Two Things on the Agenda Today . . .

. . . and I'm going to talk about the second one first, because it's my blog and there's nothing you can do about it except not read (which apparently works, since in the United States alone nearly 300 million people daily exercise their right not to read my blog.)

Anyway, I'm as excited as Obama at a mirror store. I think it's going to be a lot of fun; my parents are taking the kids, and I'm going to spend this time alone with my wife. The catch is that I don't know where I'm going or what we're going to do.

She didn't use our home computer to arrange anything, so I can't sleuth it, and she didn't tell the Blabbermonkey Twins anything, so I can't trick it out of them. This was wise on her part; she must be learning. She once came home to Kane shouting "MOM! You can't go in the kitchen 'cause your birthday cake is in there but I'm not gonna tell you about it 'cause it's a secret!"

She absolutely refuses to play the hinting game with me anymore; she says it's no fun. She seems to think I always figure out surprises if she tries to give me hints, which I have to admit is truth. Part of her problem is that she gives very simple hints and always--always--says more than she intends to say. It doesn't help that I'm a guy with very defined interests, so if you're buying me something or doing something with me, I already have a pretty good idea what it might be. As a matter of fact, I have a couple of pretty good ideas about today, too. But what's the point of ruining the surprise, right? And I could be completely wrong.

Now she's nervous that I've raised my expectations. She keeps telling me, "I hope this is as good as you think it will be." But as cliched as this sounds, sometimes it is the thought that counts. Sometimes what really matters is that she gave a damn about me, and she did something to make me happy.

And when her birthday comes, I have a surprise for her. :) No, I'm not going to tell you what it is, because she might very well read this. I'll just say this: it's something we've done together before, and it was great, but this time, I think I did a better job.

Oh, Barack! You're Prettiest When You're Quiet.

Originally from Cam Edwards at On Tap, by way of Sharp As a Marble and Ahab (hey, we can't all get paid millions to shill for the NRA, and I don't have a misogynist bumper-sticker empire to pad my accounts. I have to work for a living, or at the very least, simulate it convincingly.)

“If you’ve got a gun in your house, I’m not taking it,’’ Obama said. But the Illinois senator could still see skeptics in the crowd, particularly on the faces of several men at the back of the room.

So he tried again. “Even if I want to take them away, I don’t have the votes in Congress,’’ he said. “This can’t be the reason not to vote for me. Can everyone hear me in the back? I see a couple of sportsmen back there. I’m not going to take away your guns.’’

Uh, yeah. So you'd like to take away my guns, but you don't have the votes in Congress . . . . yet . . . . so I should vote for you. Because . . . if a man wants to steal my property under color of law . . . but can't work out a way to do it . . . then I should want that man to be President.

Look, I'm not really following you here, Barry, and the truth is I've stood in some crowded committee meeting rooms at the Illinois state capitol and listened to you betray deep ignorance on one day and screw us hard the next, and I don't trust you any further you could throw me, which is considerably less distance than I could throw your skinny ass.

So, to sum up:

• I know you're lying.
• If you were telling the truth, what you're saying would be a good reason to give money to your opponent.
• I think I'll go do that right now.
  

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.

Don't Do That, Dummy.

Ahem.

The Rules:

1. Boys don't hit girls. If she's trying to kill you and you can't get away, I might bend this one for you. Otherwise, boys don't hit girls.

2. If you're so dumb you want to fight with a girl, try not to be so dumb that you do it in public.

3. When the Big Angry Man tells you to let go of the girl, there is no need to ask "Why?"
You let go of her because there's a Big Angry Man with a phone telling you to do it. If you don't, he's most likely facing a choice between calling the cops and pounding you, depending on how red his neck is and how friendly his relationship with your local police department is.
Even if he looks pretty fat and old, chances are that he feels pretty confident that he can stomp a mudhole in your skinny young ass and walk it dry; otherwise he would probably have called the cops from inside his car.

4. Reactions which will be considered unacceptable when the Big Angry Man demands an explanation:

• Smirking
• Grinning
• "What's the matter?"
• "Whattya mean?"
• "It's just a fuckin' hug!"

5. Hugs are consensual events. If you have to sling her in a circle and throw her down on pavement before you can force her into a hug, it doesn't count. Remember: It's only a hug if the other person agrees that it's a hug.

6. When the Big Angry Man says that you must stop smirking and explain yourself or he will call the police, take him at his word. Middle-aged party poopers like him are just itching for a chance to call the The Man to oppress you and keep you down and stuff.

7. It is not, as a matter of fact, against the law for the Big Angry Man to take your picture as you stroll along in public. However, your legal acumen has been noted and the Big Angry Man has made a note to himself to be duly impressed at an undetermined time in the future.

(I was on my way to the car wash when I pulled into a Hardee's parking lot to get a soda and some change. There was a group of six kids in the parking lot; three younger ones and two teenagers. The teenaged boy was slinging the teenaged girl all over the place by her left arm. He threw her down and yanked her back up. She pounded her fists against him to get loose, but he yanked her around once more. I pulled the car up right in front of them and hopped out with my phone in my left hand. By that time, he'd pulled her in and was holding her in a bear hug while she struggled to get away. Description? I'd be hard put to describe her very well. Him? Ever read the Pratchett book "Maurice and His Amazing Educated Rodents?" The one with a character named only "Dumb-Looking Kid?" That was him.

I stayed a few feet away and asked what was going on. That was the wrong thing to say, but it was schoolteacher instinct. He told me nothing was going on. Also the wrong thing to say.

I ordered him to let her go in my schoolteacher "command voice." He asked why he should. This struck me as rather dense. It was my opinion that he should let her go because a man three times his size had just ordered him to do so in a loud voice, which meant that he might very well get his ass kicked if he didn't obey.


I ordered him to let her go again. He did, and she took off around a fence and down the main street in town. I told the boy to explain himself to me [again, this was a pointless waste of time. I should have just dialed the cops right then.] He smirked. I told him that a smirk wasn't an explanation. He opined that "It was just a fuckin' hug! That's all! Just a hug . . . ." This went on for half a minute or so before I cut him off and called the cops. He lit out.

I drove past a house where the younger kids had gone and were outside. I didn't see the girl anywhere. On the backside of the block, as I talked to the cops, I found the DL Kid walking down a quieter back street, chatting on his phone. I told the police dispatcher his description, told them about what had happened and where everyone had gone, and was thanked and asked for my number. Unfortunately, I'd lost the kid by that time. I met Officer Berns [Ever read any of the Pratchett books about Carrot? The mysterious Watch officer of Ankh-Morpork who was raised as a 6-foot-6-inch tall dwarf? So-called not because of his red hair but because he bulged a lot and tapered from feet up to shoulders? That's Berns in a nutshell.] Then, as I came back from the car wash, I met the DL Kid again, strolling down Rt. 4. This time I thought a little more and snapped a photo with my phone in case I needed to describe him again. At this he took umbrage and essayed to provide a lesson in civil liberties.
"Yew cain't just roll up and snap sumbuddy's picture! That's against the law!"

Right, Tinkerbell. Well, you've got a cell phone in your hand. Call the cops.

Later I got a call back from the dispatcher to to tell me that the officer had located both the DL Kid and the girl. I'm guessing all he got was a good lecture, but then, Berns can give a pretty good lecture when the occasion calls for it.)

Practical [CENSORED]: Beyond Fundamentals

I have a copy of a censored book cover hanging outside my classroom. This year, every teacher got a laminated sheet with a border reading (in my case) "Mr. Gwinn is currently reading. . . ." The idea is that we will hang these outside our doors, and either write the title of our current selection or make a photocopy of the cover to hang up. When I started this book, I couldn't possibly have settled for the title, because the cover is too interesting. "Practical __________: Beyond Fundamentals" it proclaims, right over the photo of an IPSC legend aiming a pistol. The twist is that this is NOT a story about my evil middle school administrators censoring my reading choices. My evil middle school administrators have always been pretty good to me, when you get right down to it. Some might even use words like "patient," "forgiving," and "tolerant." In this case, we inherited someone else's censorship.

I'm reading Practical Shooting: Beyond Fundamentals by Brian Enos. The IPSC shooters among my readers have probably read this book and maybe visited http://www.brianenos.com/ to learn in the forums. It's a fascinating book for a competitive shooter; Enos put a huge amount of thought into shooting and what it really meant back in the 1980's. Some of the details have changed, especially the way he watches the sights, but I think the principles still sound sound, as it were.

When I walked in at my local IPSC match last week, one of my new friends (who hasn't given me permission to give his name here) was waiting for me.

"Have you read this book?" he asked.

"Nope." I admitted. "I've heard about it, though."

"Well, it's perfect for you. It's written for a guy like you, who's just starting out, and always gets the hits, but wants to go faster. You ought to read it. You wanna borrow it?"

Now, I have a rule about books. I don't look a gift book in the mouth. I find that bad books are usually measurably better than good television, for instance, so I'm not as choosy as some might imagine. I pounced. Then I noticed the cover.

"Is . . . did somebody black out the word 'shooting?' On the cover and the spine?"

"Well, I'm a poor college student, you know."

"Oh . . . sure. OK, that makes sense."

It didn't seem very polite to ask whether it had been his idea or someone else's, but someone has taken a black marker and laid a box of thick black ink over the word "Shooting" on both the front cover and the spine of the book. On the other hand, the guy in nerdy 1990-vintage Oakley sunglasses with a compensated 1911 in a firing stance apparently passed muster at the college of his choice.

What do I think of the book? It's interesting, and I think I read it at the perfect time--I may have needed someone to remind me that I didn't take a class with Todd Jarrett so I could try to imitate Todd Jarrett perfectly, but so I could take his ideas and try them out and learn from them in developing my own style. As with the Gun Blog .45 from Para-USA, the highest recommendation I can give you is that I've ordered my own copy to mark up an re-read when I give this borrowed copy back.

I Am Shill of Blackhawk. You Will Be Assimilated.

I just ordered a SERPA holster for my P220. That might sound a little . . . whorish, but I'm buying mine through www.tactical.com with my own money.

Why? Well, several reasons. I'm buying from Tactical.com because I assume the name alone gives me added tacticality points. Also, they're based out of St. Louis, so I'm hoping I can have my holster by Thursday so I can use it in my next IPSC match.
I'm buying the SERPA because I used my old FOBUS last week and it's just not cutting it anymore. The SERPA version makes reholstering far too easy and positive to go back.

Once the Gun Blog .45 arrives, I'll probably start using it more--but that will be awhile. I don't know when they'll ship the things, but even when they do, I still have to serve a three-day waiting period from the time I pay my FFL--and nowadays, it's apparently three business days. So for the next couple of weeks I'll be using the SIG, and even when the GB.45 arrives, I don't foresee that the SIG will never see use. The P220 has gotten me through the tough times. It's been there for me when I needed an accurate, reliable friend. It deserves a good holster.

Gustav Is Going . . . . Well?

It's hard to say this about a hurricane, but from what I can see on my teevee news, it looks like Gustav is not as bad as we feared. There's a lot more to come, but a few minutes ago it was reported that all the pump stations are up and running, and damage didn't look too bad so far. It seems that Gustav actually weakened before it hit, where a lot of people were afraid it would strengthen, so that it hit land as a Category 3. It had been a Cat4 and I'd heard predictions that it could reach Cat5 before landfall.

We still have to see how long it's going to go on, and the storm surge is predicted to be 10-14 feet, but it doesn't look to me (from afar and with no expertise) as if we're looking at the destruction of New Orleans this time.

Which is all well and good, but then we come to the case of BayouRenaissanceMan. I don't know what's happening where he is, and he worries me. He doesn't get around as well as he used to, and he was unable to cover his windows. I hope he's staying safe! He's keeping up a pretty good running commentary, actually.