SUMMER CAMP! Camp Quest Kansas City 2.0 is GO!

I am not here. I am at Camp Quest Kansas City at Knob Noster State Park in Missouri, helping run a summer camp. This particular summer camp is the one you go to if you don't want to pray over every meal or learn how your body is like an unwrapped candy bar, but you also don't want to pledge that you are a social justice atheist-humanist warrior for truth.

We're just gonna swim in the pool, do science in the woods, talk about big ideas, play soccer in the field and sing songs around the fire. It's not entirely my usual idea of camping, but there's no internet or air conditioning.

I'll be back at the end of June. Try not to let any of my friends throttle any of my other friends while I'm gone. I promise I'll write stuff about whatever the internet is upset about when I get back.

BTW, for those of you following Thing One and Thing Two, Thing One did get moved out this week and made it to his biological mom's house. His Facebook status this morning was:

"theres nothing like a shit to sober you up in da morning lolol"

So that's apparently going well so far.

Thing Two got his driver's license and registered as an organ donor and a voter, and he seems like he's doing pretty well at the moment.

This is going to hurt.

The twins, Thing One and Thing Two, turned 18 today.

This was turning into a long post in which I tried to explain what we've been through during these boys' adolescence. It's a long list of reasons I have to be angry, to be heartbroken. There's really no way to explain it all in one blog post, but more importantly, there's no way to write about it without putting it all out into public, even if it is on a small blog nobody reads, and I just can't quite bring myself to do that to them. I don't know what they'll be like in ten years, but I assume the things I write about them on the internet will still exist at that time. Suffice it to say that I know everybody talks about how trying their teenagers are, but I'm not talking about normal teenage rebellion.

What matters today is what they've decided to do going forward.

Thing One has decided to move out and live with his biological mother a state away. She continues to blame all the abuse and neglect he suffered before he was removed from her home by Illinois DCFS (47 counts of child endangerment, if I recall correctly) on an unnamed male babysitter she left the babies and toddlers with one day while she was looking for work. He doesn't have a car or insurance, doesn't have a job, and graduated from high school by the skin of his teeth. He has a few hundred dollars saved and a few boxes of stuff to take with him. There's not much we can do about this except keep making it clear to him that he can come back to us if he changes his mind or needs help (as long as he's willing to live by our house rules--no violence, no threats, no drugs, and full cooperation with medical professionals.) This means that I'm going to have to have biological mom at my house today at noon. I honestly don't know how that's going to go. It'll probably be anti-climactic, but My Bride is taking our youngest son elsewhere pretty soon anyway, just in case. She can pull up out front, load up, and go. Anything else is going to be considered trespassing and will be dealt with by some poor schmuck who's getting paid to deal with it. I don't expect violence from her, to be clear, just drama, lies and emotional manipulation. It's a personal strength she has learned to rely on over the years.

Thing Two has made a better choice, under the circumstances. He never bothered to get a driver's license or a job, but he has saved almost twice as much money as Thing One. He, too, graduated high school by narrow margins. Both boys have expressed an interest in joining the military; neither was accepted. But six months ago, Thing Two was unpredictably volcanic. He told us and his psychiatrist over and over that he would not take his medications, and he told us he would never speak to a therapist again, nor would he talk to us about anything that was bothering him. About three months ago, he relented and began visiting a great therapist, then softened a bit on his other treatment, but he still maintained that he was moving out of our house when today came; he had nowhere to go, no car, no license, no job or prospects, but he insisted over and over that he would simply leave and be homeless so that he would no longer have to follow rules or deal with his mental health. We were scared, if I'm honest.

Only a week ago, Thing Two relented again. He now plans to stay here with us and make a step-by-step plan to work toward independence. He and I will go to the DMV today so that he can get a driver's license. He's been applying for jobs, and he will sign up with a temp agency in the meantime so that he can save up some money while he lives here. While he lives here, at least, he will continue to take his prescribed medication and to see his therapist regularly. We will help him any way we can. We'll help them both in any way we can, actually, but I don't think it's been clear to Thing One that he may be putting himself outside our capacity to help, and that scares me to death. But the day had to come eventually, and I guess I knew that.

So, if you don't mind, wish us luck, or pray for us, or whatever you do when you can't do something, because there's not so much for any of us to do for Thing One for the next little while except try to be ready for whatever happens next.

I Tried to Warn You People, But Does Anybody Listen to Me?

"Letting USPSA join FIFA is a mistake," I said. "Next thing you know, they'll be clearing the slums in Barry with machine guns and tripling the size of PASA Park using expendable slave labor from the Phillipines.  Gunnuts.net says the refereeing changes are already being rolled out:

Better go RTWT if by some miracle you got here before you saw it there. Paul Hendrix, meanwhile, appears to be starting with denial, but it looks to me like this is one of those cases where someone's likely been getting away with something for a long time . . . so long that they get blindsided when circumstances or technology come along and make it much harder to get away with. It makes you wonder whether Hendrix ever considered that the shooters he was helping (and maybe hurting?) were posting match videos and someone might eventually notice? Or did he just figure it was such an obscure corner of the internet that nobody would bother to check? Anonymity on the internet is one of those things that seems permanent, unchanging and reliable until the day it disappears without warning.

Hendrix even mentioned that he's never heard of the Doodie Project forums (yes, that's a thing.) Well, that's the beauty and the pain of the internet, my friend. You have no idea who is watching this stuff.

Perhaps Trotsky said it best when he observed that, "You may not be interested in the Doodie Project, but the Doodie Project is interested in you." [Citation needed]

Sigh.

So I sent that last post to my wife in a Facebook private message, and I told her that I'd only link it to Facebook if she approved. She told me "You're a great writer, and you made me cry, but I'm not comfortable with you putting that on Facebook . . . you can leave it on the blog, though."

Which tells you all you need to know about the power and reach of this blog. :-D

14 Years

Today is the 14th time this day has come around since I married My Bride.

We did a lot of things wrong, but we did some important things right. We jumped into marriage, not by marrying too soon, but by deciding to engage too soon and then refusing to consider whether we should re-think marriage. But we got away with it.

We bought a tumbledown money-pit of a house that is now our only debt, and proceeded to demolish a bunch of it and then bog down when we tried to get it renovated. But we got away with it.

Instead of paying back our school loans immediately, we went into debt to buy that house and a car and some appliances. It took us years to pay all that off, but we got away with it.

Then we adopted twins with severe learning and emotional disabilities brought on by years of abuse and neglect followed by years of sliding out of one foster home and into the next--twins whose abusive biological mother is a member of our family and thus could never be completely escaped. We knew we were accepting that there would be a strain on our marriage, but I don't think we had any way to conceive of how bad it would get. I know I didn't. But those twins are turning 18 in a couple of days, and although there are still big problems, there's reason to believe we may have gotten away with it, even though, in a stunning display of hubris, we added a third child seven years ago, because why not?

We've gotten away with all those things so far because we did a few big things right. We reached a decision point a few years ago, and we recognized it for what it was. We knew that we either had to be willing to change or to accept that the marriage was over. We chose to change. We consulted with professionals. We learned to talk to each other in new ways. We learned to share with each other the way Seneca told Lucilius to behave with a real friend, holding nothing back:

“Why should I keep back anything when I’m with a friend? Why shouldn’t I imagine I’m alone when I’m in his company?”

We paid off our debt (except that mortgage that keeps hanging in there) and decided not to take any more on. We've stuck by that for years now. We're slowly starting the process of finishing the renovation of our money pit, with much-simplified, much-less-ambitious versions of our original plans. We'll be renovating with an eye toward simple livability in order to sell the house for a profit in a few years and move. And the twins are . . . . well, the jury's still out on that one, but we're entering a new phase. One is looking for a job today; he's put himself in a tough position, but he graduated from high school and he's decided not to run away and be homeless when he turns 18, and that's something. The other will be moving out on his birthday to live with his biological mother. That's terrifying to us, but . . . it's his decision in the truest sense. We can't stop him and we can't take the consequences for him. And that's really it. We've put in the work and time to create spaces in our life that are for the two of us alone. They aren't much, but they've kept us together. They've been enough to remind us, when we need it, that we love each other and neither of us is willing to let this experience end.

So, for today, I'm not going to worry about it. Today I'm going to celebrate this woman who loves me so much. We're going to enjoy each other. We're going to enjoy our children today. We're going to have fun together. I'm going to make her laugh! And she will know that she is loved and safe and appreciated.

It's Monday . . . Here, Have a Turtle.

I'm working on something about how my holster habits are changing, but I want to go to the gym this morning and also help my son build a fortress, so . . . lotta deadlines. 

Yesterday was Father's Day, so we hit the state park and came back with pictures of turtles and snakes. Enjoy!

This little lady was digging in the gravel at the edge of the pick-a-nick spot when we arrived. I hope she wasn't trying to lay eggs, because we disturbed her. Unless she's male and he was just digging out a worm . . . also likely.

Look how smug! And hey, if you've ever wanted to retire by working way too hard in a beautiful place, that little restaurant/boat shop across the way is looking for new management.

"Look out, Indy!"

"Bro, do you even bro?"

So many snakes . . . not sure what these were, to be honest, but I wasn't totally sure they weren't moccasins, so we left them alone. They wanted no part of us, either, so it worked out.

Artsy.

We caught one living thing that day.

Two of Ron Swanson's ex-wives are named Tammy. His mother's name is . . . Tamara. Every thirty days, he buys $140 worth of shotgun shells and cigarettes and sends them home to her.*

I'm not saying that's significant in any way, necessarily, it's just something I never knew until today.

UPDATE:

Later in the same episode, the gang actually goes to Tamara's house.  Andy is enthralled to find that there is "a whole room of just guns!"  Leslie asks why there is a room full of just guns. Tamara replies:

"This is America we're in right now, isn't it?"

"Yes . . ."

"So that means I don't have to answer stupid questions while I'm standing on my own land."

So, I'm not saying, I'm just saying . . . there are aspects of the character that remind me of somebody.

*Parks and Recreation Episode #48, "Ron and Tammys."

Randomness/NSFW/Trigger Warning*: Race Bannon & Brock Samson

This week, over at Non-Original Rants, they had a moment of appreciation for the great "Race" Bannon, the wise-cracking bodyguard who kept Johnny Quest alive throughout my childhood. Sadly, in the real world, there's a guy named David "Race" Bannon. Race Bannon, in the real world, is a bullshidoka con artist who wrote a ridiculous book about assassinating child sex-traffickers for Interpol. Last I heard, he was finally being arrested for fraud after having charged law enforcement and other organizations hefty fees for "expert" presentations on human trafficking and child pornography.

But the Bannon name is covered in glory, too . . . because you can't make a loving parody of little Johnny Quest all grown up (and all messed up) without a Bannon analogue. To fill that void, we have been given Brock Fucking Samson.

*Trigger Warning: somebody posted something on another blog that triggered two separate wandering thoughts in my brain. This might trigger a couple in yours.

Holsters I Have Loved: BLACKHAWK! SERPA!

Why do people hate SERPAS so much?
(Full disclosure: my first SERPA was provided free by BLACKHAWK!, while my second was purchased at the gun shop. Both are gone now.)
I suspect that some of the Serpa hate is very sincere flattery being practiced as people imitate shooters and trainers they respect. But many reputable training schools actually ban the Serpa nowadays (with most willing to make exceptions for students who are issued Serpas by their employers.) But that's weird, right there, right? Why are there trainers banning Serpas in their classes while law enforcement agencies and entire military branches issue/mandate their use?

There are three basic issues that scare certain users away from the Serpa, all three documented, like all indisputably true things, on the internet:

1. If a grown man truly wants to deny you your sidearm, he can simply rip the Serpa holster off its paddle attachment. Presumably, at that point, he can draw it if he knows how, or he can throw it off in the distance. Either way, it will only end up as a funny story if you survive. Now, this is one of those things that a police officer or a soldier has to think about, and if we're being honest, I don't. When I carry a firearm openly, I'm generally on private property among friends. Notice the dichotomy? That's going to come up again.
2. If you need to use a sidearm in the mud, in the sand, or grappling with some dude on a gravel driveway, it is known that a small amount of crud that finds its way behind the retention-release lever can lock it up solid. The good news is that your pistol will not be taken and used against you. The bad news is that you will not use your pistol. I honestly don't know the odds of this happening, but they're not zero, and apparently it's not uncommon to see one lock up so badly that it literally has to be cut or broken off the pistol. Here comes that dichotomy again: I never once, in all the years I owned a Serpa holster, allowed it to get any dirtier than any of the other dusty stuff in the same drawer, so I never saw this problem for myself. But then . . .
3. The big one: I think it's hard to prove a causal link, but undeniably, several people have shot themselves while drawing from a Serpa holster. It would be even harder to prove, but if there's a holster that is statistically more dangerous to the user on the draw than on re-holstering, the Serpa is likely the only candidate. And it's possible, at least in my mind, that the Serpa is no more dangerous than other holsters in this regard. But a whole lot of people, most of them far more experienced and expert than I am, have concluded that there's something about using the trigger finger to press that lever on the draw that leads people to curl that finger inward, which leads to sheepish limping and application of direct pressure to gunshot wounds.

Now, here's where that dichotomy comes in: I never carried the Serpa with a serious worry about a gun-grab attack, so I never tested whether it could be ripped off the paddle plate. I never carried it in the dirty and gritty real world except on the range at the Gun Blogger Weekend where I saw one for the first time, and nobody was going to the ground there. And I'd like to say I never encountered a safety issue with my trigger finger going where it shouldn't on the draw, but I'm just not sure. I never had an accidental discharge with either of my Serpas, and I never noticed my trigger finger in an unsafe place. But does that mean it never happened, or that I was lucky enough not to shoot myself in the knee when it did? I honestly don't know. 

So . . . why do people love SERPAS so much?
Well, if you don't know about those three issues (and most Serpa users don't, I think) what's not to love? We're talking about an American-made, inexpensive, high-tech holster. The paddle attachment has much to recommend it, so much so that Dragon Leather Works uses it as the basis for their paddle holsters. The paddle is wide, the "claws" on the paddle just will not let go of your pants/belt, and although there are concerns about it breaking, Blackhawk's not alone there. I broke the paddle on my Comp-Tac International the very first time I tried to put it on; been running it with the belt slots ever since. I hear good things about Safariland's paddle system, but I haven't tried it for myself. If it's not a whole lot stronger, I'm tempted to try to develop a stronger, reinforced paddle attachment I can then sell off to holster makers. I think it could be worth tens of dollars, which might explain why makers haven't made that change themselves.
But I digress. Why do people love Serpas so much, aside from very low cost, availability in every gun shop across the land (right across the aisle from the FOBUS display) and the "Made in America" bonus? I can't speak for military or law enforcement procurement people, exactly, but I think the average guy with a Serpa carrying a 1911 in a Burger King or behind the counter of a gun shop is basically buying a feeling. Carrying a gun openly in public, or even on a private range or in competition if you're not used to it, can be an exposed and vulnerable feeling. Even with a concealed firearm, newly-minted CCL's are known for checking and re-checking, certain that the gun has shifted, been removed by a street urchin, or simply popped right out of the holster. It's not rational, but the feeling is real. A holster with a definite retention mechanism--one that's got a lever you have to push and everything--provides a feeling that I have Done Something About This. I have addressed the issue of my gun falling out of the holster in public or being snatched out of the holster by some robber who got the drop on me. Having Done Something About This, I can now stop worrying. I am allowed to feel better and go back to being comfortable. The fact that those worries are perhaps not all that practical (or, to be less kind, rational) doesn't really enter into this decision.

If you're reading this, and that description makes you uncomfortable, keep in mind that I'm saying that I felt that way about the Serpa. In fact, I wrote that last paragraph in the general 2nd person "you," and I just went back and put it in the first person just so that would be clear: I'm talking about me . . . and a lot of people I think are doing the same thing I was doing.


Why did you throw yours in the trash?
I try not to make decisions based on being fashionable on the internet, but I'm susceptible to influence just like anyone else except for Judge Mills Lane. No doubt, peer pressure squeezed and molded me as shooters, trainers and writers I respect weighed in with their verdicts on the Serpa. As trainers and training schools banned the Serpa, it also made sense to consider what the ones I was hanging onto were for--I wasn't going to wear them to those schools, right? And I wasn't going to be shooting the pistols they fit in competition . . . nor did I need a retention holster for that purpose. In fact, I had little use for a retention holster at all. The fact that I was switching pistols factored in, too; even if I did decide at some point in the future that I needed a retention holster with a paddle mount, I would still have to purchase another one, 'cause neither of the Serpas in my possession fit Glocks.

In the end, that was the deciding factor. I didn't need the Serpas for anything at the moment, and if I did find myself in need of a retention holster, I'd need to buy a new one--at which point, the Serpa would have to beat out other designs like the widely-recommended Safariland ALS series on a level playing field. These holsters just weren't for anything that I needed done anymore. I'm still honestly not terribly worried about the trigger finger issue, and if I were issued a Serpa for some kind of job, I'd make it work. But I'm not being issued one, and if there's even some danger in that retention mechanism, there's just not anything on the other side of the scale to balance it out for me.

(But you're not going to catch me pretending like I didn't think the Serpa was super-cool a few years ago, because dammit, the Serpa was super-cool a few years ago.)

Last day . . .

Yesterday, the students had their last day of school for the year. It's normally a week earlier, right at the end of May, but this year we had a surprising number of days out of school because of severe cold. Apparently, there was some kid out there trying to use her powers even though she'd been told to keep them hidden, and then at some point she decided to say, "Screw this, I'm just gonna let it go," and then everything got super cold, and everybody's schedule got disrupted until she discovered through the power of a sister's love that she could find a balance in her life. So here we are, in school, in June.

Anyway, today is the much-more-casual, actual, factual last day of the school year. No students today, just a bunch of adults in jeans and shorts packing and putting things away. And here we go!

Overheard at the gym . . .

Ladies at the gym are excitedly picking out their free HIPE t-shirts as Donnie walks out . . .

Lady: "Here's white over here!"
Other Lady: "I know, but I want a large. I've got . . . uh . . .
Lady: "I know you've got those big boobs!"
Other Lady: "Aw, man, look what you did to poor Donnie! He's horrified at us!"
Donnie: "Oh, no, I know all about living with big boobs. That's how I got into this mess."

It's not a very nice thing to say . . . but it's so true. :)

Aw Yiss . . . We Goin' to the Bike Shop, Girl

This is shaping up to be a great afternoon.

• The last day of student attendance is over.
• Paperwork is done.
• Grading and finals are nearly done.
• My Bride is coming over in half an hour, and she's going to take me to R&M Cyclery to look for her new bike. You wanna go ride bikes? We are going to ride bikes!
• After bike shopping comes Thai food, followed by a stop at Floyd's Thirst Parlor for an end-of-year celebration with her colleagues.

The "Rapture Forums Prophecy Conference 2014" Is Coming To Town.

Rapture Forums Prophecy Conference 2014 will be held in Springfield this weekend. This is very exciting news! I have a bit of  scheduling conflict, but I'm hoping I can make the Thursday evening session, billed as "THE 100% SOLUTION: A survey of past Biblical Prophecy and its 100% accuracy." That should be awesome. Unfortunately, the scheduling conflict is with a party my wife wants me to attend with her, but, I mean . . . she'll understand, right? I figure the party is at 6:00, so if I leave about 6:45 to make it to a sketchy Bible prophecy lecture by 7:00, everybody'll be OK with that. But there's this nagging voice in the back of my head trying to tell me that I may be stretching the social convention a bit.

Maybe if I invite everybody to come along?

RaptureForums.com is a thing that exists on the internet.

Then there's a session on Saturday morning that I'll probably have to miss because it'll cut into my gym time, "Nathan Jones: PAVING THE WAY: The role of technology in the End Times." I was relieved to find that it's not being presented by Rear Admiral Nathan Jones, Ret., a fine and friendly gentleman who publishes the Virden Recorder in the greater Virden metropolitan area. I really like Rear Adm. Jones, and his wife is a hoot. It could have been awkward if it'd been him . . . but . . . I really do want to know about technology and how it paves the way to armageddon.

I think I'll start by registering and then just see how many sessions I can fit into my schedule. Apparently there's a session on Sunday about coming wars in the Middle East, which would certainly be a feather in any prophet's cap if it it turned out to be true. "Brother Nathan prophesied that there would be a war in the Middle East, and lo and behold, it has come to pass! How could he know?"

I'm Gonna Get What's Comin' To Me: A Raven Concealment Systems Phantom Holster

Since Illinois' CCL law (it's a "Concealed Carry License" here) passed, and especially after I applied and began waiting for my license, I've been checking out holsters and trying to figure out what I need and what I want (not always the same thing.) I suspect I'm like a lot of newbs in that I'd like to do this without generating the "Box o' Holsters" that all the wily CCW veterans talk about. Unfortunately, the longer I try, the more I think the process of choosing a set of holsters that cover the range of needs of one person, different from other people, who will try to carry a pistol every day, cannot help but require trial and error (that's the "Guess and Check" strategy for all you math teachers out there. Holla.)

I've had my IL CCL in hand since March, and in those two months I've already made some changes. More on that in some other posts; this post belongs to the future! Also the present.

Today, I'm wearing my present solution, a Blade-Tech Phantom IWB. This is the injection-molded mass-market offering that PDB raved about; he considers it "better than" the more expensive holsters he's tried. I don't have the breadth of experience to make that claim, but it's certainly a lot of value for a little money. It's cheap--Fobus/SERPA cheap--and I suspect others may be more comfortable. But it's a solid, safe holster with firm, positive retention and a surprisingly strong mouth that stays open despite my preference for a very tight belt. Its rubber pull-the-dot snap loops grip the belt and hold it securely and consistently, but they make it much easier to put on and take off again, which may be a bigger deal to me than it is to you. I've been semi-forced to use the B-T Phantom with only one snap loop, which has actually worked better and allowed a more concealable cant; I might make that its own post, given the enormous length this has already reached, but suffice it to say that I'm pretty happy with the B-T Phantom overall. But that's where the Box 'O Holsters gets you, isn't it? When you're pretty happy with the holster you have, but you just know you can do better? I agree with PDB on the value the B-T Phantom delivers for the money, but I do think there's probably a better (albeit more costly) balance of cost and performance out there.

The next thing coming my way is another Phantom, but this one will be coming from Raven Concealment Systems.

 I hear almost all good things about RCS, and I want to experiment with OWB carry a bit this summer. I thought I would want a tuckable solution for summer, but in practice, what I've begun to do is to wear short-sleeved, untucked shirts over thin undershirts as the weather has gotten hot. It's not the sloppy fat-kid look that I remember from 100 pounds ago; I just needed smaller shirts. Specifically, while I have worn shirts as large as XXXXL and still own a few XXXL shirts, I'm wearing an XL over a Glock 17 right now. The thing is . . . if you're going to wear a reasonably loose, untucked shirt all summer over jeans, slacks and shorts with 1.5" belt loops, why not go all out on comfort and keep your holster outside your waistband most days? I like that the RCS Phantom appears to keep the grip tucked in close, which the B-T Phantom doesn't seem to do well, and I like the promise of modularity in the mounting systems--it can be adapted to IWB if I change my mind, including tuckable options, and there's also more than one OWB mounting option, although I've started by selecting "standard OWB loops." If the promise pays off, I may have a single holster that works well for most of my daily carry needs, but also makes training and gun school classes simpler.

There are two big questions to be answered about OWB concealed carry in general and the RCS Phantom in particular, in my mind:

1. How much difference is it going to make to have the bottom of the holster hang down near the bottom of the shirt? Am I going to find that I keep raising the hem of my shirt and exposing this holster, so it becomes relegated to jacket/coat/open carry duty? With the B-T Phantom and other IWB holsters, as long as the shirt doesn't come up above my belt, no part of a holster or gun is visible.
2. With no cant and a Glock 17 that can't be trusted ('cause you should never trust a big butt and a smile) to be all that discreet, can the RCS Phantom tuck the butt in close enough to avoid looking like I'm trying to show off, under a thin cotton blend button-down shirt?

I dunno, but I'm looking forward to trying out my new holster.

*It's kind of a long story, but I'm a school teacher by trade. Schools in Illinois cannot bar CCL holders from storing their firearms in their vehicles on school grounds--they have "safe harbor" as long as they don't carry the firearms outside their vehicles, with the exception of unloaded carry to lock a firearm in a trunk. However, I can be fired for bringing a firearm onto the campus without regard for whether it's legal for me to do so, so I choose to disarm down the street and have a couple of pleasant walks per day. I do not choose to draw a loaded gun, unload it, walk it around to the trunk, and then get it out when I'm done, sit in a car and load the gun, and holster it, because that seems like a recipe for an AD in public to me.