Injured Reserve

I had hoped to be sharing tales of two fun pistol matches from this weekend, but alas, it was not to be. Last week I ended up getting my left hand wrapped up in a spinning steering wheel on the lawn tractor. The radiologist deemed the x-rays "within normal parameters." But that status does come with swelling and intense pain from any finger movement or pressure. So I withdrew from the Cedar Mountain Youths match on Saturday, and the Fredericksburg Practical Shooters match on Sunday.

Mad? Disappointed? You bet! This past weekend was to be a shooting mini-vacation of sorts. The coming weeks and months are packed with other activities, to exclusion of the shooting matches. Our family stays busy with high school sports, school and church activities, and I devote many evenings and weekends to community and charitable endeavors. We're fortunate to live in a great area where opportunity abounds for shooting competitions. I could conceivably shoot at least one USPSA match just about every weekend, and throw in the occasional IDPA event. But family comes first, and one can't ignore chores too often. Okay, I really don't have a problem ignoring the chores; perhaps if I had ignored chores last week I wouldn't be in the condition I am now!

I've often written how the two main topics of these Musings are often mutually exclusive in a given day. If I'm planning, or hoping, to shoot or even dry fire at some point in the day, I won't crack open any beer until after the gun-related activity is finished. As so often happens, I'll then run out of time, or energy, for beer reviewing. Maybe this injury will give me time to get to more of those beers waiting to be enjoyed.

I'm confident I'll be able to get in some limited dry fire practice within the next day or so. Of course I'm anxious to be healed enough to do some live fire as well. The VA/MD Section match is coming up in less than two weeks. I would hate to miss that too!

Meanwhile, a good IPA will help ease the pain better than another Aleve® I'm sure.