Friday Fun Time

Oh yes indeed, it's fun time.

It's been a decent week. Despite having the kind of workload this week that one normally doesn't see outside of a North Korean labor camp, I've had fun. Good things happened.

Over the weekend, I taught Son of Rouleur to shoot a BB gun. He had bugged me for about a month beforehand about getting a BB gun, and since I'm Second Amendment Positive, I agreed and we picked out a Daisy Buck, the smallest model available. Son of... is 6 and it's recommended for kids 10 and older, but that's just the products liability lawyers talking. 6 is fine, if your kid is mature enough, understands the safety rules, and has a shred of judgment. Son of... does, so home came the gun with a little trap, and a big jar of a few thousand BBs.

For about a week, I made him keep it around the house unloaded, and handle it. We learned about the safety, the trigger, the charging lever and the stock; we learned how to carry it safely, how to treat all guns as if they were loaded, and how to aim. Then there were the lessons about how you don't fool with people who play with guns, and if you find a gun laying around, don't touch but notify teacher, mommy and daddy, or a cop. Most of all we learned about the muzzle, not pointing that at anybody even inadvertently, and not shooting people or yourself. This involved checking out that how that big permanent wrinkle in daddy's index fingernail is from where a BB went through the finger and lodged under the nail. The doc, a friend of my dad's who was also a bigtime surgeon (when not big game hunting) had to pull the nail off with pliers. He could have done it with less pain, he said, but as an avid hunter, he told me that if I was man enough to do a damn fool thing like shoot my own finger, I was damn sure man enough to deal with having him pull the nail off with pliers and dig out the BB with a scalpel.

Son of absorbed the safety lessons for a week, and seemed to understand what it all meant. So last Saturday we whipped out the trap and target and set up a mini-range in the basement hallway. That's a cool thing about spring/air BB guns - they are mild enough to shoot indoors with little concern. I swathed the end of the hall with a matress pad, a blanket, and the pad from a chair, and set up the trap in front of that mess. I stood the boy about 7 feet away, instructed him to use the proper stance, and squeeze gently, keeping his eyes open. I expected him to shoot a tiny hole in the ceiling.

Damned if he didn't put a BB into the 10 ring.

So on Sunday we shot too, and a couple nights this week. Nothing major; we just take turns burning off 20 or 30 BBs at night, poking holes in targets. I can shoot alright and am doing my best to set a good example. Son of's shot groups are getting tighter, and he is enjoying both the challenge of shooting properly, and the discipline of it. It also helps that I've impressed on him that it's a grown-up thing, the first grown-up thing he's ever gotten to do. He enjoys that fact, and tries to measure up to what he perceives as responsible, grown up behavior. For my part, I'm enjoying passing on something my dad passed on to me, and something his dad did with him, ad infinitum.

Joy.

Other good things happened. I got out for a short ride yesterday with Beppo and Joaquin on the Haole Hauler, the Kona fixie cross bike which is turning into quite a damned beautiful bike with the wood fenders, Phil hub, brown leather saddle and tape and so forth. Yes, I've built a bike to meet my idea of what a bike oughtta look like, and it's ridiculously tasteful. "Looks like a magazine bike" is what one of my friends said about it. I promise I'll post some pictures soon.

I also read an amazing and inspiring story today that reminded me why I believe there is a God, not so much on a hoity-toity theological churchy level, but at a level of gut instinct and intuition. The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash - normally a moderately conservative political writer - went to Haiti with a Catholic priest whose mission in life is to help Haitians. What he saw in Haiti was terrible, almost unspeakable suffering. He also saw a surpassing love that cannot possibly come from one man's mind alone; it is inspired by something outside of us. In addition to being a compelling story, it's one of the best written articles I've read in years, and it probably deserves a Pulitzer nomination. Take 10 minutes and read the article. I promise you, you will not regret it.

Enough earnestness already. Time for the tunes. The theme for this week is mostly brainless.


I'm in a good mood so let's have a little Fatboy Slim. Dude's pretty unctuous but he turns out some good music. Brainless but good.



Here's some music that's semi-brained and good, a little Public Enemy. Younger readers will recognize reality TV star Flava Flav. Yeah, he used to do music or something. Good music. Of course as a civil liberties guy, "Fight the Power" is right up my alley.



Hey, why not totally change gears with some Motorhead... a little Ace of Spades, may be in order. Just rip of your shirt, crank this up to 11, stand on your desk, bang your head and start screaming along, "The Ace of Spades, the Ace of Spades Uh huh...." Nobody at work will ever fuck with you again. I promise.



While you're up there on your desk, what the hell... drop your trou too and holler at the top of your lungs, "Sllaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyeeeeerrrrrrr!"



And as long as my theme is brainless fun... well, what could be more brainless than this song?



Have a good weekend y'all. Teach a kid to shoot, preferably safely, if you get a chance.