. It's a technicality, but they were erring on the side of caution.

[zercool.livejournal.com]

Hm. Yeah, as mentioned, they'd have kittens with the way I handle my guns sometimes. I'm a big proponent of dry-fire practice, and after I've cleared a gun (a couple times), I'll start dry-firing at whatever aim point seems convenient - an outlet, switch plate, mug on desk, clock ... the list goes on.

I know, it's not "if", it's "when" - but I also think common sense fixes a lot of things. :)

[miseri.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! (As I recall, I lost a point for not remembering to step back behind the safety line after setting my rifle down in the "at the range" scenario.)

Will you be at Hurley's on Wednesday? I keep forgetting to send in my PAL application. (Which as it turns out was just as well because I got John to be one of my references and he's currently in between contact infos.)

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Yup! I shall be in attendance. fearsclave was wondering if you'd sent in your application. I guess now we know the answer! :)

[kiwano.livejournal.com]

Oooh, 100% on the RPAL. Does that mean you got the sticker? (I always flub at least one thing when being tested, so I didn't get any stickers. I thought it would've been a really neat sticker to have though).

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Hrm. No, I didn't get a sticker. Now I feel gypped. ;)

[kiwano.livejournal.com]

Well I was kinda asking to try and figure out a little better if the sticker thing was specific to my instructor/examiner duo, or if it used to be done, but isn't anymore, etc.

It was just a sticker of the "Aiming for Safety" emblem on the back of the textbooks.