The Haul

The Wife and I had The Fam over for dinner Christmas afternoon/evening. Turkey and ham and all the fixins wrapped up what was swiftly becoming a White Christmas. Though it never actually stuck, having the white stuff fall past the windows while the house was full and warm was great.

After stuffing ourselves to the point of explosion, and before we set out the Sundae Bar tasties, it was flying wrapping paper time!

The gift exchange portion is always hilarious with us as we get to see who knows who best and who remembered what odd reference to what someone might want, and the stories of how the gift was selected are usually as excellent as the gifts themselves.

My “Most Useful” gift was this set of Howard Leight Impact electric earmuffs.

I’ve been putting off and putting off getting these for myself now for over a year for no other reason than I’m a cheap bastard.

What sets these apart from other hearing protection that I own is that not only do they let me safely converse with my fellow shooters while at the range (and amplify animal sounds if I used them to hunt) but that they also have a jack that I can plug my MP3 player (or AM/FM radio or mobile phone) into.

In just the little bit of time I’ve spent with them, I have discovered that they will never replace standard player headphones. Their main job is to amplify or delete sounds around you. No matter how far upwards I adjust their volume or the volume of my MP3 player, the output from the player’s signal is always quieter than the incoming sound from the mics on the sides of the muffs. Also, if you have the player’s input volume up much past 50%, any bass drum-like sound is taken by the muffs as a gunshot and the sound is canceled. So no Electronica or Metal for me while at the range.

Despite what some might think, this is exactly how it should work and I cannot wait to put them to use.

The story is kind of blah: I told The Mom I wanted these after returning from visiting Cabelas on their opening weekend. The price was nearly unbeatable compared to previous units I’d seen.

But by far, my most favorite gift received in this exchange was from The Wife.

(click for slightly bigger)

Quick story: Charity auction attended by local Sheriffs and other various LEO’s. Someone found this doormat and put it in the kitty.

When it came up for bid, a pair of competing narcotics officers who found it hilarious bid this $16 mat up to $120. After hearing my chortling over the subject matter, The Wife found it via Google. You can buy one here. I’m buying a couple more. According to her, it is an on-line only item.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas as well. For those of you all traveling, be careful please.

In general announcements: the Christmas Tunian from this whole last week will disappear from the server at around midnight tonight, so get it while you can if you want/need to.

There will be new tunage the day after tomorrow, so stop by for that. I’ve got to go back to work tonight, so I’m not so sure how much other blogging there will be, but there will be some, and some is more than none, right?