I was sitting up late the other night,
not paying much attention to the TV flickering in my face
as I thought about Daughter #1 and the plans
spinning in her life,
all while I waited for Daughter #2 to
come home from a group outing.
Then this video came on, and I knew that sleep
was a long way off,
and that tomorrow was much too soon.
A group of us from church got together this morning for something we consider pretty sacred: target shooting. There were about a dozen of us that showed up over the course of the morning and early afternoon and we rented 3 lanes. I got to shoot my pastor’s semi-automatic, my brother-in-law’s target pistol and a couple of .22 bolt-actions, one with a scope. I didn’t bring my rifle because I was dropping my truck off at Tires Plus for an oil change on the way and I didn’t want to wait around in their parking lot holding a gun while waiting for my ride in these oh-so-sensitive days.
I hadn’t been shooting for a couple of years so I was looking forward to it. When I first got into a lane today I opened the rifle case and started to load the magazine with longs. I’m always pretty careful and intent when I’m handling live ammunition, especially with a gun I’m not familiar with. I’d carefully thumbed about three shells into the clip when the guy in the lane next to me, unseen behind the partition, suddenly opened up with a Desert Eagle, with about the same feel and effect on me as if I’d had defibulator paddles placed on my chest. After double-checking the status of my peewadding and that I hadn’t just blown my hand off, I took a cleansing breath and finished my task, ready to make a little noise of my own. Sure, the little snapping sound of the .22 following the Desert Eagle was like a chihuahua yipping after the mastiff had walked well down the street, but it was still fun.
My first grouping was fairly close together but high and left; after a few adjustments I started working my way into the black. One of the young men in our group had the same rifle, but with a scope on it. “A scope?” I asked. “I suppose you take cream in your coffee, too.” Nevertheless, I had to give it a try. I ran the target out to 50 feet and the guy told me I needed to aim just a little left of the bullseye. I did a few of these and saw that the gun actually was shooting true, so I adjusted. After reeling the target back in I was told that the young man was shooting from 25 feet, not 50. Since the pre-printed targets on that sheet were already pretty perforated, we stuck a black dot on the lower part of the sheet between two previous targets. This dot had a yellow film inside that would show up when it was hit. I ran the target out to 25 feet, looked through the scope fired another 10 shots, working the bolt between each. Here’s the result:
Their are nine holes in the dot and one down below. (The larger target directly above is the one I shot at from 50 feet). Okay, so it was only 25 feet and with a scope. If someone were to break into my home with malicious intent and stood still 25 feet in front of me, he’d be in trouble.
I moved down to the pistol lanes, and that was a lot of fun. That darn bullseye can be pretty elusive with a handgun, but one of the fathers there and I had a pretty good competition going. I was kind of handicapped while going through one magazine, though. There was a guy in the lane next to me with a 9mm semi-automatic who was practicing for his Conceal and Carry permit, and I kept getting hit in the head with his spent cartridges as they ejected out of his gun. Call it battle conditions, I guess.
It was amazing at how quickly we disposed of about 1000 rounds of ammunition (I bought 200 rounds myself for the people who’s guns I used). It was, literally, a blast. I can’t wait to get out again. Maybe we’ll even challenge another church to a little contest!
Hey there, this is Uncle Ben. Diva is off in the kitchen right now, about to put the frosting on some cupcakes because it is, after all, Cupcake Friday. No word on what kind they are, but I heard some monkey shrieking so I think it might be something like banana or coconut. I’ll go check!
Oh for the love of Pete. There are three women in the kitchen doing a photo shoot with cupcakes. “You’ve got to add some craisins to the plate for color!” “Don’t you dare touch that plate or I’ll smack you upside the head with this spatula!!!” “Can’t we all just get along?”
Hmm, it’s a pretty open question as to whether they’ll ever get a photo out of this. It might just devolve into a cupcake flinging fight. Hey, now that would be cool! I’ll be right back!
Rats.
…
You naughty Ben! Get off my blog! Anyway, these are Coconut Kiss Cupcakes (no, no kissing was actually involved). The recipe is from Couture Cupcakes. Enjoy!
Tonight was “Fundamentals in Film” Night with the teen-age boys and a couple of the dads. We watched a movie, as usual, but first I had to interject some real life — much to the lads’ chagrin.
I haven’t blogged about our movie nights for awhile but we’ve been getting together regularly for two years now, cutting back to just once a month since last fall. I’ve wanted to use the movies we’ve watched and the discussions afterwards to illustrate proper manly behavior and character. Originally the movies we watched were pretty black and white about good guys and bad guys but since the first of the year I’ve begun mixing in movies where the “hero” of the story might not really be such a good guy; my purpose being to show the young men how their emotions can be manipulated and their perceptions bent by the prism of the craft. The first such movie was John Wayne’s “The Shootist”, and since then we’ve watched “Patton”, the remake of “3:10 to Yuma” and some others.
The other day, however, I heard that several of these young men had been together discussing another movie that some of them had seen; a movie with graphic sexuality and they were regaling each other with explicit details. Bad enough that they should be so coarse, but they also happened to be doing so in the presence of my daughter — and without a second thought.
Tonight, before the movie and before I had the food brought in (so I could be sure of having their attention) I stood in front of the room and asked them what they thought the objective was of these sessions. “To teach us morals,” one said. “To build our character,” said another. “To be gentlemen,” said a third. “To show us how to break out of prison,” said another, remembering a previous movie.
“No,” I said to the last speaker, “but if you pay attention here it just might keep you out of prison in the first place.”
“Snap!” said another boy.
Since we all seemed to be on the same page I asked them where on the scale of good and bad, appropriate and inappropriate, would talking about sex fall — and especially in front of women. “Uhhh…real bad?” one offered.
I then told them I had heard of a recent instance where some of them had done exactly that. I also said that since they had felt free to do that in public then I, too, would talk about the incident in public. I added that I hadn’t pressed for specific names, so I wouldn’t mention specific names, but that I would address them all for the correction of those involved and the edification of those who weren’t. The squirm factor in the room was now about 7.5.
Among the things I told them was that people have always misbehaved regarding sex but that there have been times when the culture at least held out an ideal that humans could control themselves, or should at least try to. Today everything — TV, movies, commercials, billboards, radio, you name it — treats us like animals that can be lead about by our appetites and that women get no support from the culture to sustain an ideal of purity. In fact, they get a double whammy: men are encouraged to act like animals without restraint while the message to women is that they are the crazy ones if they don’t go along. Then I told the guys that if they didn’t get the proper understanding of the value and worth of a woman then their best days were already behind them because nothing they were being “sold” was anything like reality and they would never be satisfied chasing after some pornographic ideal of sex, beauty and what constitutes a relationship.
Sure, they could go along with the system that seems set up all to their advantage, buy into the stereotype that they’re just hounds, call each other “Dog” and spend their life running around with their tongues hanging out and sniffing butts. And dog they will be, if they are content to let themselves be led about as if there were a large fish-hook in their gonads. The squirm factor was suddenly up past 9, and I was about to kick it to 11.
The movie we watched last month was “The Shawshank Redemption.” It wasn’t one that I particularly wanted to teach because of some of its grittier aspects, but it was a favorite of one of the fathers and of his son and they wanted to show the movie and expound upon the lessons they saw in it so I agreed, albeit with some reservation. Afterward we had had a pretty good discussion about justice and injustice, hypocrisy, perseverance and the importance and indomitability of hope, and how systems are designed to steal hope from you. We didn’t get into the prison rape scenes then, but as this week went on I saw that those gave me an opportunity to make a point.
Tonight I asked the boys what their reactions had been during those scenes last month. “Gross” and “sick to my stomach” were the responses. “What you need to realize,” I said, “is that that is the same reaction God has to any sex outside of marriage.” We talked about 1 Corinthians 6 a bit, and I told them that, yes indeed, sex is a fabulous thing, but there’s nothing that compares to being with a woman who gives herself to you in total trust and security, knowing that she is loved, respected and honored — and that is what happens in the best marriages. “Just getting married won’t make it so,” I said, “If you still have the wrong attitude it’s not going to be a very happy marriage.
“If you want that, then – even now – you have to be thinking not about how you can get what you want from a woman, but on what it is you have to do to make yourself marriageable.” I also suggested that they begin to treat each woman as if she were someone else’s wife, even if the woman is single. “Your wife, should you be so lucky, is out there somewhere now. How do you want other guys to be treating her?”
There are other things we talked about along that line, but I won’t go into them here. Some of these may show up in another post I’ve been working on. I only spoke for about 20 minutes, and it was probably the most rapt audience I’ve ever had but I wasn’t going to push it.
It was time to order pizza and start this month’s movie, “The Wind and the Lion.”This is a great flick, by the way, with the great Sean Connery and a superb performance by Brian Keith as President Teddy Roosevelt. The movie is based fairly closely on a true story from the Middle East in 1904, and features a lot of great action and some very important (and manly) monologues from Connery and Keith that also seemed to fit our discussion topic.
I can’t wait to see who shows up for next month’s movie!
I mentioned yesterday that I had had a post accepted into the first Manival. I didn’t realize how popular something like that can be, but by the time I went to bed last night I had received more than 500 visitors yesterday, the vast majority of them coming from the Manival or from StumbleOn links through the Manival. A quick check of today’s Site Meter shows it’s still turning over briskly. Wow!
Though I’ve blogged for more than three years I’ve never participated in a carnival, and I’m virtually ignorant of how services such as StumbleOn, Digg and similar other entities work. I think I need to get better informed!
by the Night Writer
From an article in The Scotsman:
THE cost of Scotland’s flagship free elderly care policy will soar more than threefold to £813 million a year by 2031, a new report has revealed.
A dramatic growth in the number of pensioners over the next three decades will send costs, put at £256 million in 2006, spiralling, Lord Sutherland’s report shows. And the author warns that Scotland must wake up to the huge impact the country’s rapidly changing age profile will have on public finances and services.
Free personal and nursing care was introduced to a fanfare in 2002. It has been hailed as one of the biggest achievements of Scotland’s devolved government, and is the envy of many south of the Border. But the independent review, commissioned by the Scottish Government last summer, reveals the price that such a popular policy will have in years to come.
The report says the bill will far exceed initial predictions – costing hundreds of millions of pounds more – due to the number of elderly people rising more rapidly than was expected.
Lord Sutherland insists the policy, which has attracted widespread political and public support, will be “affordable” in years to come.
The number of over-65s is expected to rise from 837,000 in 2006 to 1.36 million by 2031.
Read the whole thing. Note, however, that no mention is made that it is likely that the number of taxpayers available will also be decreasing as these costs are increasing.
Update:
Katherine Kersten has just visited Scotland and wrote today on some of her impressions of the Nanny State.
The Art of Manliness website today launched its first Manival, a carnival (collection of blogposts) focusing on various aspects of what it takes to be an honorable man. I first learned of the Manival while surfing Sunday night and saw that the deadline for submitting a post for consideration was yesterday. I quickly emailed a link to one of my posts that came immediately to mind, and learned today through a surge of traffic that I had been included.
Browsing through the Manival page I see many worthy and interesting posts such as “The Man’s Manual to Being Manly” and “Too Many Guys, Too Few Men” as well as tips on how to avoid creating additional housework for your wife and how to make your own moustache wax. I’d happily link them all, but I’d rather you go to the Manival page and browse and read for yourself.
I am honored to be among such august company and encouraged by the number of people engaged in such a worthy topic. I look forward to future Manivals, which appear to be scheduled for every Tuesday. Next week’s Manival is hosted by A Good Husband. Go to the site to get information or use the Manival submission form to submit a post of your own.
Great story about sportsman-, I mean, sportswomanship, over on ESPN. You’ll be glad you checked it out.
It so happens that I have recently become a VIP to The Wilds Golf Club, earning me and a guest an invitation to play in their special VIP outing. Now it gets your attention to be told that you are a VIP, but what really perked my interest was that the golf would be free, and that they were going to feed me as well.
In addition, the invitation came a few weeks ago when Minnesota was still clutched in the icy grip of a relentless winter, so the thought of spring and the opportunity to play free golf at a very nice club on April 28 was impossible to decline.
Then April 28 dawned this morning with Minnesota still clutched in the icy grip of a relentless winter.
“High today of 42 degrees, with winds 10 to 15 mph out of the north, present temperature 32,” said the guy on the radio this morning. I can’t even begin to spell the sound I made when I heard that, but FREE GOLF is FREE GOLF, no matter what it costs so I layered up, eschewed my typical broad-brimmed straw hat in favor of a woolen cabby, grabbed my clubs and a handful of Heat-Pak pocket warmers and set off for Prior Lake.
Arriving at The Wilds I changed into my golf shoes, first shaking the sand out of them from the three days of golf I endured in Arizona back in March. (I was striking the ball well for the most part those days, but had trouble getting the ball to stop in the green places where I wanted it to stop. After rolling into about my 90th sandtrap my partner commiserated, saying, “It’s target golf.” I muttered something about having a WalMart game.)
Arizona was literally and metaphorically miles away as I leaned into the wind walking toward the driving range to “warm up” — all the while hoping that I wouldn’t have the opportunity to accidentally touch my tongue to the steel shafts of my irons. I had on thick socks (inside my golf shoes), long pants, a golf shirt, a long-sleeved, high-collared golf sweater, a mid-weight jacket, a golf glove and my leather winter gloves. I distributed heat-paks to the rest of my foursome and put one pak in my right coat pocket. That felt so good. In these conditions it’s also important to keep your balls warm, so I considered unzipping my golf bag and putting a pak in the golf ball pocket. One good thing, I realized, about playing in weather like today is that I wouldn’t have to expose my fingers unnecessarily to pluck grass and toss it into the air to determine wind direction; today I merely needed to look up and make note of which direction the snow flurries were heading.
With such extra protection and unexpected advantages we actually weren’t too uncomfortable, though as we stood on one tee-box exposed to the wind whipping across Mystic Lake I suddenly heard Gordon Lightfoot in my head singing about the gales of November. Given the conditions, we actually played better than I would have expected even if the weather had been ideal. We were playing a Scramble and our group managed a very respectable 3-under for the 18 with only one bogey. We also finished in a very brisk 4 hours, mainly because we certainly weren’t spending a lot of time lining up putts. Not bad at all.
I wish I could say it was due to superior ball striking, but the reality was that while the weather may have been against us, fortune was with us for the most part. The shot of the day came when we faced a 140 yard shot, to a green below our feet, from a downhill lie in the short rough. My usual playing partner led off and skulled an 8-iron that skidded down the slope, disappeared into a gully between us and the green…and then reappeared a few moments later climbing up out of the gully and onto the green before staggering, exhausted, to a stop six feet from the flag. It was a canny shot that expertly took the wind out of play. We happily converted for another birdie.
Now that I’m back safe at home and feeling has returned to my fingertips as I type, I am eager to play again and I can’t wait for summer. I hear it’s going to be on a Thursday this year!
Ben, the Mall Diva and I doubled up with two victories at Keegan’s tonight, scoring an amazing 47 out of 50 points in the two games including a perfect 25 for 25 in the second game.
In the first game our team name was, appropriately, Victory Pants. The second game we went with one of the Diva’s off-the-wall concoctions: Belgian Underwinks. We more appropriately could have been called Deja Vu All Over Again, and not just because we won for the second time that night. We aced it because Terry Keegan read the exact same quiz as he did in game 2 back on April 3. We won with 22 points that time; this time it was merely a matter of remembering the answers to the three questions we missed the first time around. (Hey, it’s still trivia knowledge – there’s no rule about how you learned that trivia in the first place!)