Les Jones

Home Life > A Friday Night

Melissa and my mom met me for lunch today, which was nice, and they went shopping for a high chair and Walker for Katie. She's been eating baby food for about a month and a half now. Mom and Melissa don't get to spend enough time together doing girl stuff, so I was glad to see them having a girl's day out.

It was a nice day, but when mom got home she found out her older sister had passed away. It wasn't unexpected, and the doctors had told the family to prepare for it. Mom had been over there once this week already. No condolences necessary - I wasn't close to her, and except for mom, no one was. That sounds terrible, but she just wasn't a nice or warm person, through essence or effort. She and my mom are as different as two people could be.

I'm going shooting tomorrow with SayUncle and Justin from Elephant Rants. So tonight I did the break and bake on the SKS I bought last weekend. After breaking it down I put the stock in the oven and baked it on "warm" for about 45 minutes to melt the last bit of Cosmoline preservative. Just a little bit came out; this gun didn't have that much Cosmoline.

After baking the stock I cleaned it again with Oops solvent and a nylon scrubby. After that it looked pretty dry. The plan was to re-finish it in Tung oil, but since I was taking it out tomorrow I decided to try something I had read about and had on hand: Pledge with orange oil in the spray bottle. I let it sit for about an hour with a healthy coat, then wiped it off with a cotton cloth. It looks good, but I still want to try the Tung oil. Formsby's is supposedly the easiest to apply.

BTW, I disassembled the gun and bolt using the instructions here. Easy squeezy. The only tools needed were a screwdriver and a punch. A narrow punch was really handy for removing the trigger group. Once everything was disassemebled, I cleaned the parts with Corrosion-X and used a little oil on the bolt.

Right now I'm watching Employee of the Month because, well, the box looked interesting at the store and they had a lot of copies. I'm usually a lot more methodical, but I have my weak moments. I recognize the actress who plays the wife's mom from an episode of Law and Order. She played a '60s radical on the run. Susan something.

I watched the remake of Dawn of the Dead the other night. Awesome zombie movie.

LATER: Don't waste your money on Employee of the Month. It doesn't live up to its mixed-up ambitions, and most of it movie is improbable or really cynical.