Daily Archives: March 28, 2012

Bullets vs. hard drives

Did you ever wonder what would happen when a bullet passes through different things? I have always enjoyed shooting a random pumpkin or a tv. Just fyi…a pumpkin makes an excellent display when shot with a proper shotgun. A tv is far more dull than I expected. I suppose that shooting a plugged-in-and-running tv might be interesting but I digress.

Anyhow, guns are awesome things…in both good and bad ways. I truly enjoy target shooting…that’s one of the good-awesome aspects of shooting. So, a friend of mine at work often heads to the shooting range with me at lunch. This week, Emily came along with us too. She wanted to shoot her Valentine’s day gun (and you thought I wasn’t a romantic).

38 bullet splattered on a hard drive
38 bullet splattered on a hard drive

So, my friend and I work at an IT business. We are both involved in developing software but we often get old or crashed computers in that are headed for the big website in the sky. We always recycle every bit of equipment that comes in. Part of that includes destroying the hard drives to protect any information that might be on them. Eventually, every hard drive gets shredded in a super cool shredder machine that eats them like a paper shredder chews stupid credit card offers.

Ricochets
Ricochets

Anyhow, that gives us an opportunity to pre-destroy the hard drives via bullet. We took two hard drives to the range the other day and shot them with a bunch of different guns. The one that surprised me most was the 38 caliber bullet. If you look carefully, you can see how it ricocheted off of the hard drive face. I couldn’t believe it! How could a bullet not pass through a simple hard drive?! One bullet splattered on impact. Why oh why 38 are you so weak?

Bullets through a hard drive
45 through the top left, .223 through the bottom right and beside the splattered 38

We stepped it up a bit with other calibers and had great success with the 45 caliber and the .223 (typical assault rifle ammo). I knew those bullets would penetrate but I was incredibly surprised about the 38.

So friends, if you ever find your self in possession of a hard drive that simply needs to be shot, I can heartily recommend only calibers larger than the pitiful 38!

Up North

A week or so ago, we went to PA to celebrate my Grandpa’s 98th birthday.  That was fun and we got into all sorts of things…

We opened some late Christmas presents

Ribbons in my hair

 

We unloaded 3 tons of wood pellets for my parents’ pellet stove

unloading pellets unloading pellets

Isaac even helped

unloading pellets unloading pellets

but definitely needed a break!

 

We climbed trees

Climbing trees Upside down in a tree

 

Played some football

Playing backyard football Playing backyard football Playing backyard football

Backyard football

 

Had a great party with Grandpa

98th birthday party for Grandpa 98th birthday party for Grandpa

98th birthday party for Grandpa
Cake is good no matter how old you are!
Talking with Grandpa
Talking with Grandpa
Meeting his great-great grandson
Meeting his great-great grandson

 

There were leprechauns

Leprachuans Leprachuans

 

Hanging out with our aunt and uncle
Hanging out with our aunt and uncle

 

We hunted Easter eggs…full of money!

One egg had to be up in the tree
One egg had to be up in the tree
Score!  Easter eggs!
Score! Easter eggs!

Score!  Easter eggs!

Score!  Easter eggs!
It's exhausting!

 

We verified that Isaac is growing and hide-and-seek  isn’t as easy as it used to be

The boy is growing!
The boy is growing!
Hide-and-seek isn't working
Hide-and-seek isn't working

So, although it wasn’t nearly as green up there, spring was about to hit and we had a really great time! When we stay home, we never seem to be able to do so many things on a weekend. We needed a break after the short vacation!