In other news. . . my Seburo MN-23 is coming together nicely. Most of the add-on parts I ordered have came in, and with some slight modifications in the install process, they look damn good. At this rate, the MN-23 will be a fully servicable battle rifle by next week. We did a quick test fire session at work yesterday, and were pleased with the results. I'll have to run another series of tests with the new components installed, but I'm pretty confident about what the results will be. With all the photos I took along the process, I'll just need a little free time to put together a decent HOWTO.

It started drizzling a little bit when I pulled out of the garage, and by the time I was well on the way, the drizzle became a shower. By the time that I got on the final road to work, the shower became light rain.

Driving on 2244. . . with all the hills and curves. . . is usually a fun drive. During good weather. With dry roads. And no traffic. None of which I had this morning.

Instead, as I was cruising at the speed limit and rounding the final curve to the office, I began feeling disturbing wobbles from the steering wheel. Peripherally I can sense at least one of my tires not gripping the road properly. So I eased off the gas.

Too late.

All four wheels lose contact from the road, and I'm hyrdoplaning. Into oncoming traffic. At ~50MPH.

Every millisecond counted at this point. And fortunately the oncoming traffic was still a good 300 feet away. So I let the Traction Control System take over and gently guide the car into the nearest driveway. And parked there for a few minutes trying to figure out what went wrong. The oncoming traffic came and went, and I'm sure a couple of them were as surprised as I was.

I didn't panic, but I was definitely tense. A basic debriefing confirmed that the roads were just wet enough for the oil to seep through from the pavement, and that was all it took to let my wheels start sliding. The TCS kicked in one second too late, but at least my hyper-heuristics mode kicked in way before then.

Having had conquered two strongholds so far, I thought I was better prepared for the third incursion. Unfortunately this is one of the very few things that does not get easier the more often that you do it. In fact, it lulls you into complacence thinking that you can anticipate everything, and then it springs multiple surprises and ambushes on you. Nasty tactics. . . and the MCSE knows fully well how to take advantage of that.

Nonetheless. . . although it was touch and go for a while, the outcome of the battle was never really in doubt. Three down, eight to go. And its only going to get harder from here on out.

On a lighter note. . . I finally found some time after returning home to work on the MN-23 a bit. Since it was not exactly a cosmetic beauty when I received it, the hour long paint session I put it through should redress that area. I managed to find some parts to go along with it, so we'll see how it looks once everything comes together. Some of the guys at work are as excited as I am to see this thing in its final form, and one of them is the CEO!

Depending on what my next steps are, I'll either leave its original name (MN-23) if I don't install a power-up kit, or rename it to "Chidori" if I do. Once I'm done refurbishing it, and have had a live test fire, I'll decide whether to tweak it some or not. I'm taking pictures through all this, and will probably make a documentary on this at some point just to appease my ego.

I'm feeling a little burned out on the MCSE studying too. . . from between having my brain mashed at work in trying to figure out why the server's not functioning, and having my brain mashed at memorizing all the tricky details of MS products. . . yeah. . . its not exactly going smoothly. . .

I did get my Seburo MN-23 in the mail today, and was pretty excited about it. But unfortunately, that excitement died out pretty quick when I got a phone call earlier this evening. . .

It seems that a long existing figure at Design Edge passed away on Thursday afternoon. James Hamlin, who was the quintessiantial handyman, who kept the building up and running while making all sorts of floorplan changes that the engineers and designers would come up with at the whim, who helped me in the process of bringing Shadow Phoenix back to life (amongst other little tidbits of things he taught me and life's lessons learned), who was always there with a smile on his face and enjoying life in whichever form it might've been (with a touch of alcohol, always), and who always had a "aww, what the hell, its worth a shot" view on life, was diagnosed with cancer several months ago. They immediately tried treatments on him, and although I don't have all the details yet, it didn't seem to have an effect the doctors were hoping for. He never did repeat what the doctors told him, and he requested that if the worst should come, we would have a party in his honor.

And so in his honor a party we will have. Blandy'll keep me in the loop as details are finalized, but this is one respect that I must pay without fail.

Needless to say I am just a little irked by their inability to comprehend the notion of "verbal agreements", and it further affirms my disappointment in the rest of the human race (how hard is it to purchase a movie ticket for someone, really?). If these are the type of people graduating from esteemed collegs nowadays, I fear that there will be no viable future if the trend continues.