Hotspots, yard sales, new toys, and parties

Friday I took the two Netgear WAPs out to our hotspot customer and replaced the SMCs we had onsite. Instant improvement -- not only could I get any of the wireless Windows clients online, but I noticed that the Netgears give better coverage. I'm not sure if they have a higher output or if the antennas are better, but I could see both WAPs in Netstumbler from either end of the building. In contrast, the signals from the SMCs would drop around the middle of the building. I so hope that I've finally put this one to bed.

Yesterday Judith and I had a yard sale, mostly to get rid of baby stuff and toys that the girls don't play with. We did pretty good: we sold one of our strollers, a travel swing, another less-portable swing, and some toys. We still have most of the clothes, so they got packed away in the crawlspace. Sometime in the Fall we'll join in a multi-family yard sale and hopefully unload some more stuff.

To publicize our yard sale, I placed an add for three days in our local paper, put up some signs, and placed an add on the Philly subsite of Craigslist.org. A woman who bought $30 of stuff said she saw the Cragislist ad, so it was definitely worthwhile. I'll definitely be using Craigslist again.

After the girls went to sleep for their afternoon nap, I put my AR-180B in a gun sock and went off to do some trading at Surplus City. I'd decided I was tired with it being so finicky as to the mags it likes, and I do have two other, reliable autoloaders in 5.56mm. Surplus City was willing to give me $400 for it so I fondled a few possible acquisitions: used Glock 20 (10MM) and Glock 21 (.45 ACP) and a CZ-83 in 9x18mm. I do like the big Glocks (better than the smaller Glocks, actually), and do have a hankering for a 10mm, but didn't feel like adding another caliber to the stable for now. The CZ-83 felt really nice and I can see picking one up in the future. I also looked at but didn't consider an FN FiveSeVen (5.7mm), due to the price of both the gun and ammo. I wound up getting a blued Ruger P90 in .45 ACP.

It took me a number of years to warm up to Ruger's centerfire autos. They have all the grace of a brick. However, they are generally dead nuts reliable, and in the case of those that my dad owns, quite accurate. I got to compare the P90 side by side with one of the new Ruger P345s, but the latter didn't fit my hand as well, and more importantly, feels too light for a gun in .45 ACP, IMHO. I could've bought a P90 in stainless steel but I like the look of blued steel better.

I'm going to do a little experiment with the Ruger. I normally use FP-10 or automatic transmission fluid as gun oil, and normally clean with Hoppe's No.9 powder solvent. I figure I'll put 500 rounds through the P90 while using only Ballistol to clean and lube the piece. FP-10, ATF, and Hoppe's are great products. But I'm always interested in alternatives, and I've heard very nice things about Ballistol from some end users, and it's less toxic than Hoppe's No.9.

Finally, we wrapped up the weekend by going to a 3rd birthday party for the daughter of the couple which introduced Judith and I.