BDH

I don't know that it has to formally 'go up the food chain' but it certainly depends on the response you get. A few years ago at Area 4 I had a competitor come up to the line and say 'I thought about requesting another RO, but I guess you'll do'. I responded with 'I'll get you another RO if that makes you more comfortable (I was the CRO)' and he again repeated 'no, you'll do'. I ran the competitor, no issues... but to tell the truth, the fact that he would even mention that he was thinking about requesting another RO made me wonder if I shouldn't have just granted his wish, and then there would have been absolutely no possible issues...

I ran the Chrono stage and would generally say that there were mixed reactions on the match ammo. Some loved it... some hated it... a few complained that it did not extract reliably... etc. There did not seem to be a consensus one way or the other. The one thing that nearly everyone said was that it was filthy and their gun required a really good cleaning every night. Many competitors asked us to chrono their match ammo just to see where it was, and it was generally right on, or slightly less than declared PF...

Thank you from all of us!! Many of the staff were talking that there was NO WAY they would go back to Tulsa, but I heard the same thing about how no one was ever going to work a Multi-Gun Nationals again after Reno years ago, and guess what? I've seen the same faces at all the MG Nats since. I suspect the rain and mud will fade from memory and the diehards will go wherever, and whenever (and the standing ovation at the O/L10 awards ceremony, will never be forgotten)...

As always, thanks for all the input. I had not even thought about them trying to get at some bugs, but no doubt that is the place to start. We have a quarterly pest control service that comes out so I asked them to come out and see what they see. Meanwhile, they started whacking on my neighbors house, so maybe they have more tasty bugs. I also ran into the neighbor on the other side of me (who is not at all gun friendly), and asked her if the peckers had started on her house yet? She said no, and didn't even know we were having a problem. Then she asked me 'what do you do to get rid of them?' I had to reply 'well my first thought was a shotgun but it's not very discreet' just to see what her reaction would be. Much to my surprise she replied 'since every house in our neighborhood is cedar sided, I doubt that anyone would even hear it. I know I wouldn't!' Apparently, after living next door for 11 years, and me not running around the neighborhood shooting things up, she finally realizes that there is no reason to be concerned as most gun owners are responsible. A small victory... (now if I can just talk the old man into letting me take their 13 year old to the range on afternoon)

I was talking with Mrs BDH on the phone one evening from the Tulsa mudbowl, when she mentioned that she had been hearing this 'rapid pounding noise' outside that she could not identify. I immediately thought WOODPECKER, and sure enough we now have three nice round holes between an inch and a half and two and one half inches drilled through our cedar siding, the insulation board, the backing board, and into the insulation. Of course my first thought was SHOTGUN, but not only are they protected, firing a shotgun off in my subdivision, would be a little tough to be discreet with. I've asked lots of people, but so far mostly got some interesting but ineffective sounding home remedies, and a laugh with a hardy "good luck".... Anyone out there have to deal with this issue before?

Darn, and I thought I had it with 17 squads. You da man!! On the no shoot issue... I did the same thing... planned to be under bags and set the no shoots to make it as easy as possible... Everyone have fun at the multi-gun. Unfortunately, I'll be going to Bali instead to work the World Shoot, and from what I hear, there will be no mud to worry about! Night Flowers? Yes... Mud? No...

We used radios on my stage, but actually started using them before the rain came in as we were often having a hard time hearing the scores yelled up range because of shooting in bays to both sides of us and normal banter back in the tent. Once the rain started, the additional noise from the rain pounding the tent made it impossible to hear the calls. Since we needed to keep the Palm dry anyway, just using radios for all the calls made total sense. Did we have to repeat some calls? Sure, just like when you call them without radios. Probably the biggest issue we had was because I only brought a single radio with me. We used my radio along with the radio supplied by USPSA to call in the scores, and obviously had to use a different channel than the match channel. That created some problems when the weather was going back and forth as when we were not scoring, I changed my radio back to the match channel to listen for the 'bag' and 'un-bag' calls. Then we would start scoring and I forgot to change to my 'stage channel' in time which meant I had to ask for the call to be repeated. Just another lesson learned... next match I will bring TWO radios. That way we can keep those radios set for scoring, and keep the main radio on the main match channel for the other calls....

I'm not sure why downloading stopped any stage. On my stage we didn't stop anything... they showed up to download data... and we went ahead and ran the competitor. Since I had one of the fastest stages, we should have had less time to download data than most other stages, and I don't recall it ever slowing us down. Although, I'm sure that there probably was a time or two where they downloaded, and then we had a challenge getting the correct competitor pulled up which slowed us down ever so slightly (and I'm talking like 5 - 10 seconds). We had more slow downs due to things like tapping the Palm screen and it not recording the hit, so when you went to save the score, you had to first acknowledge the error message, and tell the Palm that 'yes, you did want to correct the score'...

Just some general comments from the staff side of things.... if my memory serves me correctly, I've worked every Nationals from 2001 forward (with the exception of last years Tulsa match when I was in France working the European Handgun Championship), so I have a little bit of experience on both paper in the US, and overseas, and after this week, on the Palm. First, I don't remember anyone looking over my shoulder while I was writing scores down on a scoresheet, ever! I am usually walking while writing, and if someone is following me, I'd guess that I am a little tough to see around... Second, my take is the Palm system is much more for the competitors than for the staff. What it gives you is more updates as to how competitors are doing, and gives them more often. It also allows the final match results to post much earlier than if all the scoresheets had to be taken to stats and entered/verified before posting (they told us that at one of the A7 matches, the finals posted 8 minutes after the last round fired)... Third, this system puts a little more work on the staff than just dealing with paper, but one thing that it absolutely does is prevent scoresheets from going in with the incorrect amount of hits on them. It does not prevent the 'paper copies' of coming up short however which is a different issue (and some times this works in the competitors favor as the paper scoresheet is what counts, so if I forget to transfer a NS from the Palm to your paper copy, the paper copy rules and you do not get the NS even though recorded in the Palm)... Finally, as with anything new, it will take a little time to adjust. Lots of suggestions went in, and this will be a work in process. As with many things, there are pros and cons, but I think the benefits of close to real time stats, and quick final posting would outweigh the cons of using the system. Also, any of us in the technology space can dream up lots of solutions to many of these problems (how about the 'scoring device containing a printer, so we can immediately print you an exact copy of your run right on the stage, kind of the like the rental car companies when they print you a receipt?), but there is a cost involved not only on the Nationals level, but down through the Area, Sectional and club matches as well...

As always, thanks for the input. What really surprises me are the amount of comments around 'it is really up to the agent'. I really thought that most of the major insurance carriers had corporate positions on stuff like this. IOW, while they may insure 'sportling equipment' (Hi CB), but once you mentioned firearms or even worse GUNS... the liability flags went up to full staff. Maybe I'm mistaken. I guess we'll see....

Wow!!! I had no idea we were at risk of cancelling! I'll be there, and even recruited Deb (aka The Bunny Lady from Nationals) to help out. I am so looking forward to flying all my OSU banners etc. in Michigan. Maybe what we REALLY need is an OHIO team vs a MICHIGAN team?? Of course, based on recent performance by our 'friends up North', that may not be much of a contest anyway....

Paul, while you can be a cruel bastard.... I like it!!!

I'm considering consolidating some of our insurance. We have our Homeowners through one carrier (along with a personal liability coverage)... I have my auto through another company... and she has hers through yet another. There must be some savings by consolidating some of this stuff, and while I am at it I probably need to add a couple of riders for stuff we have in the house. Of course one of them would be firearms, which led me to wondering... if I can get a good deal on all the coverage we need, I would hate to ask about 'firearms' and have that deal disappear before my eyes! I did some searching and saw posts specific to firearms insurance, but does anyone know who of the big insurance guys I need to avoid because of their feelings about 'firearms'? Or should I just work out the best deal I can for everything else, and then go to someone specific like the NRA for firearms coverage? Also, I do not want to unknowingly give my business to a company that supports any anti-gun efforts, so where do I get that info? As always, thanks in advance!

Only Production division guns from what I could see. They were just putting the figures on a piece of paper in a column. No reference to the competitor each gun belonged to. Skeeters and I worked chrono at A6, and yes, we were weighing Production guns (Production only). The only data we took was manufacturer, model, caliber, and weight. What 'was' surprising was how much variance there was between same manufacturer and model. If I remember correctly, in several cases it was more than a two ounce difference, which tells me that some of the guns were definately over the 2 oz. maximum limit... Sorry for the thread highjack. Back to your regularly scheduled program...

Tossed in the air...

I just got back from the Summer Blast where I worked as a CRO over two stages. Unfortunately we seemed to have an inordinate amount of DQ's (dropped gun during COF, AD over berm on reload, etc) but I had one that I've never seen and hope to never see again. One of my stages was a classifer (CM06-03 Can You Count) which is four close targets, two strings of five rounds, mandatory reload, five rounds. A competitor was shooting string one and shot five rounds, forgot the mandatory reload, and shot the next five rounds. No problem so far other than he just earned five procedural penalties. However, he realized that he made a mistake, and tossed his loaded gun up in the air!! It rotated twice completely, came down and he caught it by the grip and holstered (almost like it was 'practiced')... Of course the RO stops him and calls me up. I had been watching my other stage at the time so did not see the actual event and asked what happened to which the RO replied 'he cowboyed his gun!' Not knowing exactly what he was talking about, I asked for clarification, and when I heard what happened, I just could not believe it. I called the RM and of course that was the end of this competitors match, but the question remains... Should there be a more severe penalty for something so inherently dangerous and foolish?? Should someone who so flagrantly violates our rules and everyones safety be banned from USPSA or IPSC for life?? Should they be banned for a year?? What do you think is appropropiate?? Remember, this was a hot gun with a round in the chamber, and a magazine in the mag well. It rotated twice, so the muzzle was pointing up range twice...

I was the CRO and you are correct, the RO did well on this one. I was watching my other stage at the time and called up after the incident. I asked what happened and the RO's response was "he cowboyed his gun!" Of course I responded "what the hell does that mean?". He explained the action, and yes, I would say he did 'Cowboy' his gun!! Of course I immediately called for the RM, and his reaction was about the same as mine.... WTF??? Anyway, been a long time since I've been out. It was great seeing old friends, and always good to meet new ones!!

It's been a really long Winter for Deb and I so it was great to see everyone on the range! Sorry I didn't actually make it to 'Brian's House' but I was happy to see many of you at Chrono (where I learned a ton of stuff). Hoping to be off the 'injured reserve list' soon, and back on a stage. Congratulations to ALL the competitors at Area 6...

Flex and Matt, thanks for the input, and yes, upgrading EzWinSocre is on my list of things to do (along with finishing my RM stuff)!!

Flex, I can, but turns out to be a false alarm. I decided to email out the results to the competitors even if I couldn't post them. I got a message that i couldn't do that either, and I was prompted to check the directory info on the match setup page. I double checked that, and even though it looked correct, I re-entered the directory info and tried everything again. Sure enough, everything uploaded and no further problems. I'm not quite sure what the problem was, but re-entering the directory info solved the problem....

Okay, I just can't figure this one out (and think I am pretty PC saavy). I finally received the scoresheets from our March match today... I scored the match and verified it... I created both the Classifier file, and the local results file for upload to USPSA... I went to the requisite forms on the USPSA site.... but when I browse to find the respective files, they aren't in the directory. Soooooo, I open up Explorer and cruise over to the appropriate directory just to double-check, and sure enough, they are not there. On the off chance, I refresh Explorer and they still are not there.... At that point, I opened EzWinScore again, and again saved the files, and this time took extra care to write down the directory they should be stored in. Same directory as normal, so I took a look, and still no files. At that point, I searched my entire PC for both files (since I had the exact file names), and they are now where to be found!! Is my PC haunted or something? I've done stats for several years, and never seen this problem before. FWIW, Windows XP Pro, and EzWinScore 2.29. I'd appreciate any help since we are already more than a week overdue on posting results....

I just bought a new digital camera (Canon G9 for those interested), and accessories like extra Lithium Ion Battery packs. Of course the first thing I did was put a full charge on all the batteries so I could play, but then read the directions that came with the spare battery pack and was surprised to read the following two quotes: In addition, there is the possibility of damage to the battery pack and reduced usage time if batteries are stored for a period of months. When you plan to store a battery pack aim to use its complete charge first, before disconnecting it. Store the battery pack in an area which is free of moisture, and where the temperature is no higher than 86 F. While I am not really planning to store batteries for months, now I have fully charged battery packs and apparently, that was a mistake. Can anyone tell me what the proper care and handling is for these battery packs? They are expensive enough that I don't want to burn them out prematurely. Also, is there an easy way to discharge them, or do I simply need to stick them in the camera and start shooting?? I tried the Search function but didn't see anything specifically on this topic...

Ah ha... once again hiding stuff from the masses!! I need to snoop around more... I use Visio as well so anything that anyone has ready in Visio (shapes, etc) would be appreciated...

I worked a 32 round stage during the pre-match. It had 15 paper and 2 steel, and fit fine on a half sheet (I don't have a copy of the scoresheet, but it was Stage 6 if anyone wants to post it). Also, as long as we are playing with scoresheets... one thing that I would absolutely love to see added to EzWinScore is the ability to add a column that prints NPM's!!! I always hate it when our club puts disappearing targets on a stage as I get all kind of things on the scoresheet to record them, and it usually takes some work to figure out if is a Miss or a No Penalty Miss...

That's kind of a 'best practice' but some stages work better at this than others. One thing that tends to occassionally screw things up is when there is a disappearing target on the stage, and the boxes for that target (with the NPM's) don't come up in the order that the range crew is scoring. Not a big deal, just kind of a pain in the butt...