October 1st. The best month.

--The weather has finally taken a cooler turn, with highs only in the low 80s, or even, on some days, in the high 70s. This has done wonders for my mood.

--We've been having minor car problems. The aged-beyond-its-years-and-miles '97 Honda Civic which I passed on to my elder daughter has required three rescues in the past month and a half. Two of these were simply old hoses needing replacement. One was a new coil. The Check Engine light came on about the time that the muffler started getting loud, so I replaced the muffler, and it got quiet, but the light came back on after being reset, and the code continued to say that the catalytic converter was the problem. On this car, that's on the exhaust manifold (stupid design; don't put one of the most expensive parts on one of the cheapest parts, the latter of which is likely to need replacement due to cracking.). I had this replaced about 130k miles ago, and it was a $900 part back then. This time, it was about a $650 part, and that's getting too close to the cost of the old car. I shopped around, and found an aftermarket one for $189, with just $8 for shipping. My shade tree mechanic said that he'll change it out for about $50 for me. (I always tip him heavily, though.) So for under $300, I get that problem fixed. Come March (when the lack of an AC makes my daughter whine again), I'll sell it, and buy my elder daughter (now a freshman in college) a newer car. Nothing fancy, you understand. Maybe a 10 year-old Accord with a manual transmission. (Did they still make them with manuals, in 2007?)

--I've been working a fair bit of off-duty, lately. Gotta pay for those car repairs, those college expenses not covered by scholarship (they are legion), a little trip up to Colorado I'm taking, soon, and a little rathole money for this fall.

--I'm training a new guy at work. Smart young fellow. New to the work.

--I went shooting yesterday, and was surprised that, at 15-17 yards, my shots were dropping off the bull that I was shooting. I approached, and found that some of the missed shots were keyholed. They had tumbled. This was Speer Lawman 125g TMJ .357 Sig out of a fairly-clean Gen 3 Glock 31. I checked the bore: still shiny. WTH?

I suspect that the two in the 7 ring were also tumbling, as well, but they weren't full-profile when they struck the paper.

--I just got a Don Hume leather pocket pistol for the G42, and it has a useful feature: a hook on it (cut into the leather pattern), to drag against the bottom of your pocket when drawing (as seen on the Emerson Wave lockblade pocketknife), so that your pistol pulls free from the holster every time. At $35, this was an inexpensive piece of decent kit. No, I don't carry a .380 as a primary gun, but it makes a nice BUG on my vest at work, and there are times when I can't get away with any kind of gun burka, and must pocket carry.