Oil change, owie, guns, etc

Oil:
Monday I changed my oil, by myself, for the first time. Woo! Mostly woo, anyway. I've been watching Stephen do it for years and I knew I could, in theory, take care of it. I already had a used oil pan and the socket wrench to take the plug out. My truck needed an oil change, it was a beautiful day, and Stephen was in Mississippi working. So I did it.

I made a mess, but not too bad. Pro tips:
1. Put a lot of old feed sacks under there.
2. Stay under there while it's draining, because you'll need to move the pan around a bit.
3. Give the puppy something to play with so she doesn't run off with your paper towels.
4. Buy the right oil, dammit.

Yep, I grabbed a 5-qt jug of 10W40, which is totally the wrong oil but won't make my truck explode or anything. If it's not raining this afternoon, I'm going to re-change it today; if it's raining, I'll do it tomorrow.

Owie:
Yesterday I was outside the law school smoking. I finished up my coffee, took the lid off my travel mug, and poured the dregs over the edge of the railing. And I dropped the lid over the railing. Dammit!

I could walk down a lot of steps and around a bunch of bushes to pick up the lid, or I could walk down a few steps and through some bushes. Of course I chose the lazy route. I headed through the bushes - those gnarly little scrubby cedars - and tripped, and fell, and landed with my right kneecap ON a giant knarly branch. It hurt so bad I wanted to puke. Instead, I picked myself back up, limped over and rescued my coffee cup lid, and went the LONG way back to the door.

It could've been worse, of course. I did land squarely on my kneecap, not on those delicate tendons in my knee. It hurts worse today, but not as much worse as I thought. It's not broken and I'll live. :)

Guns:
Way back when I took my carry permit class at Rangemaster, I went ahead and signed up for the handgun level two class. I was supposed to take the second class in December, but that didn't work out so I rescheduled it for yesterday and today. I am really pleasantly surprised at the quality of the class!

The first hour was classroom stuff. The instructor talked for a bit then showed a video. Yes, you are more important than the guy trying to kill you. Don't ever go anywhere with that guy, because you'll just end up dead. Fight dirty. Be aware of your surroundings and think ahead of what you're going to do if something happens.
This part isn't so hard for me. I decided a while back that keeping me alive is more important than keeping alive someone who wants to kill me. And the horses have really made being alert my default behavior. Of course, it's not quite the kind of alert that the gun people want - I'm always in the back of my mind looking around for Horse Eating Monsters. :P But it's a start!

For the last 3 hours, we did range work. They broke down each movement and drilled us on it quite well. How to pull your gun, go to ready, find the trigger point, shoot, reload, etc. I shot REALLY well, actually. Of course, we were at about 3 yards, but I still sent a lot of bullets through the same hole. I saved my target and I might put up a pic of it :) I got to practice clearing my gun quite often because I'm not smacking the magazine in hard enough when I reload, which leads to misfiring, which leads to re-smacking and reracking the gun. I'm getting better!

Horses next.