Author: oddball

So, I’m up here at my company’s office up in the Boston area, and a couple of my coworkers come down the hall discussing the Fast and Furious debacle. One of them is skeptical that the thing is real, so I jump in on the side of reality (not too hard, but a “yes, it exists,” here and a “it doesn’t fit the media’s view on the world” there.

As they break up, I mention to the guy that I was defending that I’m a bit of a gun nut, so I follow that stuff pretty closely. He responds in hushed tones that he’s into guns, but has to be careful who he tells up here. We quietly talk for a bit about such things, and I tell him that if he makes it to Nashville to let me know and I’ll take him to the range to play with my toys.

Turns out he’s already scheduled to come down in December… I’m thinking he’s adjusting his travel plans so that we can get some range time.

We had one of those bachelor parties where me commenting that I had a tarp, 100′ of paracord, and duct tape in the car was perfectly appropriate for the conversation.

Naienko is very happy about this, but starting tomorrow night, the only time she’s going to see me for ten days is when she’s dropping me off and picking me up from the airport.

This weekend, a buddy of mine is having a truly geeky bachelor party.  None of us are really into the bar hopping scene, so we’re going to shut ourselves up at the house of one of the groomsmen, drink, play games, and watch bad movies all weekend.  There was talking of maybe getting some strippers, but the owner of the house said, and I quote, “if I have to clean up stripper juice, I’m gonna have to cut a bitch.”  There are talks of making T-shirts with that on it.

I’m going to have to abandon that party Sunday morning to catch a flight to Boston for work, and fly back on Friday evening to drive down to Manchester for Project Appleseed.

Speaking of Massachusetts, and believe there’s a couple of folks from that area that read this.  I know it’s short notice, and I’ll only be up there during the week, but any of you guys want to try to get together for dinner?  I don’t know exactly where you guys are, but I’ll be staying in Lowell.

I really meant to post this Monday (along with a review of the 5.11 tactical kilt), and… well… it didn’t happen.  I feel kind of pushed now that Uncle has posted about it.  Here‘s a copy of the story from a local news source.

The reason I feel the need to say something is that Naienko, my mother, and I showed up at that shopping center at maybe 7:30 or 7:45 to go to the Target to shop for a wedding present for a buddy of mine.  We didn’t know what was going on, but we did see multiple squad cars parked with their lights on, and a very large portion of the parking lot was taped off (as in most of the spaces in front of the Dick’s Sporting Goods.

The thing is, from what the reports show, the seller did everything right as far as the meet up.  The Nashville West shopping center is generally considered a good part of town.  Sure, there’s a not great part near by, but that can be said of just about any part of Nashville.  The place is typically very busy on a Saturday night.  Heck, there’s a police precinct damn near in sight of  the shooting.  He took his brother along, so he wasn’t alone.  The only thing that might have been better is if his brother had gotten out of the car instead of stay in it.  Maybe… maybe not.

There’s also the interesting thing that the victim was trying to sell 6 guns, and the potential buyers turned murders apparently failed to take any of them after they shot him.

Ok, so we’re into week 3 of Kilted to Kick Cancer, and you guys have donated… nothing.

I’m going to blame myself for obviously not promoting it enough, and not having anything nifty to give away.  A few folks on GBC have suggested that I threaten you with pictures of me in nothing *but* a kilt, But… uh… I think Wizard would hurt me for scaring off the few regular readers we have.  That, and I’d rather not break one of my cameras.

So, if I’ve guilt tripped you into donating, you can do so for Livestrong here, or the Prostate Cancer Foundation here.  Of course, you could always donate because you’re good people and their good causes.  Right?

Ok, enough of that…

Here I am in my more dressy kilt.  You can’t really see it, but the kilt and vest are pinstripe.  I’m also carrying a cane that can be used to defend myself.  This particular one would not be my choice for defense (I prefer something in oak with a crook), but it is, when it comes down to it, an aluminum pole that no one will question you carrying around.  This is especially useful when you’re, say, in downtown Atlanta attending a convention with roughly 52,000 other geeks and the rules say no guns.

It’s interesting that the cane as a defense tool seems to get rediscoverd ever-so-often.  While I was at Dragoncon, I attended a panel discussing Bartitsu and A.C. Cunningham’s thoughts on the matter.  Of course, any proper fan of Sherlock Holmes has heard of Bartitsu, but A.C. Cunningham was an American Naval officer that wrote about adapting spear and saber techniques to the cane.  Of course, during that time, most gentlemen carried canes as a fashion item whether they needed it or not.  Something I don’t think I’d be upset about should it come back into fashion (although I doubt it will).

While, sadly, both Bartitsu and Cunnigham’s teaching have faded away, there are a couple options for the modern gentleman to learn how to effectively use the cane.  There are a few traditional martial arts that have used the cane for some time.  The most prominent in my mind is Hapkido.  For a modern art dedicated to the walking cane as a weapon, I’d have to go with the Goju-Shorei system.  Of course, the fact that my instructor is the director of the weapons system might make me a little biased.

I know… I know… every time you turn around, you see the people bickering about whether you should open carry or concealed carry, but I rarely see one argument for open carry… normalization of guns in the public eye.

A brief background on myself: at various points in my life, I’ve been associated with goths (before, during, and after the Columbine shooting… and yes, I have a black trench coat), scifi con geeks (you’d be amazed at the crap scifi con goers have gone through), white hat (ok, maybe grey hat) hackers, LARPers, those weirdos that dress up for ren fair, and probable a few other sub-cultures that the main stream has looked down upon/vilified at one point or another.  Sure, a few of these groups just have to put up with being made fun of, but others have had the cops called on them because they looked funny or were “obviously up to no good.”  Heck, there have been times that being a goth meant that some folks were trying to figure out ways to force psych evals onto you.

One thing that all of these groups have learned is that it’s best when people around you decide that what you’re doing is within the realm of “normal” and “safe” to them.  This won’t happen with gun owners that only carry concealed.  Sure, you blend in with everyone else, and no one notices you, but that also means that no one sees you as a responsible gun owner.  We have to remember that there’s a lot of folks that get the entirety of their knowledge from TV.  You know, that place that makes it sound like all guns must be registered for our safety, and anyone wandering around a store with a gun tucked away is automatically either a bad guy or a cop.

The only other way they find out is from us.  There are folks that take that to mean that they should wander the streets trying to cause a scene and then scream that they don’t have to ID themselves to the cops because they’ve done nothing wrong, or that the cop doesn’t have reason to inspect his semi-auto that looks a hell of a lot like a full auto that folks commonly see in action movies or that SWAT typically carries.  Yes.  These people may be technically right, but they’re also, to use a technical term, jackasses.  Being a jackass means that even when you’re right, you still lose.  Maybe not right then, but you just gave credence to the belief that gun carriers are either up to no good or jackasses with something to prove.

Naienko was someone that believed this when I first met her.  She wasn’t against gun ownership, but she saw guns as dangerous items that need to be respected at all times.  Which, to her, included keeping them locked in a safe until you planned on using them.  The only people she knew that carried guns were people that she felt shouldn’t own them.  They were the loud brash types that carried one because it made them feel more manly etc.

Then she started hanging around Wizard and I.  While I didn’t carry a gun(and don’t all the time now), I have carried multiple knives for a long time.  Including at least one that would be suitable for down and dirty fighting.  Wizard has pretty much carried a pistol on him since the day he got his permit.  He often carries a fairly full sized pistol on his hip which, even though he uses a IWB holster, is visible when he’s hanging out and relaxing.  That right there has changed her mind about people carrying guns.  Not right away, but it went from “I don’t like it because these are the types that carry,” to “well, you and Wizard are good, but I don’t know about the rest,” to finally “oh, ok… there are cool people that carry and jackasses, just like any other group of people,” as the number of known non-jackasses that carried increased.

This is how you change people’s minds.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not advocating that everyone carry OC and CC is horrible.  If that’s the way you’re comfortable in carrying, good for you, that’s fine.  I’ve gone the CC route for one reason or another in the past, and I will again.  If you’re comfortable with OC’ing, taht’s great too.  I’ve gone that route for one reason or another as well, and will again.  What I am saying is that OC has its advantages, and one place that it does is long term and you might never notice.  If everyone CC’d, then no minds will be changed.  OC’ing creates opportunities to do so.

Just remember, if you decide to open carry, don’t be a jackass.  I’m not saying you have to go to extremes and let people trample you, but be on your best behavior.  It might just influence the right person the next time a gun rights bill comes up.

This past weekend, Naienko and I attended Outsidecon.  It’s a small scifi convention that takes place every year at a local state park (hence why I like to call it “when geeks go camping”).  It being in the middle of a heavily wooded park where many of us stay in tents, you tend to need some form of portable illumination.  Flashlights work ok, and the little Fennix E11 that I wrote about yesterday worked well in that role, but for the tent or playing games you really want a lantern.  This is also the case if you ever have power outages, which is not unusual in my area.

A while ago, I ran across a a couple neat items by Coleman.  The first one is fairly small on the scale of lanterns.  At roughly 5″ tall and 3″ in diameter, the Microburst Mini-Lantern will slip into a cargo pocket fairly easily, and each of the four pods produce 10 lumen, for a total of 40 lumen.  I used this one at last year’s outside con, and hanging it from the ceiling of my tent, I had plenty of light to read into the night.  They claim that it will run for 25 hours before you need to replace the 4 AA batteries that power the core unit.

The second is the big brother to the Microburst.  The Coleman LED Quad Lantern is about 13″ tall and roughly 7″ in diameter, this is more in the class of serious lanterns.  They claim a total of 190 lumen, so I’m guessing that splits into about 42 lumen per panel.  I do know that it was bright that folks were joking about my tent being bright enough that they could see it from space.  It is pretty hefty due to the 8 D cell batteries that power it.  The company claims that you should expect about 75 hours of run time before changing them.  I threw fresh batteries in before going to the con, and left it on between dusk and retiring for the evening (around 1 or 2 am) both nights.

The thing that sets these lanterns apart from your standard lantern is the four removable pods.  Each one has it’s own power source (rechargeable batteries in the case of the big guy, CR2032s in the case of the mini).  While on the base station, they are controlled and run off the base station, but can easily be detached and carried separately.  This can be especially handy if you’ve got multiple folks hanging around and one or two need to do something away from the group.  Sure, everyone *should* be carrying their own flashlight, but it’s nice to have a backup plan.  This is especially true for power outages or other emergencies where the flashlights are in another location.  Naienko snagged one of the smaller pods for wandering around at night over the weekend, and it provided plenty of light.

As with any product, these guys are not perfect.  I would like it if it was possible to configure which lights came on when attached to the base station.  They’re either all on or all off.  It would also be nice if the mini lantern had a proper dedicated handle on the base station.  These guys also aren’t cheap.  You can probably get a brighter lantern for less.  The detachable panels feature means that it’s more complexed, and therefor more expensive to make.

At least one of these two lanterns will be with me when I go camping, and will be one of the first things I grab when the lights go out during a dark and stormy night.

Well, it’s part way into a new week of prostrate cancer awareness month, which means it’s past due for me to torment you guys with another shot of me in a kilt for Kilted to Kick Cancer.

I wish I had remembered to throw my Dragoncon badge over my shoulder for this shot, but I’m guessing at least Linoge will get this shirt.

If not, here’s a good hint:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEn6UlJdLIA&w=560&h=315]

(I apologize for the terrible shaky-cam, but that’s the best vid I could find of the song)

Back to the serious topic, please remember to throw a couple bucks in to the effort of researching prostate and testicular cancer.  I’d love it if you guys did that here, but, honestly, donating with any of the guys participating is a good thing.