no war weekend

Due to the recent SONA by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo I unsurprisingly had a very long weekend. And I mean a long one... 5 days of doing nothing. Well not actually, here's a recap of what I did for the last 5 days.

Thursday - Had a meeting with the SBC boys in Megamall. After, Benny had some "diego" things to attend to while Verchie went to another meeting. Then JM and I proceeded to ACE hardware to buy some silicone spray for gun maintenance purposes. They had none though, but at least I ended up buying a pair of long nose pliers.

Then we went on to Airsoft Warehouse to check some items out. I bought the under grip rail, vertical foregrip and fan for my constantly fogging goggles.

JM and I proceeded to go to Shopwise in Libis to see if they had anymore silicone spray left (JM bought his there). Unfortunately it seems that they were out of stock. So JM decided to just lend his can to me for the day, so we went off to this place to get it and grab some grub. Verchie dropped by with more war stuff. To say the least there where 3 war guys with war stuff in the war house... you do the math.

We ended the day with a couple of hours of Battlefield 2 in Blueskies.

Friday - Checked my office email at home to get a whole bunch of SPAM mail from my officemates. Proceeded to Katipunan to meet the war boys for another round of Battlefield 2. Wanted to go out to a party but had to pack for the trip to the beach the next day.

Got home at around 10, packed my bag and went to bed.

Saturday - Woke up at 5:30 am to head off to Fort Bonifacio to meet up with the troops heading to Batangas. We were supposed to meet up at Starbucks at the Fort, however it was closed 'til 7:30 am. So I waited for them to arrive at the nearby gasoline station. I should have stayed in bed a bit longer as they where all late, considering either they had a car or lived nearby.

Anyway, off we went to the beach. We stopped by Petron SLEX to grab breakfast at McDo and buy the necessary essentials. Unfortunately they don't sell alcoholic beverages since it was along the highway (safety and all that shit), so we just bought some foodstuff for pulutan. Luckily we chanced upon a sari-sari store somewhere in Batangas and got hold of some Tanduay rhum and some softdrinks for our mixed drinks.

We arrived at the beach resort with no hassle and proceeded to our hut, and our first though was to get the booze out and get things flowing. Then we found out 2 things we forgot, actually 3.
1. We did not have ice.
2. We did not have platic cups.
3. We did not bring playing cards.

Funny thing is, all the time we were planning this outing we were only concerned with what to drink and our pulutan. Nobody bothered with the "little" things. The joke was "basta may alak masaya na".

the booze


In any case, we were pretty much "happy" at around 5pm. We were so wasted we had a hard time keeping the score on our poker game. The solution was to use Nagaraya nuts as "chips" and to keep on "checking" when someone goes "all-in".

poker "chips"... more like nuts


Sunday - I basically slept through the morning, had breakfast and massage. Then the trip back to Manila. Did some shopping for items in a hardware shop (of course, related to gunsmithing).

Monday - Went out for a movie with my officemates. Also had sisig at Aysee's, which was a long time since the first and last time I ate there. One of the best sisig ever!

something new

Recently I have been tempted to write other that war related stuff on my blog. Although the title and theme of my blog is of the warfighting culture I do have other things on my mind.

I've seen and read some blogs with pretty wonderful insights on life and I envy those guys for having the time and ability to write such entries. Sometimes warstuff can get a bit monotonous, but this does not mean I will be shying away from it. On the contrary, a bit of a break will do me some good.

Anyway, this isn't one of those insightful blog entries. Maybe just a prelude? When I get the time to ponder and write something meaningful I will get it posted ASAP.

AAR - Semper Fi game

I went to get "Michelle" from the gunsmith and we were able to put her back together. We finished at around 8:40pm and I was a bit embarrassed as her wife was in the shop waiting for us to finish.

I went home and packed my gear, getting psyched up for the trip to Pampanga. After packing, I tried to do a "McGyver" on my red dot. This was somewhat a complete waste of time and effort, with me ending up with tying the loose connection with a strip of leather. I need to take my time with this one and wrack my brain for some creative ways to get this fixed.

As I took a quick check of my M4, I noticed that the butt stock was not aligned. Again, some "McGyver" work and it was all ok.

The gamesite was great! All jungle terrain! I was really looking forward to getting into the thick of things here.

a walkthrough of the gamesite 


All I can say is that "war is hell". My goggles really fogged up during most of the day and I couldn't see shit. At one point the enemy camp was around 20 meters away, and I thought it was around 40! And one of the dual thermal lenses of the goggles was peeling what I would think to be the anti-fog sheet.

I also noticed that my gun was misfeeding somehow. It seems my work on the stock wasn't too effective, although I think I fixed it last night.

Overall, I am still not battle ready. I'm hoping to get my stint in Pakistan over soon so I can concentrate on getting things set here.

out of commission

The entire team went to one of the shops in Ortigas to attend some gunsmithing lessons to learn how to maintain our guns and do some basic repairs/upgrades. Everything went well as we were able to open up Verchie's MP5 and reassembled without a hitch.

After a couple of hours break (the master gunsmith had a meeting) we went ahead and dissasembled "Michelle". Even before turning the first screw I already had a bad feeling of what I might discover. I was only worried about the semi auto not firing and maybe the motor height not being set properly.

True enough, the motor's pinion gear was almost stripped and the cut-off lever (for semi auto firing) needs replacement. But then we noticed that the switch assembly was broken and the wires were showing signs of being chaffed. So that would need replacement too.

While inspecting the gearbox, Uncle Jimmy (the gunsmith) noticed that there where some scratches on the gearbox made by the motor. Further inspection showed that this was due to the pistol grip/motor assembly not being seated properly on the gearbox. He needs to dremel and file down the gearbox some to get a good fit.

To sum it up, here are the things that need immediate attention:
1. New switch assembly
2. New cut-off lever
3. Modifications to the gearbox

Now, I don't know if all this work will be done in time for the great Pampanga game this Saturday with Semper Fi. Luckily Sir Art (of Apocalypse) was willing to lend me a gun for the game if "Michelle" won't make it in time.

Add the fact that "Irene" is starting to show signs of having a cracked slide and the red dot scope not battle ready it was starting to be a shitty time for waging war. And oh, did I mention that funds are particularly running low at this point in time?

The bright side of this however gives me a bit of hope in the near future. These are as follows:
1. I now have the basic skills for maintenance and better working knowledge of AEG parts interactions.

2. The gun was consistently shooting 340 FPS before we opened it. So despite have the small nuances above, I might be able to upgrade it to shoot in the 450s. Great potential for the gun.

3. The shop offered to send the original gearbox to G&G to get replaced with the new one. Even though I didn't buy the gun from them.

Hopefully soon everything will be at peak performance.

funds allocation

I just came from the ATM, and I just found out that I am a bit low on funds. I though I had a substantial amount stowed, however I forgot that I made some bill payments a few days ago.

I already broke into my per diem stash to help pay for my life insurance policy. I planned to pay it through the counter at the bank but I got lost in whatever information that needs to be included. So I called my agent and asked her if someone can just come to the office and pick it up. Convenient don't you think? hehehe

So now I have cash on hand, but I can't touch it as it's reserved for the life insurance payment. I'm left with a check from Dale to be deposited maybe tomorrow? To be withdrawn the next day to get new war stuff hahaha!

Plus in the next few days, I will be going out for some social activities and definitely will need cash for the "unexpected" expenses that will arise.

Oh man, my per diem money is slowly being drained!

supply acquisitions

I am at a crossroads.

I have finally found a shop selling 2 items on my wishlist. The Maxpedition Thermite Versipack and the Surefire G2 Nitrolon (Black), both are selling at a lower price (apparently the shop itself is having an inventory sale).

Now, normally the notions of having an "inventory sale" means dropping the prices down and customers will flock to your shop. Despite the "sale" the prices of these products are still above what I expected, 3.4K for the Versipack and 2.4K for the G2 Nitrolon . That's 5.8K for 2 items! A bit more expensive than my newly acquired pistol!

I have just done some research and the price of the G2 Nitrolon locally was 2.5K - 2.7K back in April (the G2 Nitrolon retails for $34 abroad). So I guess the price quoted was pretty ok, given the price increases of late.

Now, I wasn't able to find out how much the Versipack goes locally but it retails at around $45 abroad. That translates to around 2.5K in the local currency, 900 pesos more that its MSRP. You may be able to justify that for the importation and inventory costs of the seller plus his cut and convince me to buy it. But further research shows that there is a locally made Versipack imitation that sells for 2K only. And that is made of Cordura, which makes it highly durable for rugged use.

For 1.5K difference, would you buy it? I am still unsure of the quality of the local version as the pictures kinda suck and from the uninspiring pictures, it doesn't seem to be a good copy. To my specifications that is.

The main argument here is that "you get what you pay for". I have been a victim of this and I definitely don't want to get screwed again. The Surefire is 90% sold. These things are rock solid and definitely worth the money (as compared to those cheapo flashlights everywhere). The Versipack vs the copy is the tough one.

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to drop by the store to take a good look at it.

I definitely have to break the bank now and dip in to my cash reserves... hehehe.

"all units... Irene... I say again, Irene"

meet "Irene" 


with the extra mag 


holding "Irene" 

the gods for war smile upon me

If you notice, I have now striked out 3 items in my war wishlist.

It hasn't been 2 weeks since I came back and it seems that war has been the overall theme during this period.

My last wargame's result was a probable kill and some great moves attacking and outflanking the enemy. I almost lost my brand new 190 round mag, but I was luckily able to find it after the game despite the thick foliage.

I will take pictures of the items I received soon. Wargames and new war stuff... what more can a guy ask for?

leaving and staying

I just called the Pakistan embassy today, and they have just put my visa under a pending status. Apparently they require 2 more documents related to the NBI clearance. I only submitted a copy of the DFA authentication, and they need the Malacañang authentication and the copy of the NBI clearance.

From my recollection I failed to copy both. Hopefully I can find the personal copy of my NBI clearance and the Malacañang authentication, although I am unsure if I still have this or submitted it the last time around.

I will have to go back tomorrow and present whatever documents I have or ask if they could bring up my previous application documents. If this fails I may have to get a new NBI clearance and get that validated. This will set my trip back to Pakistan by 2 weeks (I would imagine).

I'm not sure as to how this will reflect personally on me though. As much as I would like to stay here, I would like to get back to Pakistan and get this assignment over with.

addicted to war

Due to my international assignment last month, I missed out on 4 weeks without war. Ironic I know, me in Pakistan for 4 weeks without getting a taste of war. It's not just not being able to play, but also being far apart from my war gear.

You might think of it as weird, but it's true. Day in, day out... all I think of is war and worrying about "Michelle" (my M4A1), thinking about the accessories and gear that I want/need. Notice the new addition of the Wishlist section in my blog? All war stuff hehehe.

I was counting the days I get back home so that I can play wargames. I wasn't in Manila for 24 hours I was with my war buddies holding my gun in my arms and talking about airsoft stuff. We even had a few hours of playing network games (Battlefield 2 rocks!). I was truly home.

A few days later, I took time off work to go to an airsoft shop (see my previous post). Plus a few more hours of network gaming the night before the big game at Masada.

On the way to Masada last Sunday, I was held up by an accident along the way. I was pissed! I was already late and it seemed that it would take me forever to get to the gamesite. I almost came to the point of swearing and shouting at the guys for their stupidity and holding the flow of traffic up.

Finally I got to the gamesite and my first taste of war in what seemed like forever...

The way guys shop...

My Sunday afternoons are usually reserved for wargames and this weekend was no exception. But it ended up to be a pretty jampacked day.

The night before, my dad asked me to drive him to the mall so that he could buy himself an iPod. Apparantly there was a promo for a free iTrip for every purchase of a 20Gb iPod. So there we were looking for a shop that still had the iPod and the iTrip in stock. After buying the iPod, he was a bit set on buying an iPod dock. We saw a JBL dock in the same store, but were not able to listen to it, as they had some issues putting music on our iPod.

While having lunch, he was still itching about getting a dock for his iPod and we ended up talking about the Bose SoundDock. We decided to take a look at it after lunch. So off we went, and luckily there was a sample SoundDock playing in the store and we were able to listen to it as soon as we entered. The sound quality was great but we were still unsure about getting it right then and there, so the salesman (perhaps as part of his sales routine) invited us to listen to the home theater set-up. This we did while still thinking about that SoundDock. Well, to cut things short we were trully impressed by the sound quality of the HTS and the technology we will be buying that my dad just said "I'm convinced, I'll get that SoundDock".

Simple and pretty straight forward. He had the money. He basically new what he wanted, did some research from the available sources he had, went to the store and bought the damned thing.

My mom on the other hand (who also bought a new phone) went to the store I think 3 times during the time we were looking for the iPod. My dad and I even had to wait for 10 minutes in a restaurant before she bought her phone. Hehehe