Hank Ellis

I think that stage was limited to 44Magnum Powerheads only... Granted the division is Limited-1 and the reloads are slow, but when you get the A on an 'Jack or a 'Red ... oh boy the fun begins. With speargun names of 'Magnum 38 Special' and 'Woody Sawed-Off Magnum' from JBL you sometimes have to look around to remind yourself what shop your in. I was told that 80% of the production of JBL spearguns goes to Louisiana with 60% of that going to the New Orleans area. Spearfishing is alive and very well here. Some go for trophies but most go for the food. The offshore rigs act as vertical reefs and the fishing is something to behold. When I was based offshore I fished for shark for the hell of it and I don't like fishing. (Shark filets is damn good eating.) I wouldn't do it today as the shark population is in decline and needs to rebuild itself. If you do decide to go the underwater hunting route, please, please, get some instruction from someone who's done a bit of it. Not from some yahoo who read about it and got a card. There's little tidbits such as never tie the gun to yourself. A speared fish will dive. A 200 lb Jewfish (PC name Goliath Grouper) will drag your little human body to Davy Jones locker like a tin can behind a car. There are several divers still in the Gulf who made that mistake. Due to the popularity of spearfishing in the area, my Open Water 1 class made mention of the sport. It was made real clear to steer away from a group called the Helldivers. For entertainment, read the book "Helldivers Rodeo". It tells of a bunch of New Orleans area spearfish nuts and their exploits. Yes, a few get killed in pursuit of their trophies. Yes, they are still around and make frequent trips to the recompression chamber. Personally, I chose not to hunt. I'd rather leave a mature fish to reproduce and restock Mother Ocean than make one dinner for my family. On the other hand lobster are fair game. Stocks are plentiful and well, you can't beat a grilled lobster dinner you caught with your bare hands.

No doubt about that. Built my 10/22 tack driver using information from the site. It is sweet. Peruse posts by BigChief. Apparently he's a rimfire guru and what he says you can take to the bank. Friendly bunch too.

NAUI, PADI, SSI. It makes no difference. The instructor makes the difference. Shop around and talk to the instructors at the various shops. If you find one that badmouths one agency over another, keep shopping. If you find one that is qualified under one agency only, keep shopping. If you find one that downplays the differences between the agencies, keep talking to him or her. If that person takes the tack of "I want to make sure you're qualified, rather than just certified", you've found your instructor. Ignore price. We're talking life support instruction here. While on the soapbox, I'd like to make a suggestion concerning equipment. Buy it at the local dive shop. These guys don't make the money on instruction; they make it on equipment sales. Sure, you can find gear cheaper on the 'Net but often warranties will not be honored by the OEMs (Suunto and ScubaPro for example) and try to get help through the shop. Not gonna happen if you went cheap and got your stuff on eBay or Leisure Pro. Been there, done that. Learned my lesson. Mask, fins, snorkel can only be properly fitted by trying it on. The LDS can be a big help here. Want a new wetsuit? Are you built like a pencil or a potato? Some wetsuit OEMs tailor toward one or the other. The only way you can tell a proper fit is to try it on ... at the LDS. Finally, your buoyancy compensator and regulators are life support equipment. Don't ever forget this. Trust the people at the LDS. Hank Ellis NAUI Open Water, Advanced Open Water, Nitrox

I'm open to suggestions. To get the ball rolling.... Let's meet up Friday evening at 8:00 PM. Match hotel, Econo Lodge in Bossier City, at the pool. BYOB. BYO folding chair also.

Electricity is produced from energy. What we in the US pay is dirt cheap compared to elsewhere. Last October my bride and I went to Roatan, Honduras for a week of blowing bubbles around the reefs. At the resort we stayed at, if we wanted air conditioning there was a $100 USD per week surcharge. Other resorts gave you A/C but the cost was buried in the package price. When we got there we ran into a pair of American friends of ours and they explained the surcharge. Only 70% of the island has electricity. The island is powered by two companies with diesel generators. One is small and the other supplies the large percentage. If you don't care for either of the companies, get your own generator. This is what our resort had. The cost per KWH from the major generator is 3.24 Honduran Lempira = 0.18004 US Dollar. Or about 2.5 times what the average US cost is. The $100 USD surcharge is to cover the increased fuel and maintenance costs for the increased electrical usage. So, think what your electric bill is and multiply it by 2.5. And it gets worse. On the island of Guanaja the rate 3.3 times the US rate. Granted Guanaja is off the beaten path even by Honduran standards. Currency calculator: http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic Bay Islands Voice: http://www.bayislandsvoice.com/issue-v2-6.htm (Article on electric price increase is about halfway down, just above the report of the shootout at the baseball game.)

It's no secret that I work supporting the offshore oil and gas industry. I pay the same at the pump as everyone else. I live 4 miles from the third largest refinery in the U.S. As of this post name brand fuel is $2.20 / gallon. All that said, here's my take on the current energy situation. Demand. Demand is high worldwide. In the US we drive vehicles too large and excessively fuel consuming for our needs. We don't take measures to reduce our other fuel consumption. Low energy lighting, proper home insulation, etc. In short we're energy hogs. Other countries are becoming more industrial / westernized and their energy consumption per capita is going up. Supply. The energy is out there. Getting it is the problem. In the US the blocks from environmental and political groups against drilling is huge. Overcoming these hurdles is long and costly. There's energy off the coasts of California and Florida but the environmental hurdles are too high. The cost of drilling the wells and setting the platforms in 5000 feet of water are massive. In the billions of dollars. No one is going to take a chance on drilling a dry hole when billions are at stake. Let's say that all of the above issues have been addressed and crude is flowing. Crude is just the raw material. It must be refined. No new refinerys have been built in 30 years. What we have is running at full production. Again, everyone wants energy but no one wants a refinery in their back yard. Any glitch in the production process slows down the supply chain. The middle east and south america is doing a decent job of getting the crude out of the ground. They being the good business men they are, put this crude on the open market. Buyers will pay what the market will bear. They have the supply, we have the demand. Right now, others want crude badly and are willing to pay for it. The result is higher prices to the end consumer. My final thoughts, we in the US have to evaluate our energy consumption, resource retrieval, and refining policies as individuals. Every individual who sticks a nozzle in his tank needs to understand the energy process and consider their position.

Semi serious stuff. Obviously there will be a number of Benos members at the Area 4 match. Will someone pick a place, time, date where we can meet? Could me a hoot.

I and my gang of loony toons are in squad 21. One each in each division except revolver. I should convince our pair of Production guys that one needs to go to a wheelgun. Just so everything is in balance you understand. Elbows are being bloodied in prep for the 50 yd standards. Some of us are actually practicing. Ammo is being chrono'ed. Life is good. We'll see you there. -Now somewhere around here has to be a cattle gate-

My occupation is rotorcraft maintenance technician. Or as us technicians call ourselves, helicopter mechanics. One of the least desireable side effects of the job is that every so often you have to go up and do an autorotation RPM check. This is done after major rotorhead maintenance or during M/R track and balance.So.... I've got this BO-105 which on a good day has the aerodynamic characteristics of a slightly streamlined gun safe which we had just done done a rotor head change and a top end M/R rig. Did the track and balance and got ready for the auto RPM check. Now when a properly adjusted Boelkow is in an auto, the rate of descent is 5000 FPM. Nearly 60 MPH straight down along with your 80 KTS forward airspeed. It gets your attention. We climb to 3500 AGL, slow to 80 KTS, look at each other to verify that we're ready. In the words of Gary Gilmore, "Lets do this." The pilot reaches up and pulls both engines to idle. Immediately I know the feces was about to hit cooling unit. Even mechanics know that you lower the collective to the bottom stop prior to going to idle. The rotor RPM bled off very fast. The last number I saw prior to going into self preservation mode was 85%. Supposedly, if you get below 85% in flight there is nothing you can do to get the RPM back as the aircraft quits flying. Rotor blades depart the aircraft. Interesting stuff like that. Pointed straight down at the ground, rotor RPM way low, and a catatonic pilot. Funny how I looked out the windscreen and noted where we're going to crash. Everything was calm. No panic. No adrenaline. Self-preservation kicked in. I grabbed a fistfull of both throttles and shoved. Those lovely Allisons gave me the horsepower to get the RPM up enough to where we got control of the aircraft. THEN the rush hit.

In order of the way I've experienced them. 1. Motorcycle drag racing. Amazing how long 11 seconds to 125mph is all the time knowing asphalt is just a few inches away from your toes. Quit doing this as everybody I knew that had been in the sport at least 5 years had a major crash. After 5 years I quit and took up .... 2. Skydiving. Simple sport. Pay money. Get in airplane. Jump out. 15 seconds from hitting the ground throw out strings and cloth and hope it saves you. Jumping is always a rush but comes in different quantities. I've had five malfunctions that have resulted in a reserve rides. Each one had me wired for sound for a day or two. My current fix in jumping is wingsuits. http://www.bird-man.com/ Every one gets the blood pumping. 3. Scuba Diving. There's something about being in an alien envionment knowing that if anything goes wrong only you can get yourself out of it. All bow to the cave divers for they go when few dare. I'm not one of them. 4. IPSC. Ditto what TriggerT said. Things I won't do. 1. Bungee Jumping. No personal skill involved unless you rig your own equipment. Something about trusting your life to rubber bands doesn't interest me. 2. BASE Jumping. Although much safer than when I was first exposed to it a decade ago the risk/benefit ratio isn't there for me. Just can't bet the farm on one roll of the dice. 3. Cave Diving. The cave diving community has got it down to a science but there's still much that can go wrong. I may go there if I get to see all the reefs in the world. 4. Single-Engine Night or IFR Flying. You aviation types will know what I'm talking about.

Consider this option. Hire a local shooter that you trust to do your reloading. I did this when I was starting out and the $20/1000 charge was well worth it till I got a press and got it running. Due to US Federal Firearms regulations you will have to supply the brass but the reloader can supply everything else. Better yet, if you bring all the components, your reloader buddy will just be supplying labor building your loads to your specs. Federal rules are here. Scroll down to the 'Shells and Cartridges' definition. The quote that matters is "However, the reloader is not a manufacturer of shells or cartridges if, in return for a fee and expenses, he reloads casings of shells or cartridges submitted by a customer and returns the reloaded shells or cartridges with the identical casings provided by the customer to that customer." So yeah, it's legal. Just don't sell it, then excise taxes are applicable.

My preference in auto parts stores is NAPA. Good service. Knowledgeable people. Quality parts. It's comforting to see the same employees behind the counter since your last visit six months ago. Recently I had a major project on the wifes car. Water pump went out and the timing belt was due for retire. There was several routine maintenace items that were due also. Went to NAPA's website, searched for all the pieces and widgets. Put it all together and faxed it to them with instructions to verify what I had on the list is the proper item for the task. Showed up a couple days later and my order was ready and the reciept printed out. And yes, there was an item or two that were substituted due to my error. Got to love service like that. As for Auto Zone, I don't buy anything there that doesn't come in a can. [threaddrift] When I lived in Kansas City, there was an auto parts store called Midnight Auto Parts. It opened from mid-afternoon to midnight. Staffed with enough employees that you could be in and out in a few minutes. Used the place many times when I was in late night thrash mode getting my vehicle back in operation. Haven't seen another place like it and have always thought it would have been a great idea to be copied. [/threaddrift]

Stage: 5 Ironsides Place Name Class Division Pts Pen Time Hit Fact Stg Pts Stg % 6 Ellis, Hank C Limited 10 50 0 21.50 2.3256 31.3705 52.28% Returned as 36.6999%. Not one for those of us with bad backs. It was painful to watch one Super Senior struggle through it. He still did better than I with better hits with a slower time.

Wrote this post right after my first match. Scroll down to the one dated Dec 1 2003, 01:45 PM. The thoughts that keeps coming back about that day. "What am I doing here?" "I'm in way over my head." "This is fun." "I suck but I can improve...I think."

Your post got me to thinking. Scary and dangerous thing, I must stop it. What have I learned as I'm entering my second season. Don't obsess over equipment. Pick a gun, holster, mags, and pouches. Get so use to the stuff it's like putting on your favorite pair of jeans. Make the commitment to practice, dry and live, with a goal for every shot. Shooting without a goal is just coverting powder into noise. A clean run with zero points down is more satisfying than an equal HF run dropping points. The less I care about my score in relation to others, the better I shoot. I am my toughest competitor. Forego the third cup of coffee just before the match. Oil and fuel the machine. In other words keep water and energy bars in your range bag. Drink before you're thirty. Eat before your hungry. You can miss a target three feet away. You can hit a target 35 yards away. Quality trigger time with any gun, rifle or handgun, rimfire or centerfire, can teach you something you didn't expect. Thick comfy socks can do wonders.

When the christmas tree is up and the hole is flowing, find where the condensate tap is. There will be a tap somewhere as samples are taken periodically. Condensate is the liquid hydrocarbons that condense out of gas wells. Try running the condensate in your lawn mower or similiar small engine device mixed 50/50 with gasoline. If it works there then run it in your automobile mixed 50/50 with gasoline. You may have to adjust the mixture to get the proper anti-knock properties your auto requires. How do I know this works? Lets just say an old Coonass piano player passed it on years ago when I was based offshore.

Here I am taking a break a work at the Houma, LA airport which is a former WWII Navy blimp base where I fix 'dem heli-choppers which take a good chunk of coonasses offshore every day to get dead dinosaurs out the ground to run the industrial machine. Thanks for the laugh. You know why no coonasses work for NASA? Every time someones says 'Launch' they go take a break. Several years ago woodpeckers were pecking on the insulation of the external fuel tank of the space shuttle. Had to bring the ship back to the barn to repair the insulation. <-(True story) If Marie and Boudreaux had worked for NASA, the woodpecker problem would have been taken care of. Tell Marie that woodpecker makes a good gumbo and tell Boudreaux that woodpecker is an endangered species, limit is one, and they're out of season. Turn off the lights and go home for the night. By next morning there wouldn't be a woodpecker to be found and lunch would be stewing. Just today, I found our parts guy disassembling a scrap main rotor tiedown to get the rope off it. Hey, Rog! We got new rope, it you needs some just go get it. "You can't use new rope at the camp. Somebody would just steal it. Nobody steals old rope." I can't make this stuff up.

I was at the range the other day doing solo practice when I noticed the groups were going to the R/H C zone. WTF? Benched two groups and for once it wasn't me. The front sight could be easily moved with finger pressure and had shifted. Put it where it needed to be and went to the desk in search of Loc-Tite. The guy offered a spray of Gun Scrub to clean the area and I joked that the gun will probably revolt at being cleaned. "Huh?" I clean the top end every 1000 rounds or so and do the bottom a couple times a year. The looks I got were similiar as if I had defiled the Shroud of Turin. As pisgahrifle noted there are reasons to clean often. But for my gun that is not used for carry, a once a month top and twice a year bottom cleaning is sufficient. If I shot jacketed bullets rather than lead I would probably clean the top end even less.

Moving into the new house last year, the dialup connection was the pits. 28K on a good day. Short story, that was all I was going to get. Simply going to this board was a time consuming process. Tripped across a package deal from BellSouth. Wrap the landline, 2 cell phone accounts, and DirectTV account into one package. Dumped the second landline, get DSL, combine the 2 cell accounts into one family plan account with upgraded phones and increased minutes allowance, and continue on with DirectTV as is. Ended up saving $30 a month. The DSL, oh boy, why did I wait? I went with their DSL Lite service which advertises 256K download and 128K upload. Download speeds as reported from dslreports.com are 196K. Before I was seeing DLs as low as 10K and even single digits. I haven't tweaked the settings yet for even more speed. Setup was painless. Used the setup parameters and instructions from dslreports.com and was on the 'Net in 10 minutes. Another 20 minutes and the router was online. As a plus system overhead is lessened as I have no need for a software firewall. If this package is available in your area, you may want to look into it.

Powder Measure Accuracy I weigh my charges this way. Run ten charges into the scale pan and weigh it. Divide by ten and that's my charge. I typically set it up so that throwing ten charges will net me 41.3gr. After the first 50 or so rounds the powder settles in the measure and will maintain between 41.0 and 41.5gr. I check the charge every 200 rounds for practice stuff and every 100 rounds for match stuff. The first 100 rounds no matter what will be practice due to the measure settling in. When making a charge change throw 10 charges and dump it back into the hopper. Throw another 10 and weigh it. A bit anal? Sure. I got that way after not paying close attention and almost went minor at a major match.

I can't cook. Trust me I've tried. Ask my wife about the curried shrimp dish I cooked up when we were dating. Resulted in a call for pizza delivery. I really believe that the Nobel Peace (or possibly Chemistry) prize should go to the developers of Hamburger Helper. Who knows how many bachelors were saved from starving. Michael Angelo's brand lasagna with meat sauce. One package good for two meals. Isn't bad reheated. Hot Pockets brand from Nestle. Bacon, egg, and cheese flavor is my favorite.

For USPSA .45 loads, the two most common projectiles are the 230 RN and the 200 SWC. The 230 tends to give the sensation of a 'push' while the 200 has more snap. Try them both. I prefer the 230. Others prefer the 200. Either one works depending on the feel you're looking for. Projectile material is an issue. Lead is cheap but the smoke can be a factor if shooting indoors or say under a table. You'll never wear out a barrel shooting lead. Jacketed is relatively expensive but there is virtually no smoke. You can wear out a barrel shooting jacketed. In the middle is the moly coated black bullets such as from Precision. A little more expensive but reduced smoke. I use lead for practice and Precisions for match. Practice load: 230 GAT LRN, 4.1gr of Winchester Super Target, any serviceable brass, Winchester primers, 1.260 OAL Match load: 230 Precision RN, 4.1gr of Winchester Super Target, Winchester brass, Winchester primers, 1.260 OAL Both give about 740fps for a 170PF out of a Springfield 5" 1911.

The original post asked us to deconstruct the term 'slow down'. Many interesting facets of the gem. Different ways to view the same object. We're drifting into another aspect of the mental game. Visualization. Again using the skydiving analogy, it's very useful. When you take a first jump student up, they have no idea of what the experience would be like. They also have no way to practice a jump until they make a jump. A bit like trying to describe sex to a virgin. You can teach the mechanics, but not the experience. To help 'program' the brain to do the required tasks, visualization is the tool. What it does is load into memory what the flow of the task will be. Properly done, the load on the mind is lessened as the mind no longer has to process what the next subtask will be. It becomes automatic. Top skydiving teams are often called freefall robots as the flow of the dive is automatic to them. The mind is very aware and has the ability to make the constant adjustments necessary. Now the shooter walks up to a stage, say El-Prez. He can't practice it just before he shoots for score. All he has is the walkthrough sheet. Much as the skydiving team who draws a dive in competition. Here's the dive/stage. Go do it. You go through the engineering. What would be the most economics of motion way to complete the dive/stage? I've seen many times where this is all the preparation that is done for a stage. Turn, T3, T2, T1, reload, T1, T2, T3. All that has been done is engineer the stage, not fully prepare for it. Once engineering is complete, visualize exactly what you are going to do. On the El-Prez, visualize the turn in exact detail, the exact moment when the gun clears the holster, when the safety comes off, target, sights, trigger, sight lift, return to target, the next target, etc. Do it several times. Do it exactly the way you are going to do it when the buzzer goes off. The minute or three while you're on deck, although short by skydiving standards, is enough to get a solid foundation for the mind to work with. FWIW: I've begun passing BEnos' book around the DZ. It's finally put into words the concepts we've been teaching for the last 15 years.

Match Date: 1/9/2005 Stage: 1 Six Chickens Place Name Class Division Pts Pen Time Hit Fact Stg Pts Stg % 2 ELLIS, HANK D Limited 10 51 0 17.48 2.9176 57.6810 96.13% Returned as 38.8754%

Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. So, slow is fast. [Often heard saying at skydiving drop zones.] My other sport has many very interesting parallels to shooting. As inexperienced jumpers attempt a certain skill at the speed and complexity of a skygod, they usually fail miserably. Attempting the skill at a complex level isn't the problem if the fundamentals are there, attempting it at the speed is. When the skill is first attempted, the mind is working overtime to process the information. A point comes when overload hits and the mind shuts down information processing. They've set themselves up for failure. Typically, someone who makes their first jump can only focus on a cone 12" in diameter and an arms length long. They may notice blue above and green below but thats it. A beginning shooter is experiencing information overload during his first few matches. The result is lots of Mikes and zeroed stages. As the jumpers skill set is developed that cone gets larger in diameter and longer. They are training the mind to discard information inputs and processing that isn't needed to make room for information inputs and processing that are needed. Same thing with shooters. For me, 'slow down' means quit trying hard, pushing, going beyond your limits, hitting information overload. Backing off a few clicks allows your mind to just 'do', no thinking involved. The chance of falling off the edge and making an error is reduced. Practice days is when I push the envelope, expanding the skill set. I've noticed that when I work a skill (skydiving or shooting) at 90% of my ability thats it's like yawn, I can do this all day long. At 100% I'm working and the mind is busy, the diaster factor is high. Going beyond is required to advance but you will stumble. Eventually, what you could do now at 95% is what you could do before at 100%. Our team coach had one of the best lines concerning competition. "The team that is going to win is the one that is going to make the fewest mistakes. Slow down and make fewer mistakes."