I've "Switched"!!!

See....., not what you thought, huh? I'm the father of two teenagers, my daughter is almost 13 and all that that implies. OK, so let's move on to the more pleasant topic,..... the almost 16 year old son. He has shown signs of coming out of the middle school to 10th grade funk which was the bane of our existence. But the last few months, he's actually been more useful and quite a bit more pleasant to be around, a switch that has led me to become more involved in his hobbies. In today's world, that quite often involves gaming. He has 2 main interests in that area; PC gaming which he participates via the gaming PC that I built for him a couple of years ago. It's still relatively current and very usable so doesn't need attention at this time. His other gaming interest is the Nintendo platform (which is a relief for my wife and I).

   

From the standpont of straight-up technology, I think that this platform is really interesting. A very successful adaptation of the favorite from my rather brief days of video gaming; the NEC TurboGrafx16.

Or more specifically, the legendary, NEC TurboExpress.

This thing was (technologically speaking) the "Tour de Force" of the mobile gaming world of the late 90s. In a world where the typical handheld gaming device was a monochrome Gameboy, with weak, chopped down games, the TurboExpress had color and played the full-sized NEC TGX16 games! The only problem....., it ate batteries like an 8 year-old does candy! Unfortunately, the NEC console was a distant 3rd in the gaming platform world of that era. I only got involved with it because my favorite arcade game, Galaga was only available on it! 

Fast forward 30 some-odd years, we now have a successful marriage of the power of nVidia hardware with the marketing might of Nintendo, and you get the Switch! A console platform with a mobile form-factor, capable of playing the full games. I've become so intrigued by the concept that I've began researching extending the capabilities of the system. 

A major part of our lives these days, is the amount of time we (Josh and I) spend on a school bus traveling to and from swim events. Sometimes, it's many hours in one sitting. Texas is a big state! What I learned from driving the team around is that they will often play Switch games together to keep the boredom at bay. It's apparent to to any observer that its a struggle for them to play together in "table-top" mode when multiple kids need to crowd around the relatively small 7" screen. The other issue is the struggle to keep the screen stable on a moving bus. The solution?

The Gaems Vanguard Black Edition, "personal gaming environment" for $299 of course! Uhhh, no..... I don't have $300 just to run out and buy something like this, and on top of that, it doesn't resolve the issue of power. Not only does the thing not resolve the issue of powering the gaming platform, it in fact creates another need for AC power in the 19" screen that's built in to the case. So in reality, it's simply a fancy case sized to hold a game system, and a LCD monitor to display it, so really, it doesn't resolve the problem of playing in a mobile environment nor real of portability either. What's then is the solution?

The top image is the Dell Latitude E7240; it's about a 3 year-old ultra portable notebook that's less than 4 pounds, has a 12.5" 1366 x 768 screen built into a nice aluminum case of less than 1 inch. The lower image is a Suaoki D100 26,800mAh power bank with a critical attribute of having an AC plug as well as 1 USB Type-C, and 2 USB 3 "Quick-charge" ports as well. Why is the AC plug "critical", and what does one have to do with the other?

It appears that the Nintendo Switch, despite having a USB-C power/connection port, does not comply with the power draw standards set for that type of port. Sooooo, it's generally accepted as a bad idea to power the device by anything that's not officially sanctioned by Nintendo! Besides that; in order to send a signal to an external screen, one must use a dock which has an HDMI port, so yeah...... So my little project needed to have a source of power that has an AC plug for the adapter, AND a lot of power to drive the screen and the Switch itself. The Latitude was free courtesy of a client who killed one and I was tasked to replace it, leaving me with a laptop with a dead motherboard, but functioning screen. The power bank came about because my wife decided that she should carry our old one and that I was free to buy a replacement of my choosing.... thus leaving me with marching orders, and the freedom to buy the D100! Anything else is required to complete this project?

I did have to order a controller board from China for the screen in the laptop. It was about $20. I also need a case to build it all into as well.

This actually gave me a lot of trouble tracking it down. There are tons of these light weight "hard-shell" cases out there for things like GoPro cameras and external hard drives, but they just aren't big enough. After hours of fruitless searching, it occurred to me that I need to search for a case designed for something bigger, but also commonly carried around, ..... which led me to the drone case. This one by DBPower was $22 on Amazon with free shipping! So, all I'll need to do is to cut some new foam to fit my pieces and figure out a way to attach a carry strap. 

Why? Well..... being a dad to a teenager isn't the easiest thing in the world. And our time with them under our room is limited. Sure, it sounds good to raise them to appreciate what we do, but that isn't always a practical reality. I'm on the back end of my 50s and he just started driving this year. We aren't going to have that many interest in common. I gave up a few things this year to be his swim coach, is taking some more time to show an interest in his hobbies isn't much more. Plus, it's kinda cool! I'll put up another post when I get done. 

The World Is Flat!!! ....Or Something Along Those Lines....

It's finally happened. I replaced my DSLR, the faithful Nikon D300. I love that camera, lusted for it before I possessed it and now in retirement, remember it fondly. Mine was configured just the way you see it above: D300, MB-D10 battery pack and the Nikkor 18-200mm "super-zoom". I toted that thing everywhere. The Dallas Arboretum for family pictures, top of Victoria Peak in Hong Kong, all over Taiwan, to every kid sporting event and to every family outing. I bought it used of course, but it never game me the slightest hiccup. The lens packed it in once due to a dead stabilization motor, but that was my fault due to forgetting to turn that off while using it on a tripod. But that got repaired and it just kept right on taking pictures. 

Over the years, I did manage to use a couple of other lenses on it; the Nikkor 18-70mm and the legendary 50mm manual focus Nikkor f1.4.  The former came on the D70 that I own previously and the later a gift from my brother after he had it electronically converted to talk to current Nikon mounts. Nice equipment that still shoots nice pictures..... why change now?

This isn't exactly the way I look, but it sure is the way I feel these days. While our vacation trip to Disney forever changed what I'm willing to drive long distance with kids and luggage; our trip to DC forever changed what I'm willing to carry in photographic equipment! 

This was the instrument of change! I don't mean I replaced the D300 with the Lumix LX5! Here's what happened. I felt like I needed to be able to have something small enough to fit in a pocket, since there are places that don't allow the big professional style cameras, plus I wanted to be able to shoot video as well. Given that we were going to DC and would be inside of buildings a lot, I wanted something that gave a little wider view than most pocket cameras were capable of giving. It turns out that this little Lumix would do all that and was cheap since it was a few years old at that time. I found one down in Waco for about a $100 and grabbed it. Since that time, most things that was too much for the phone got assigned to the little Lumix.

So, I've been periodically keeping an eye on cameras of this type for some time. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I came across a few of the GX7s bidding at a low price on eBay. One of them, even came with a lens, so I bid on it and got it for just over $240 shipped. At this point, I'd better back up to the point where I had decided that the D300 was too big and heavy. Not only that, it wouldn't do video which I've increasing found that I needed. 

Some of you might remember that I had gone down this road before, when I wanted to build an alternate system that was small, light and easy to carry. As much as I liked that camera, I couldn't live without an eye-level viewfinder......

....and trust me when I say that I tried to live with the rather awkward attachment viewfinder. So I gave up and sold it for what I paid for it. In the meantime, Panasonic had brought out the GX1 which fixed most of what was wanting on the GF1, but it was too much and the recent failure too fresh. Then the GX7 came out and it was everything I wanted.... just cost too much. But that was the last quarter of 2013 and in the world of consumer electronics, 5 years is a long time. By the last quarter of 2018, that $1100 GX7 is now sub-$250 and this particular one came with the 12-32mm lens. For those of you not familiar with Micro-4/3 format, that's 24-64mm in the 35mm world. Barring the 14-140mm superzoom, or the 20mm/f1.7 pancake lens, this was my next most coveted glass. 

Wouldn't I have rather gotten the more current GX8? Sure, but I didn't want to give $500+ for the body alone. Besides, my days of envisioning myself as a Cartier-Bresson are long gone. If I really were willing to spend more money, I'd have bought this...

The Olympus Pen-F that I would argue to be the perfect combination of most beautiful and capable digital camera today.  But alas, we who live on teacher salaries, have to make hard choices. Enough of dreaming. What do I really want/need to be fully converted over to the new system.

 

2 lenses and a flash. The main lens will be the 14-140mm and that will live on the camera most of the time, the 20mm/f1.7 for low ambient light. And of course the other solution for low ambient light; the Godox TT350, because unlike Nikon; there's no advantage to paying more and going with Panasonic. This will make traveling a one bag experience without the back pain of carrying a full-sized DSLR.

The $500 AR: Buy or Build

I'm 57 this year. And by anyone's standards, I'm part of the older generation! My ideas and perceptions were shaped during the 60's, and that includes my thoughts on guns as well as other things.

I was born in 1960 and we moved to the United States in 1968, so obviously, the Vietnam War was a big part of it. 

And in the Psyche of a pre-teen/early teen of that ear; the most advanced infantry weapon ever was the M-16. OK..... let me start by saying, that, for today, I'm not here to argue the merit of this Eugene Stoner design. I'm discussing the basis of my fascination for it. 

When you compare it with it's immediate predecessor, the M-14, it's clearly a completely different animal. And if you compare it against the weapon of the "bad guys" (the AK47), it just looks more advanced. 

Fast forward 3-4 decades and several generations, the M-16 goes through the A1 to A3 versions and comes out the other end as the M-4 Carbine. The military has refined the old battle rifle originally designed for it's small-statured Asian allies into a modern "platform". One that can do just about anything given the wide variety of equipment that can be attached to it at will. But the best thing?

It's become that thing that Americans most love...... a standardized "open platform". What does that mean? It's the PC of the gun lovers! One can literally buy every single component from a different manufacturer, have most of it mailed directly to your house and put them together yourself with a minimum of tools. And on Black Friday, you could do it for less than $400!

After I got my handgun situation squared away, and the reloading setup running; the pressure was too much. I started looking for parts to do my own build. Maybe I should back up here. As always, I studied the market first, and found that a decently working plain-Jane AR15 could be bought for between $500-600 from one of the big-box outfits if I watched the sales. That would mean a workable (along the lines of what you see above), ..... a "smooth-top" (no rear sights or optic), plain (generic hand-guard and butt stock known as "furniture"), and pretty much bottom end everything. Don't get me wrong. These things are still Mil-spec and will shoot well all day long. But I wanted more......and I didn't want to pay more. I wanted more, for $500. How does that get done?

If you're reading me on this blog, but have read my stuff on my technology blog as well, then you already know. I research obsessively. What I found was that everything I already knew about computer buying/building applied to guns (especially the AR) as well. 

1. You don't save money by building your own gun.
2. A quality gun is an expensive gun.
3. There are no secrets in the AR world.
4. If you build your own, you can easily build a messed up gun.
5. It's fun.

So; as we've already discussed, the baseline is $500-600 (barring special sales and such). I also learned that the price for a used one isn't much better. I looked on the online listings and prowled a lot of pawn shops. Most importantly, I learned that you can get nicer parts for not much more money if you build your own. So I went in that direction. Early on, I began to see a company being commonly described as being a cut above the entry level, but at the same time, relatively inexpensive. This was Aero Precision from Tacoma, Washington. Apparently, they had been a long standing contractor that provided parts and set out on their own when the "blackgun boom" happened. 

In the midst of looking at "lowers", which is the "frame" of that which composes, officially the gun, since it has the serial number on it, I found a place in Texas that was selling a "complete lower" (one with all the parts installed) for $135. I had learned that the cheapest a "stripped lower" gets is $50, ..... and that's for a generic one. The LPK or lower parts kit which includes all the little pieces for the trigger group and safety is another $50-60. Then you have the "buffer tube" (that thing sticking out the back that the stock is mounted on), is another $25-30 or so including the buffer and spring. Then you have the grip and stock for another $15-20. So yeah, I was ahead of the game with a completely built one at a lesser price! So I bought it.....

Now, although I owned a gun, the majority of the parts to make it work didn't exist yet .... at least not on my AR! Most of the cost of building AR is connected to the "Upper" ($65-85), not the upper itself which isn't generally very expensive, but the expense is in things like the barrel, the bolt carrier group (BCG) and the front hand-guard. 

Let's start with this. What you see here is actually 3 parts: the barrel itself, the gas block, and the gas tube. A plain cheap-o one will set you back about $100 or so..... maybe $125 with the gas block and gas tube. But..... you guessed it...... I wanted something special. I didn't want either the .223 Remington or the 5.56 NATO chambering since you can't shoot the 556 in the 223, and the 223 isn't very accurate in the 556. I wanted a .223 Wylde, which is a hybrid chambering that shoots both well. On top of that, I didn't want the typical 1:7 twist rate that doesn't do a good job of stabilizing lightweight bullets (eg. anything under 55gr). I wanted a 1:8 or 1:9 which is considered a good compromise that will handle heavier 62/77gr as well as the little bullets down to 40gr. I know..... OCD, aren't I!?! It gets worse. I also wanted a "mid-length" gas port which isn't as far down as the rifle (since I wanted a 16" barrel), but not as short as the "carbine-length" which can be "over-gassed". Plus the mid-length is thought to shoot nicer. We'll see. One more thing, I'd like to have the barrel in stainless please! They tend to be more accurate!

On to the handguard. In case you didn't notice, the stock M4 style version depicted above. My thoughts on it? Uhhhh, no, that'd be a H*** NO!!! First of all; I want it to "free-float", meaning that I want it to attach at the receiver end only and not touch the barrel anywhere else. Secondly, I want it to have a continuous top rail, but none anywhere else. Thirdly, I want it to be slim instead of the bulky "quad-rails" that are the typical upgrade from the M4 stock handguard. I also wanted the modular attachment style to be the M-Lok(versus the Keymod) which is depicted on the lower of the pictures. The goal? Weight, comfort to hold and ease of attachment for anything I need/want to add. Oh yeah, these can cost anywhere from $150 to $200 depending on length. I'd prefer to 15 incher so it covers almost all the 16" carbine length barrel.

Then, there's this..... the Bolt Carrier Group (BCG), which includes the actual bolt, the bolt carrier, and the firing pin. They can run from $65 all the way up to well over $300, depending on the maker, and the coating. The basic design is the GI Phosphate coating which can be hard to clean, then it goes up to Black Nitride, Nickle-Boron that finishes out the fairly "normal" types. These are roughly $30-40 either way of $100. I wanted something a little better than the typical so that it'd be easy to clean, but I didn't want to pay big money for this.

So; how did I answer all these questions? You already know about the lower for $135. As it turns out, I actually answered the upper just about as easily. What happened is that, after I bought the lower, I started researching uppers/monitoring websites. And came across a "complete upper" (means, having all parts barring bolt carrier group and charge handle) on Gunbroker that had pretty much everything I wanted which at that point was bidding at $265. That's an Aero M4E1 upper, 16" Stainless, mid-length gas ported barrel chambered in .223 Wylde, complete with an Aero 12" free-floating handguard! Turns out, after a week and a half of watching it (while watching "Black Friday" sales), no body bid on it. So I got it for $265, plus the guy only charged $10 to ship it tome from Wisconsin! The next day, I caught a sale on an APOC Armory black-nitride BCG with charging handle for $91 shipped.  

So, meet my little $497.20 "little friend"...... OK, so I need to get some random little stuff like sights, etc., but still...... I'm pretty satisfied with how this has gone. 

The Missing Box

I have a Love/Hate relationship with UPS. I get a lot of packages, so delivery services are an important part of my life. Back in the old days, without a doubt, UPS was the best. It wasn't even a close contest. Then, the strike happened, and it's never been the same since. Around here, in today's world, I'd rank them tied for 2nd with Fedex behind USPS. DHL is definitely last. The reason they're low? The distribution center for the Dallas area is terrible. Now, I have another reason to rank them lower.....

If you'll indulge me by turning back the calendar to late spring, you might remember that I got a Lenovo 4K monitor that wasn't working and RMA'd it back to them since it was under warranty. At this point, the whole thing turned into a comedy of errors. 

We'll start this with Lenovo, mishandling this by having me return it to Best Buy, then sending it back saying that they don't repair monitors. That was followed by me contacting them and receiving a promise that they'd "look into it". This was followed by a company I never heard of sending me an email stating that I was to receive a package. No mention what the package was or why. Tracking then indicated that this mystery package was delivered, but there was no package at my house.

As you might imagine; this led to contact with UPS, and ultimately Lenovo who told me that the mystery company was a distributor and the box was my replacement monitor! Furthermore, UPS showed that the package was delivered successfully!!! This then led to a 4 month back-and-forth between myself and Lenovo with me getting progressively more agitated and them convinced that I was trying to get another free monitor. 

Then this happened. Out-of-the-blue, the doorbell rings yesterday afternoon when no one was expected. At the door was an older woman with 3 young kids that I figured, must be trying to sell something. What she had to say was that she lives at 102 Redwood (we live at 120) and that there was a package addressed to me that they've "had for a while"...... Would I like to come down and get it. Up the street at their house in the entryway where apparently it's been since MAY 28th, was my monitor!!! They've had it for over 4 months!!! It hadn't been opened, nor indeed, moved. They just hadn't felt the need to get it to the addressee. I'm not sure who to be angry at!?! Lenovo for it's abysmal communications, UPS for the dyslexic driver, or the strangely unmotivated neighbor? I guess, in the end, I'm just glad I got my monitor.

A Bigger Bang for The Frugal Propellerhead Buck!

I'm sure some of you could see where all this BB/Pellet gun stuff was leading, right? Yup, after lots of not so subtle hints and months of gun magazines laying around the house, I finally dropped the bomb on my wife this weekend. What happened was that we were doing the family birthdays early since my in-laws are going on an extended "fall foliage" trip to the Northeast starting this week. Mine, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's birthdays all fall within a couple of week of the end of September and beginning of October. So, my wife has been harrassing me about what I wanted for my birthday, which has always been a bit of a chore anyway since my interest tends toward the esoteric. 

I finally decided to shoot straight (I know, terrible), and tell her I wanted a handgun. No, not the PPK with a suppressor. My love of all things James Bond only goes so far; not that I don't love the PPK! More on this later. Over the course of the whole pellet gun adventure, she had been quizzing me about my interest in guns anyway. And I had filled her in on my long-standing interest in the things going back to when I actually owned a number of them in my younger years before we ever met. I had subsequently sold them when I was working in higher education and living "on campus" where I couldn't have them.  But I've always had an abiding interest in them both from a historical (collecting) standpoint as well as to shoot them....

..... at one point owning a couple of different Ruger Mk II semi-automatics in .22LR and a Ruger Security Six along with a Marlin 995 Semi-auto .22LR and Rossi Model 62 copy of the old Winchester pump .22 design.

Do I wish I would have kept them all those years ago? Probably, but that's water under the bridge now. My interests are less in revolvers and 19th century designs anyway, so on to what's going on now!

At the moment; this is the target. The "Wonder 9s", or more specifically..... modern, polymer-framed, high-capacity, striker-fired, 9mm handguns. There's a lot of them out there, ranging from the rather pedestrian Smith & Wesson M & P (Military & Police) for $350 to $400, to the $800-$900 H&K/Sigs or the ubiquitous Glocks at the middle price-point. features and performance tend to be fairly similar, but the build quality and country of origin. The progression on price/build-quality equation seems to go from import to American made back to import (from Germany, Austria or Switzerland) going from low to high. So, firearms from manufacturers like Taurus, Star, etc. from places like Spain and Brazil tend to be lower. Then we get American manufacturers such as Smith & Wesson in the middle, followed of course, but the Glocks, H&Ks and Sig Sauer being the most expensive. 

Then you have a few "out-lyers" in the market such as this Canik made in Turkey which is a copy of the Walther P99 and of excellent quality according to virtually all reviews as well as..

the well-known and well-thought of CZ offering such as the above CZ-75 made in the Czech Republic. So, what am I interested in?

This is the one. The Walther PPQ M1. Why not the Bond-esque P99? Yes, it's a fine pistol, but here's my reasoning. 

• The main-line Walther grips feel great in my smallish hands, whether that be the P99 or the PPQ and indeed the compact CCP as well.
• The PPQ is often referred to as the updated and improved P99 with a better double-action trigger system.
• The PPQ has the standard M1913 Picatinny rail that makes it easier to mount laser and such on to.
• The P99 has been out of production for several years and the "first version" (which I like best) tends to be difficult to find and when found tends to be at least $100 (or more), more expensive than the PPQ. This is probably the deciding factor.

However, there's a couple of other possibilities as well.

One is the Canik which of course is a Walther copy, but barring finding a PPQ/P99 at an affordable price, there's also a "dark horse"; the Magnum Research MR9 Eagle. It's a Walther P99 polymer frame, with a Magnum Research stainless slide mounted. This German-American cooperative effort came in two flavors, with the one you see here as half and inch longer than the 4" version. Most critically, they aren't well known and as a result sometimes sell for substantially less than either the P99 or PPQ. No you know. I'll update you guys when I've locked onto a target!