Stick a Fork In The Year... It's Done!

Look at me! I'm dancin! I'm dancin'!

Greetings everyone! All right, fine, you caught me. I'm not dancing. Maybe next time...

Quite a day today. First, I went shooting with Mr. Derr as promised! Got up at 7:30 am... earlier than normal... I did go to bed at midnight to try and compensate, but I ended up rolling around restlessly until after 1am anyway. So we drove to the shooting range near Lake Wolford, and Mr. Derr broke out his .45 handgun. It was beautiful.

Here's Derrick taping the target sheet up, in preparation for our merciless assault. We set the target out to the 15 yard mark on the range, which is not a bad distance. I would have liked it out a bit farther; maybe next time...

Here's Derrick loading up the clips. He brought 100 rounds of .45 ammo, which he said is very scarce at the moment. I guess there's an ammo shortage across the country. Some serious Obama-angst-fueled hoarding going on, apparently.

There's Mr. 45 himself. I liked the feel of it. It had weight to it, and nice kick. Though the kick might be normal, I don't know... I think this is the third time I've ever been shooting... the other two times were a .22 rifle, and a 9mm handgun. Never fired a .45 before. Except virtually, in Battlefield 2. Actually, I think the handguns in BF2 were all 9mm...

Look at me! I'm shootin'! I'm shootin'! I had ear plugs in, as well as those mouse ears. It was still loud. I still can't get over how flippin' loud it is to fire a gun. CRACK! It goes right through you. Makes me think of the action movies where guys are firing guns all over the place, like it's no big deal. That scene from Pulp Fiction comes to mind, where Travolta and Jackson are in that apartment, and everyone is firing their weapons at each other, then just kinda shrug and walk out. I'd be flinching and wincing all over the place - those suckers are loud! No wonder people can't think straight when those crazy gunmen show up at schools and start pluggin' away... I used to think "man, why didn't someone just rush the guy and tackle him or something?" I don't think that anymore. As loud as they are while standing behind or beside someone, I can't imagine the volume when the muzzle is pointed at you...

OK, enough, sorry...

That shows an idea of the distance. About 45 feet.

There's the damage. Most of the rounds were fired by yours truly, but a few of the scattered shots were Derrick's. I put three 10-round clips at the big bottom target, and one clip at the one just above it, and the final clip at the one above and left of it. Not bad for a newbie, I think. After 5 clips, my arms were starting to shake, so I thought firing any more would just be a waste of ammo. Arms waving around, I won't hit anything that way.

Anyway, we were there for maybe an hour. It was terrific fun, I loved every minute of it. If you'll pardon the pun, I had a blast. Derrick had a rifle, but didn't bust it out. Maybe next time.

Went into the rug shop afterwards, worked on some graphics odds and ends. It got rainy in the afternoon.

Came home and got upset when I saw that the Left 4 Dead four-pack just went on sale today... we finally got the 4 pack purchased (after a hassle) two days ago, at what I thought was a very reasonable $67, which broke down to about $15 per person. Imagine my chagrin when the four-pack went on sale today for only $22. Dude, that's a $45 discount! If I had just waited another day or so, I would have saved a bundle! What a cheek-slapping bummer! So I was miffed. I still needed to buy one last copy for Laythe, which I was going to buy yesterday when the price was $22.50... but today the price is $7.50... also a crazy discount. So at least I saved some dough on that. I even bought a copy for my good pal Joe, since a deal like that needs to be taken thorough advantage of. I hope they do the same for the sequel soon...

I hope the LAN party turns out better than this one...

Then I went to the weekly prayer meeting at Pastor Stan's house, which was awesome, in ways which would take too long to elaborate on. Let's just say personal discoveries were made, prayers and repentance were applied with force, tears fell, strength obtained, some hope restored... hey, great way to end a day. Now if I can just hold onto it instead of slipping back into "business as usual"...

File this next pic under "What the?"

I'm done. And so is the year. I hope you all enjoy your New Years Eve. As I said earlier, I won't be stopping the blog completely, but I will likely taper back on how often I update. Probably a few times a week, when I feel I have something to share. Otherwise, I'm going to spend the time/energy on my writing and my website.

It's been a great year. Learned a lot about myself. Gathered new eFriends. Provided a little entertainment and a little controversy. Tried some stuff - some of it worked, some of it didn't. I'm glad I was able to do it. Thank you all for your encouragement and support.

See ya in the new year.,

Dave