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. :)

Wish Me Luck, Unless You're Uncomfortable Helping Me Pee . . .

By the time you read this (if anyone does) I'll be peeing and bleeding for half-million-dollar stakes.  Sounds kind of exciting, doesn't it?  And also gross?

Well, it's not very exciting by normal standards; I'm just taking a physical so I can buy term life insurance, because I am a wild thing.  Exciting for me, though, 'cause a year ago I was too fat to buy term life insurance.  That might seem like I'm exaggerating, but I applied through a broker and was told that because of my high BMI measurement, no company they contacted was interested in offering me life insurance.  I knew I was in a bad way, of course (my BMI would have been 47.5 at that time, if that means anything to you.)  But I had hoped that being alcohol-free, tobacco-free, with no personal history of diabetes, heart trouble, or other disease would count in my favor.  It probably did, but it didn't erase the marker with "180 pounds over healthy BMI range" written on it.  

Recently, though, I met with some financial advisors to get my retirement accounts squared away.*  I mentioned that I'd like to start looking for term life insurance, too, and they were eager to sell me some. Both were shocked to hear that I'd been turned away over weight, but then, neither has seen the photos from before I made my magical transformation from Morbidly Obese to Merely Obese (I've lost over 100 pounds, but my BMI is still about 35.  I have to bring that down to 29.5, losing another 55 pounds or so, before I can claim the coveted title of "Overweight."  They've basically made their offer; I think at this point I'm down to checking for undetected dry rot and termite damage before they place their bet on my survival.  

Anyway, long story short, when I realized that I'd allowed myself to get so fat that nobody was willing to make a bet that I wouldn't die in the next twenty years, it was one of those sobering moments you hear people whine about.  I didn't like it.  This is boring, white-bread, First-World stuff, but it's a whole lot better feeling.  If you can't leave a pretty corpse, leave a rich widow, I always say.

---

*No, I don't trust the Illinois Teacher Retirement System.  Didja know they have two of those?  Yeah, the Chicago teachers have their own separate system.  Whatever your feelings about public pensions, the hard fact is that Illinois government does not pay its share and hasn't for years, so while we continue to pay into the pension fund, each new generation of teachers has less and less reason to expect to be paid a pension from it.  I intend to plan retirement such that I can do it from my own investments; if we get pensions, it'll be like somebody's rich aunt died and we'll perform the indicated response.  What do you think a boat will cost in 2053?

. . . . and bait shop . . . .

"An Illinois Voter" says he found this and thought of me. I think that's kind of sweet. The only question is how to read the sign:
"Kansas Teachers Hall of Fame and Gunfighters Wax Museum," or
"Kansas Teachers and Gunfighters Hall of Fame Wax Museum."

It's not as far-fetched as it sounds. According to the early video records of the era I've been able to observe, along with print records such as The Virginian, gunfighters were often found in close proximity to beautiful but haughty school marms during the last quarter of the 19th century. It was almost as if there were some sort of trope at work.

Lefty With a Gun

Got a message today from a new blogger who's also a new gun owner. It seems he's from the leftier side of the spectrum (It's a word! I mean, now it's a word.) And yet, he went out and got himself a gun, which led to some deeper thinking about why people own guns and what the 2nd Amendment really means. I've noticed that I tend to attract some folks who think of themselves as "lefties" but still want to talk about guns and self-defense, and I like that. Maybe these people feel better with a school teacher? I don't really know. It doesn't really matter. The thing a lot of people discover sooner or later is that "left" and "right" are really labels for coalitions of political alliances, some of them very tenuously connected. If you think you're a "lefty," that still doesn't really tell me what you believe. Does that mean you're pro-choice when it comes to abortion? Does it mean you think gays should be treated fairly? Does it mean you think guns are bad? Does it mean you think America pours the evangelical Christianity on a little thick?

Well, I agree with most of those things. Does that make me a "lefty?" I don't really see how; I'm a curmudgeonly, leave-me-alone old grouch, that's all. To many on the left, I'm a "righty" because I believe in a small government, a strong military, simple laws, strong contracts, individualism and property rights. But are those necessarily "right-wing" ideas? I don't really buy that either.

What I expect Lefty to discover through this process is that although some of his political positions may change as a shooter, his core principles won't necessarily change at all. Right will still be right. Wrong will still be wrong. He'll just have one more option for dealing with wrong if it finds him, and that's a good thing.

(And look, I admit to a slight touch of The Egos at being lumped in with Breda, Ahab, and BillH as blogs Lefty has been reading for awhile. Heady stuff.)

Earth Hour 2009

I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about "Earth Hour" last night--I'm pretty sure my lights were all off at the appointed hour, but I was at the movies with my family.

I can tell the rest of you must have had a big impact, though, because today I have 6" of snow on my walks.


On my birthday.

Which is at the end of March.

Thanks a lot, jerks.

Bleg: Domain Name Registration

All you NetLords out there: say there's a domain name I want to register, and I know it's available. Is there a best way to go about that? I see I can just go to GoDaddy and sign up, but I want the best mix of cheap and completely reliable. GoDaddy has commercials, but that's really the only reason I know them. They would let me register the domain in .com and .net for $23 per year. That sounds cheap, but are they reliable? Is anyone else better?

And don't go anywhere when you answer. I'll have hosting issues next.

Practice Makes Perfect

My Bride wants to go dancing tonight. Apparently, that implies that I have to go dancing, too. Personally, I sense a trap. When I wanted to sign up for dance lessons so we could go out and dance together on a regular basis and I could learn how to dance, she didn't want to do that. Too much money, too much time. Can't do it.

Then, a few months later, when she wanted to take some kind of aerobic dance exercise class (ZUMBA!) for the same price, I failed to connect the dots. I even stopped going to Thursday-night USPSA shoots so I could stay home with the kids, but I never stopped to wonder why dance lessons were OK as long as I'm not allowed to attend.

Then, yesterday, she told me we need to go out and have fun . . . . so she invited us to go dancing with her friends. Doesn't smell right, does it? If I see a camera, I'm out of there. In fact, I probably should have learned my lesson when she set up that game camera in the backyard. I just wanted to get a little practice in:



(Hat tip to 2gm from www.illinoisCarry.com , who sent me this just when I could use it most.)

Having a Beer

My buddy Matt brought up the topic of beer in comments last night. He's gotten the impression that I don't drink. Well, that's sort of right. Honestly, I don't always fit in around here; I don't drink much and . . . if I'm being honest here . . . . I can't remember the last time I ate bacon. If I drink more than a few beers per year, it's a big year for me. I might have a glass of wine with my wife every once in awhile, but that doesn't happen all that often, either. I do like to cook with wine, though.

The weird thing is, I like beer. It just isn't something I seek out. I'm having one right now; I've had the last three bottles of Guinness from a six-pack in the back of the fridge for months. I'm not sure when I bought it, but I think it was after the Blackwater Adventure, so maybe late August or early September? But when I read Matt's comment, a beer sounded good.

Actually, late 2008 and early 2009 have been big alcohol months for me. I had a couple of Yuenglings at Blackwater; somebody on the film crew was from Pennsylvania and offered Yuenglings to all. Those are pretty good stuff . . . . and I had a Heineken at the airport, since I had a lot of free time and didn't figure on having to drive. And a couple of weeks ago, at the ISRA meetings, they didn't have soft drinks out, but there was Sam Adams, so I had one on Friday and one on Saturday. Party Times!

So, yeah, I don't drink much. But it's not because I'm better than you; it's just not my thing. My thing is cheeseburgers. And homemade bread. And chocolate-chip cookies. And milkshakes. . . .

I Met LonghornJeff Tonight . . . .

I do believe the time is fast approaching for a central Illinois blog meet. Tonight I met LonghornJeff at the Sangamon County Rifle Association meeting, which means that if we add 45SuperMan and ThirdPower, we should be able to fill up a four-seat table at some trendy little upscale bar like the Indiana people.
Or, you know, McDonald's.

LonghornJeff says he doesn't shoot enough. Well, neither do I, lately, but we can fix that. At least he has the proper etiquette for when bloggers meet in real life: begin by requesting an autograph. This doesn't work on actual famous people, but internet nerds with ego-stroking blogs become putty in your hands. . . .

Thanks, Ogre

I'm not in the habit of thanking people for linking, and I don't really link a lot of others, either. In fact, I kind of fell in love with the "Blog List" at right, where RSS is used to give people a preview of the last post on the blogs linked--and blogs with newer content are listed closer to the top. But I was just thinking about the flaw in that plan today as I read The View From North Central Idaho. That's Joe Huffman's blog (he of BoomerShoot fame) and it's good reading. I got to meet Joe at the Blackwater blogger weekend, and that cat's got a story for every occasion. But he's not on my list at right, and I was trying to remember why. I think it was because there was no RSS feed. Luckily, nobody is depending on my linkage to keep the stats high. :)

Anyway, another guy who has fallen off my radar a little is Mad Ogre. Again, without an RSS feed, I can't put him in my techno-wonder list over there, so he languishes down in the link list. If you've been reading this blog since the beginning, you might even recall that I launched this project with a series of attacks on established bloggers, starting with Ogre. I figured that the tried and true secret to success on the internet was to make yourself look like a big man by tearing others down, so I figured I'd start things off right . . . . but I digress. The point is, today I had an extra moment and I checked in on Ogre. Look what I found:

WTF is this. The Armed School Teacher isn't linked? The guy that out Ogred my majestic Ogreness? Wow. WTF is wrong with me? Okay, he's linked and he's near the top now. Forgive me, Don. Dude – you don't need to pull an Ogre, if you can pull of Jayne Cobb's cunning hat. I wouldn't even DARE try that. Okay, now to clarify something. I did get shot in the chest with a .45. But it did not go through my chest. It was stopped by my vest and I still have the bullet. It's on the keyring to my green full sized Bronco, aka, Brutus. Had it penetrated, I would probably lost 3 out of 4 ventricles in my heart. Thanks to the vest, I'm still here, married to my achingly beautiful, non-ogrish, healthy chested, libertarian, dancing goddess, wife and we have six boys. No, I am not green. I'm too Scots/Irish to be anything but pale and reddish. I've turned greenish tint on occasion, but some Pepto helped that. I turned yellowish once, lots of water and antibiotics helped that... and every year I turn brown... but then I peel and I'm back to the paleness that would rival the Vampire Edward from Twilight... I'm so pale my belly looks like a trout. It glimmers in direct sunlight too. So do my legs, even at night – they are that pale. Don Gwinn – AKA: GwinnyThePooh. Good guy. Smart and full of snark. If you have not bookmarked him yet, your doing it wrong. How THE HELL has Don not been linked? WTF?

He's not fooling me for a second. I see exactly what he's up to here. He's pulling the oldest trick in the book. I attacked him and dragged him down in order to make myself feel like a big man and attract readers; he has responded with the classic defense, which is to be the bigger man and make me feel foolish for lashing out. What he may not realize is that I have no shame. Well, that and a wandering digression culminating in a description of his shimmering vampire fish-belly . . . . if you understood what that was all about, hey, you tell me.

Ninjas and Topless Models? Tune In and Find Out.

Set Your DVR to Awesome.

Apparently, I'm going to be on TV tonight. Check out the Outdoor Channel to see the footage Michael Bane and Downrange TV shot at Blackwater with the bloggers (and me.)

Were there really ninjas in the trees?
Spies doing awkward judo behind every closed door?
Topless gun-calendar models wandering around?
Shirtless, sweaty SEALs rappelling down from shoot towers to bring Tam magazines?

If you don't tune in, you'll always wonder. Personally, I don't have cable TV, so I won't be watching. Luckily, Para was nice enough to send a DVD with our footage. You can also see all the segments (well, I think it's all of them) at the Downrange.TV link. So, in conclusion, I'm not going to watch it, but you totally should, because that in no way implies any value judgment of the show. I'm just too lazy to call a TV company. I have three rabbit-ear, fuzzy channels, and if I'm being honest, there's a good possibility I'll have zero channels in February because I just keep putting off calling.
On the other hand, I have a LOT of books and a high-speed internet connection.

Dwindling

In case anybody other than my wife cares, I'm down almost 10 pounds from my Blackwater weight. I don't look any different yet, but there's a certain pleasant smugness.

Why, Shooters Are the Finest People In the . . . .

I've been thinking about this for a little while. You gunnies, have you ever been told that "Shooters are the finest people in the world. Most of 'em will share anything they've got with you and give you the shirt off their backs if you look like you need it."?

So have I, and generally, I've found it to be true. If I sat here and typed out a thanks to everyone who has helped me along the way, from my own parents and grandparents, to a good friend who took My Bride and I shooting when were in college and she wasn't My Bride yet and he wasn't really my friend yet (he set her up with scoped 10/22 shooting balloons at 10 yards. Prone. She was hooked) I could bore you to tears. Some of you know about the ParaUSA-sponsored weekend at Blackwater, and how SailorCurt and Laughingdog made it easier for a lot of us to get it into our budgets by offering free couches for the night. Yesterday, an email arrived out of the blue, entitled "Appleseed Project," from a shooter who lives near Evansville, Indiana. There's an Appleseed shoot there in November, and he's planning to go, he says, and if I'd like to go I'd be welcome to crash on his couch to make it cheaper.

Now, I hadn't thought about making it to that event, so I don't know that I'll want to go. But think about that offer for a second. This guy doesn't know me. He owes me nothing. I didn't ask him for anything. But it occurred to him that he had something I could use, so he thought he'd better make an offer. That's where the "Shooters are the best people you'll ever meet" line comes from. But I know that's not perfectly true.

Shooters are often great people, yes. But if you have fairly diverse interests, you've probably already spotted the hole in the logic. It's been my experience that most hobbies have the same saying in one form or another, and most hobbyists can back it up. Martial artists certainly say the same, and if you've ever been to a Throwdown, you'd have to believe it was true--here are a bunch of strangers from all over the country who rent a mat space, drive in on the appointed day and beat and thrash and crank and choke each other for a few hours, making each other laugh all the while. Then they take each other out to dinner and solve all the world's problems over beer. Best people in the world. Except that cyclists know that bike people are the best people you could meet. They'll share parts, tires, food, water . . . . they'll keep the new guy going on his first century . . . . they'll teach people into their clique. Local bike shop owners are more like your old friends than people from whom you buy stuff, so goes the legend, and in my experience so far it's been true. My parents are great collectors of junk antiques, and they're so far gone in their sickness that, far from content to feed their own merciless addiction to Hitler pincushions (bend Hitler over and stick pins in his ass--WWII produced a lot cooler stuff than "Nuke Osama Yo Mama" t-shirts) and sewing tape measures (shaped like everything under the sun) they've become pushers dealers themselves, traveling with a small trailer to shows on the weekends so they can feed the ravening beast within. They can tell you that "antiquers" are the best people in the world, and they can give you concrete examples.

So how does this all work? My theory is that most people are basically good. A lot of people say so; it's not exactly breaking new ground to say it. However, most of those people don't actually believe that most people are basically good; they just think it sounds nice to say it. When a bitter curmudgeon like me says something so completely, sickeningly Pollyanna as "Most people are basically good," though, you can take that to the bank if your bank has not collapsed and been converted into a coffee shop by its new management, the federal government. Anyway, if it were true that "most people are basically good," we would expect to see the results I've described--when you encounter people doing something they like to do, on their own free time, without the pressures placed on them by jobs, bosses, and other necessary evils, they generally appear to be the best people ever. They're happy, they're generous, and they're helpful. It's not the specific hobby these people happen to be engaged in at the moment; Geese-Juggling only seems like the most virtuous hobby to goose-jugglers because it's the window through which they view people at their best. If the goose-juggler branches out into Nude Tai Chi, or Chessboxing*, then he may notice that THOSE people appear to be just as happy, generous and helpful. Now, obviously, there are probably exceptions out there. I'm sure few people have ever said, "You know, snuff film actors and crew are the best folks you'll ever meet. What is it about this hobby that attracts such great people?" or "I've always found that the most generous, down-to-earth friends you'll ever make, you'll make with crystal meth." But then again . . . . .


*One of those hobbies is totally real, one is from a movie, and one I just made up as far as I know. Which is which?

Proving Yet Again . . . .

That I'm basically just doing everything Ambulance Driver does, except when I'm imitating someone else: I seem to have lost three pounds this week. It's a start.

My goal right now is to get comfortable in my current clothes. I'll do a more detailed post on my actual weight and detailed goals later; I have to go to work right now.

And yes, I'm pretty confident in my weighing. When I'm keeping track, I weigh daily before my morning shower and average each week, so my weekly weight is actually the mean of seven daily weights.

Sigh . . . . Back to Normal

Last Thursday we shot "Activating Chaos" at the Springfield Tactical Shooters club (that's right, I'm so tactical I joined a tactical club.)

The week before, I was third overall (counting reshoots) and took first in Production. However, the first shoot of the month is always a classifier, and a lot of people simply skip them because they tend to be simple and not be terribly interesting. Not only did that stage require no movement and only one reload, but it stressed accuracy at a distance, which is one of my few strengths. Being totally honest with myself, I have to admit that even with the few Production shooters who showed up, I lucked out a little--I believe I was the only one who shot it without a penalty for hitting a no-shoot, and so if someone else had managed that, I have a feeling it might have been someone who shot faster than I did--and I'm starting to appreciate the importance of speed in this game. Points are never enough.

Take the 9/11/08 results above for example. Going by points, I'd have tied for first place. I had 89 points, same as the leader--I believe it was 16 A's and 3 C's, counting the steel as A's. That's pretty good shooting on this stage if I do say so myself; there's even a member at STS who calls me "Two Alpha" because that count gets called so much when I shoot. But what's this?

There are five shooters (well, five runs--some people appear twice) with fewer points, but who killed me on time. Some of them were ten seconds or more faster. Second place equaled my points, but he did it six full seconds faster. First place equaled my points and very nearly cut my best time in half while doing it.

The two things I remember hurting my time the most were my reloads and the swinging target. The reloads are something I'm going to have to train and train. And unfortunately, only one of my magazines drops free from the P220. I needed two reloads to shoot this stage with my 7-rd magazines, which also makes me wonder whether others in Production were using 10-rd mags--the round count was 19, and it was very possible to make it through without a miss. I wasn't paying attention to what others were using at the time, but I did look at 10-rd McCormick magazines for the Gun Blog .45 on Saturday. Maybe I'll pick a couple up. Probably not for the SIG, though. I've never found any that were reliable. In any event, my reload technique is not down pat yet anyway, and it took even longer when I had to shift the gun to hit the mag release (short thumbs) and then reach up to rip the mag out with my support hand. I noticed that my hand was on its way to the mag holder when I changed directions and sent it to the gun; maybe I should have gone ahead and grabbed the next mag before coming up to strip the old one. Not sure if that would have helped. On Saturday, I tested my mags and made sure I loaded the one that dropped free first each time; that way, if I needed a reload, the first one should be smooth. Of course, I didn't need a single reload that day. Figures.

My other issue was the swinging target. This stage had three steel, followed by a mix of a turning target, a swinger, and six silhouettes plus a whole mess of no-shoots. Hitting the steel activated the turner and the swinger. I was most nervous about hitting the steel in the right order and getting to the turner before it disappeared, but I underestimated the swinger. It was between two no-shoots, and on both runs I hesitated and tried to time it. I should have picked a spot and let it come into the sights. It would have come through and back in short order and I could have been on my way. Instead, I hunted for it before settling in to wait for it, and I'm sure I spent several seconds each time.

So it'll be dry fire and reloads this week. Lots of it.

Next: The Armed School Teacher tattles on himself!

Tamalanche!

I don't get Instalanches. The biggest thing I see is the occasional Tamalanche, which is still enough to triple my traffic. So if you're here from The Porch, check back in from time to time and I promise to try to be interesting.

Well, actually, I can't promise to try.

But I'll try to try.

Made of Win

I'm feeling good. The results of my last USPSA shoot came in while I was gone.

Now, this is a small club, so we're talking about shooting one stage. And the first stage every month is always a classifier; they tend to be simpler and less exciting, and they don't attract as many shooters. All that said, I'm still feeling pretty good.

We allow unlimited re-shoots, but only your first run is sent to USPSA for scoring. The results come in with the re-shoots figured in with the rest, so a lot of people hold two or three places. I generally shoot everything twice; my friend Leon shoots up to ten times per night, but he's 80-some years old and apparently figures he might as well buy ammo now that he doesn't have to buy diapers.

Overall, I came in 5th and 10th last Thursday. The 5th place run was actually my first time through; on my second run, I thought I'd try to speed up. I gained a second, but I traded three A hits for three C's, and it wasn't worth it. If you counted only first runs (and I do, since it makes my score look better) I would have been in second place overall, behind a guy shooting Open.

In Production class, I took 1st and 2nd place.

Now for more of that honesty. The stage was called "Six Chickens." As you might guess, that's six targets "hiding" behind three no-shoots, angled so it looks like they're peeking out from behind the no-shoot's shoulders. The drill was to draw and shoot freestyle, from a box, all six targets with one round, then make a mandatory reload, and finish by shooting all six again, one round each, but this time strong-hand only. That was the killer. As long as I'm being honest, I'll admit that five runs in Production by three shooters were scored as zeros because they hit no-shoots or fired extra rounds (I also learned what "Virginia Count" means that day--every extra round fired is a Procedural penalty!) to make hits on the targets. The one-handed shooting was killing people. That was one time when slowing down and just hitting everything was the best strategy, at least in our bunch. I was shooting at about the same speed or slower than these guys, but my first run (my slowest) was 11 A's and one C hit.
And as The Jarrett has revealed to us, that one was probably a bad bullet.

So, what does this mean for next week?

Well, next week, we'll shoot a more normal scenario with some more runnin' and gunnin' and the big crowd will be back. This will probably lead to me going back to the middle of the pack. But I don't care. This week, I savor the savory savor of TRIUMPH.

Blackwater Blog Weekend: It's . . . it's beautiful!

Joe Huffman has created a slideshow. It depicts our time at Blackwater; the laughter, the tears, the recoil, the alcohol-induced fog.

I don't want to sound biased, but Eisenstein, Welles, and Ford would throw battery acid in their own faces in despair at their inability to equal it if they were alive, so it's just as well that they're not.


Para-USA Gun Blogger Summer Camp 2008 from Joe Huffman on Vimeo.

Blackwater Blog Weekend: Sunday Morning Coming Down

From comments:

Does it get any better?

How could it?

It's 7:30 on Sunday morning. Breakfast in 15 minutes, followed by eight hours in the shoot house with Todd Jarrett.

You tell me.
:)

Blackwater Blog Weekend: Notes From Home

When I got to Virginia, I found a card in my luggage. The front has an obviously gay grizzly bear wearing a lavender neckerchief and hugging himself. He has a very happy smile. "Just sending you a little hug . . ." it says.
The inside says "Did you feel it?"
I did. Here's the rest of it.

Honey,
We will miss you. I love you!
Your Bride

DADDY I WUV YOU
SEAN

Dad have a good time in North Carolina shooting. Hope you win and tell me when you come hom. Like I say a lot: "Veni, Vini, Vinci." I will miss you,
Love you,
Donoy
Donovan

Kane your
best son
I love you
and I am glad
that you get
to do something fun
and you don't
have to worry,
we I will
behave
peace out