What follows is an email to an associate about to travel to Cedar Rapids Iowa from which I just returned. He’s a martini man, by the way; Loves his martinis.

I took a Newbie to the range yesterday. I let Jim shoot my 22, first with iron sights and then with the dot. As might be expected for his first time, he struggled with the irons but did better with the dot.

Once upon a time, there were three RTOSes named VRTX, pSOS and VxWorks.

I occasionally take non-shooters to the range for their first experience with firearms. Over time, I’ve tended toward a similar sequence of presenting things but knowing the Bullseye community’s safety record, I decided to ask for their input as well. The following procedure benefits from the excellent suggestions of Fred, JC, Chuck, Sheral, Kent and George in the Bullseye-L email community, and from the shooters I meet on the line from whom I’ve learned many valuable and sometimes life-saving lessons.

I fired 2437-37X in today’s 2700.

That’s 90.26% for 270 of the 360 record shots I need to advance to Outdoor Expert.

In Bullseye, you will be scoring your neighbor’s target, writing that score on both the score card and also the target, and then moving to your target to check the score you were given by your other neighbor.

Sunday came with high hopes but that’s as far as it went.

I shoot Bullseye for several reasons. Those who know me can report that, yes, my #1 reason is for the camaraderie; I just plain like the people I meet who are shooting Bullseye.

Five days, four guns, nine disciplines and over a thousand rounds, that was the Arizona Desert Midwinter competition for 2010.

One of my passions is experimenting with antennas, wire antennas for HF to be precise. I want to be able to improvise and adapt to the situation at hand whether I’m at home, traveling on business, or hiking in the desert or deep forest.