I’ve been a member of my local gun club for a while now, and have managed to use my membership for some great practice. An indoor 100yd range comes in handy in the middle of the winter, I tell you. But finding that there are only so many drills and ways of practicing that I can muster on my own, I decided to stop in for their Thursday evening Combat League. Why have I not tried this sooner?

Combat League is held every Thursday evening, year-round, and allows anyone (like myself) to join in whenever they’re able to. This appealed to me since I am oftentimes unable to predict my work schedule and was hesitant to commit to a season of league shooting. It’s also 15min from my home, easily accessible after work. And who doesn’t like shooting after work?

I’ve been twice so far and it turns out I’m somewhat good compared to my peers. The first week I was able to shoot with my AR and was roughly 3x faster than the nearest competitor (!). I’m still awaiting results from last week, but indications were that I’m in the top 10 for speed and accuracy with my standard XD9. My only complaint is that running a single stage takes less than a minute – and that’s it for the night. But I do get to shoot some decent problem-solving games once a week.

And now, only two weeks in, I find myself researching where the nearest IDPA matches are…

Connect-VIServer vcenterhost

$VMFolder = @()
Foreach ($VM in (Get-VM |Get-View)){
$Details = "" |Select-Object VM,Path
$Folder = ((($VM.Summary.Config.VmPathName).Split(']')[1]).Split('/'))[0].TrimStart(' ')
$Path = ($VM.Summary.Config.VmPathName).Split('/')[0]
If ($VM.Name-ne $Folder){
$Details.VM= $VM.Name
$Details.Path= $Path
$VMFolder += $Details
}
}
$VMFolder |Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation C:Mismatch.csv

Simply replace vcenterhost with your vCenter’s name and go for it.

One of the best features of the latest PowerGUI / VMware Infrastructure Management release? An incredibly useful dropdown list of common vSphere gotchas to look for (click the thumbnail for a list of ‘em). As I come on board a new organization with a more diverse administration personnel model for vSphere, this list of queries has enabled me to very quickly identify some problems that could grow into larger issues – and to fix them almost as quickly.

Finding a terabyte of orphaned .vmdk files just made me a pretty valuable employee today…

So when I think about slouching my way into fatherhood and what kind of car I’ll need to haul some pack-n-plays around, I’m thinking station wagon. And I’m thinking something along the lines of this station wagon:

In a roundabout way via Jalopnik, and detailed in a thread over at 6speedonline,

Not sure it’s a “supercar” but…This is my ’71 510 wagon with a 2jz-gte engine and single turbo upgrade. I previously had the 7m-gte from the MKIII Supra, but just finalized the install of the 2j this week.

I run it on pump gas only. The 7m-gte ran 398 rwhp on 91 octane and a conservative timing curve. The 2j should give me a bit more with minimal changes.

…drool…

Some comments from glin1216′s YouTube page:

danshyu: Heh, I’ve always thought those Magpul fore grips are nothing but a gimmick, do they actually make any difference or are they just another one of those tacticool gadget?

glin1216: @danshyu It allows me to better snap my muzzle onto threats. I personally feel it gives me better control of my weapon. The downside? I get labeled a Magpul whore by everyone.

(BTW: I have a Magpul AFG on my 16″…)

Web service fave of mine Mint.com just released a pretty nifty update this morning in the form of Goals – although there is a curious lack of that news on the update blog at mint.com. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of Mint – I would go so far as to say that I’ve never really gotten more control over my finances until I surrendered them to a service like Mint, which tracks our finances automagically and cleanly. I definitely know I’ve gained more ground on expenses and trimming the fat over the last year as a direct result. Well, Mint.com just quietly gave me one more, very important dashboard item to help get more enjoyable control of where our money’s going: Goals.

With Mint.com Goals, the free service steps beyond budgeting and automatically ties in long-term goals – such as debt reduction, saving for a home or college, even taking a trip or buying a car. For example, Mint will take all of your current credit card balances and rates, your minimum payments, and ask you what more you can throw at a monthly payment plan to get that debt paid down. Move the slider to the right (aka: “I can throw some benjis at this debt, yo”) and you’ll instantly see the amount of interest paid and the date that you’ll be debt-free adjust. It’s like some sort of game – with the odds tilted in your favor.

Granted, Mint.com makes it’s money through referrals – expect to see offers for lower-interest credit cards politely suggested to you when you set up a credit debt reduction goal, for example. But something just clicked in my head when I saw that date show up for the goal I set to reduce debt, a renewed motivation to get ‘er done and keep plugging away.

And have I mentioned that the service is free?

No, this particular car is one of just four notchback 99 Turbo sedans brought into the U.S. as early test cars, part of an overall fleet of 40 99 Turbos.

While everyone waits to see what Spyker will do with SAAB, Jalopnik has taken a drive in my current most-lustworthy automobile. Current, I say, while probably mentally cementing it into the slot of “All-time most lustworthy.”

As we reach down between the seats and turn the key, the old 99 protests just a bit until we coax a breath out of it with a slight stab of the throttle. The car warms up within a couple of minutes, at which point we mash the throttle. Boost builds steadily, but serious acceleration doesn’t really happen until around 3500 rpm.

What I wouldn’t give to own this 99…

This, my friends, is what true stardom should mean:

This is the multifaceted tale of Bill Caswell, a man who bought a crapcan off Craigslist to run against the $400,000-plus rally cars in a World Rally Championship race. It is a tale of a guy who had a welder, a bunch of credit cards, and a lot of free time but no real backing or funds. It is a story of a dude who taught himself how to build an FIA-legal roll cage because he wanted to spend the fabrication fee on race tires instead. It’s the story of a gearhead who drove a rustbucket to a third-place finish in an FIA-sanctioned race.

Most of all, it is a story of hoonage.

I’m somewhat speechless:

Slocum and I were estimating.¬†I signed autographs for three hours straight on Sunday alone. He thinks it might be close to 1500 or 2000 autographs and maybe 1000-1500 pictures.¬†A couple hundred people were screaming “Caswell! Caswell!” at one point. But I guess the fact that Ken Block and I are the only Americans that came down makes me legit or something?¬†We finished third in class. Don’t know how I got here. Nuts.

Just read it. Nuts, indeed.

via Jalopnik:

Tyler Shipman loves Pontiac Fieros so much he posed for his senior picture with one he bought for $150. Weeks later he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He’d need a miracle to finish his project car.

And boy, did that miracle show up in a big way. Watch the video above for the story.

via Lifehacker:

We’ve always been impressed with the detailed, step-by-step guides iFixit has posted for MacBooks, iPods, and other devices. Now the site’s put every bit of its content, and future posts, under a Creative Commons license, one that allows for free, non-commercial distribution and modification, with attribution. That doesn’t mean you can go selling your own knocked-off repair guides, but you can rest assured that iFixit will get better international translations, and that its sometimes irreplaceable repair guides will stick around in one form or another for some time.