Cleaned up the G-98 evil lab! (Well, sort of...)

I've still got plenty to do, but at least now I feel comfortable having members of my THR family over for some fun. A panorama, if you will, of what started as a family room before I took it over. Starting from the left side, fold-up desk w/laptop inside, cartridge display, left outboard speaker, safe #1, O-scopes #1 and #2, UPS #1, digital multimeter, computer-fed stereo amp, pre-amp, cd player, scanner, wireless network access point, and 5-port switch:



A little further right, one sees O-scopes #1 and #2, UPS #2 and #3, power controller to feed all 3 UPS boxes, pre-amp, wireless network access point, 5-port switch, desk lamp, clock, relaxation oscillator, vintage Minimus-7 inboard speakers, monitor, keyboard, trackball, Wichita Silhouette pistol, absolute rat's nest of wires, HP JetDirect network print server, Hp LaserJet 4 printer, Dell Precision 420 server/workstation, printer stand made from an old school desk, and my Reptar doll. The view is out towards the Florida Room:



Point the camera further towards the South, we see the printer and computer, Midway portable stand holding a Dillon Square Deal B, a Lyman powder measure, and an RCBS JR2 O-frame press. The green file cabinet holds up the right outboard speaker, while holding all my C&R FFL stuff and reference library internally. The small desk props up my .45-70 Siamese Mauser project, along with an Ohaus 10-10 scale and Lyman case trimmer. The top desk drawer hold the one-pound cans of powder, the lower holds all my reloading dies. For safety, primers are elsewhere in the room. Oh, yeah, Bernie was curious about the beeping digital camera...



A little further to the right, and there's the reloading bench, made from a steel 4-H table saw bench project. The left press is a Pacific (Hornady) O-Frame, the right is a Dillon 550. There's a flourescent swing-arm light overhead, to light up the Dillon digital scale and both presses. The bottle of H-335 is what's currently in the Dillon 550's powder measure, as I make another batch of .223 Remington tonight. Underneath, the big yellow bins hold several thousand pieces of brass, and the bullets are stacked in front, sorted via diameter. The biggest boxes of cast bullets are underneath the bench, along with more brass. Speaking of brass, an old brass fire extinguisher serves as a cleaning rod stand between the bench and safe #2:



One more adjustment to the right, and we see the edge of the reloading bench, safe #2, my jar of Ed's Red needing a refill, the bar stool for the bench with some M16 magazines I forgot to put away, and a stack of about 27 different ammo cans, all storing ammo via the labels plastered under the lid latches. The camouflaged toolbox holds about 800 rounds of 7.62x29 handloads, in combinations of 20, 30, and 40-round AK mags, as well as a couple 75-round AK drums. The red toolbox holds spare Mauser and Springfield parts. The blue box is a Midway range box, holding my monster cleaning kit, Outer's Foul-Out II, and range repair tools assortment. The edge of my bookshelf is just visible, holding all my reloading manuals, firearms disassembly manuals, the Ackley series, the Kuhnhausen series, the Gunsmith Kinks series, and Blue Books:



Just to show how small a room all this crap sits in, a few steps back into the dining room and the whole thing appears. Somebody's busy holding the rug down to the floor, again, when there's a camera involved, he's automatically front and center:



Not seen in the pics is safe/gun armoire #3. There you go, the G-98 Evil Lab, sitting a few inches lower than the rest of the house due to sheer mass!

Oops. I did resize them for dial-up, honest!

They started at 1024x768, and I resized them down to 800x600. I could use either Photoshop or ThumbsPlus to bring down the byte count, I guess.

Fat-fingered the 7.62x39 thing, too. Good catch!

Yeah, little Bernie has become a true gun dawg. Mrs. G-98 and I appreciate him and the other two furballs in the house since we lost our second baby. Bernie turned 1 year old a couple months ago, he's up to 85 pounds now. We know his mom was a Catahoula Curr (Kerr?) Hound, and the rest is pure conjecture. He has an odd habit of carrying stuff around and bringing it to me, including chunks of wood and some of my wife's talking stuffed animals. Evidently, Teddy Ruxpin and Tuck & Roll bother him when they talk, so he brings them to me to shut them up. All's well, when I remove the batteries - otherwise, he grunts in disgust and brings them to me for dispatch. He doesn't hurt them, he's got a big soft mouth. They just bother him, and he wants Dad to fix the problem. He spent a couple nights at the neighbor's when we left town, and he brought the daughter's talking M&M dolls to her dad to turn off and make quiet.

You guys must be psychic, when I drop brass at the reloading bench, he picks the stuff up and hands it back to me, albeit slobbered-up. His usual place at the computer is underneath the desk, where that spider's web of wires sits.

He's also intrigued by other mechanical and electronic sounds, like the Dillon scale or primer warning beeper on the presses. If he knows I'm puttering back in my (truthfully, his) lab, he's camped out for the duration. The digital camera is no exception, if he hears the flash charging it's capacitor, he's right in front of the lens, a total ham. Not bad for a free puppy from the local Humane Society.

I'm sitting in the living room with laptop watching Stargate SG-1. He's zonked on the recliner next to me, in the most ungawdly position. I'll have to get a picture while he's still snoring.

I played a little with file sizes using ThumbsPlus.

I could barely hear myself thinking a couple minutes ago, he was snoring so loud...



Gawd, this wireless network is fun!

Yup.

That's Berndoggie's chair.

And woe betide the person who decides to sit in it. He'll get comfortable regardless of whether it's empty or occupied.

I'm firing up PhotoShop 7, and playing with jpeg file sizes. I remember when I was a dial-up user, too.