Don Gwinn

I wish, but I have a meeting in Champaign that day. Wrong end of the state.

It was going well until they realized that they were the Cubs in the postseason. Up to that point, they were like Wile E. Coyote running out into the air off a cliff--as long as they didn't look down, they were fine.

You hate mailbox-dwelling rattlesnakes? That is surprisingly but admirably specific.

This is where I get to be smug about not paying for cable. I don't know who Billy Mays is and I've never heard of "SoyJoy," so it sounds to me like you folks are paying for the privilege of viewing these masterpieces of advertising.

500K is what you get if you're Kimbo--he's not getting that to fight, he's getting that to lend his name to their promotion. Carano got a lot more than I realized--they must really be working on picking people off from the UFC. That's not bad money at all, multiplied out over 3-5 fights per year. For a long time, the standing joke was that you'd work your butt off, get injured a few times, train for 6 weeks, and get $2000 for your fight. Then some guy in the stands would declare "$2000 for 15 minutes of work? Sign me up!" When it's "$500,000 for six months' work" . . . the guy in the stands is starting to have a point.

Oh, yeah, and this is important: that gun's name is Lucky. No debate is possible.

I have guns used by Nazis and Soviets--mostly to kill each other, but still. It's just a gun.

If you're a big dumb shot thrower, it's OK to jump over the runners' hurdles when they're not using them. You can do it on a cinder track, too, no big deal. But track hurdles are unidirectional, and you don't want to go over one backwards. Hit the hurdle with your foot going the right way, and it'll topple gracefully behind you as you continue on your way, just like those guys in the Olympics on TV. Hit it going the other way, and it will stand fast. The top will shatter into a million pieces, but it'll still stop you hard enough to lever you straight into the ground, and you'll be picking cinders out of your hands and face for a week.

My guess? At the moment she probably makes very little on the fight. Endorsements? Probably better, but there are only a handful of guys getting rich in MMA, and they fight for the UFC. For those of you suggesting she should be modeling, think it through for a minute: why are people looking at pictures of her? Why are people so amazed at her looks? Because she's also a mixed martial artist. She's a fighter. She seems happy with that. She should fight. Similarly, I doubt Cyborg cares what any of us think of her looks.

I've never shot a double in a match (nothing that would fool anybody, anyway) but I did shoot one that was near-perfect in the shoothouse at Blackwater when Todd Jarrett was running the internet geeks through a surprise course. I was sure it was a mike (I didn't remember a miss there, but I don't trust myself to call shots) but before I had a chance to say anything on the walk-through, Jarrett said "That's a double, it's almost a perfect double, but I stood right here and watched both rounds go through the same hole!" That ended all doubt for me. The more I read about people gaming mikes by calling them doubles, the more I wonder if he was putting me on. But I swear I could see just a tiny bit of oblong shape to it, and I'm sticking to my story!

I use a Blackhawk Serpa in Production. Had to mark "other" since they get upset if you call it "Kydex."

No, and he'd have remembered it forever if he'd been DQ'ed. Would have been a cheap safety lesson.

I thought so. Like I said, I doubt anyone at my local bunch would care, but if it were a problem for the USPSA people, I'd obviously find some grips rather than shoot my stock single-stack commander in Open. :eek:

I'll let you know if and when I ever shoot one. Illinois Sectional for Production/Single Stack is coming up in October, but I have a meeting for a pro gun political group on the other end of the state that day. I'm a lot better at being mean to legislators than I am A zones.

The rest of us weren't there . . . what did he say?

Not. But I'm never ready. Football or baseball?

Pandora points you to places to buy the music as it's playing. If you get really desperate, you could always pay for it.

Home. Guinness or Heineken?

I had a feeling it might be something like that. I'm a school teacher by trade, and certainly I'm usually the last to know what's going on.

Just out of curiosity--do you make an effort to hide your competitive accomplishments at school? Or an effort to promote them? Or somewhere in between? In other words, your instructors must realize you compete and shoot a ton, but do they actually know that a couple of weeks ago you were the 3rd best USPSA shooter in the nation with a production Beretta? Do they realize that you bitch about losing to Dave Sevigny? I'm imagining you flying under the radar and it's making me chuckle. Hell, you could tell them you've got a GM card in USPSA and it still wouldn't be the full picture of where your skill actually is right now.

Aha! Thanks for the list. The lasergrips have an on/off switch in addition to the momentary button--would there be a problem just leaving 'em switched off? I knew I couldn't use them, but I hoped they could be there as long as I don't switch them on. I intend to carry this gun daily, and Jarrett convinced me that I want to use the laser in training. I don't think anyone at my local club would care at all as long as there's no actual laser beam being projected (pew! pew!) but I don't want to skirt the rules. Besides, if I had the grips and couldn't put them on the Tac-S, I'd be forced to buy another 1911 to put them on.

Aww, it's just a 9mm. Cops here have 12-gauges.

I have this pistol at my FFL waiting to be picked up. Para-USA sponsored several gun bloggers to travel to Blackwater and take a weekend course from Todd Jarrett with these guns, and we all opted to purchase them in the end. Currently, I shoot a SIG P220 in Production, but I'd like to start running the "Gun Blog .45" with 10-round magazines. Will that leave me in Production, or step me up to Limited 10 or Single Stack or something? I've heard of a list of kosher guns for Production, but I looked at the USPSA rule book and didn't find a list. There were objective criteria which I believe this gun meets. The Tac-S has the LDA trigger, so it's not single action. It's a standard model. The "Gun Blog .45" pistols are just the Tac-S model with a fiber-optic front, adjustable rear set of sights added, plus the cosmetic marking on the slide. It's Commander-sized, so I can't imagine it won't fit in the box. The rule book says that replacing sights is legal in Production. I don't mind shooting in the appropriate section, and if that's L10 or something, I'll gladly do it, but I don't want to be submitting scores in Production and find out that I've been messing up all my matches by shooting an illegal gun.

That is COOL. I might add that link to the first post--it would have saved me the trouble of asking one dumb question. Thanks.

My first match ever, so maybe it's not too humiliating, but it was that day. The stage was to shoot down 8 poppers, four small and four large, and you had to wait for some of the large in front to fall so you could shoot the back ones, which didn't bother me in the least since I was shooting and waiting to see 'em fall anyway. More like sightseeing than shooting, really. Anyway, when all the steel was down you could move left and engage several paper targets in different configurations. I finished my first run and was feeling pretty proud of myself. It was slow, but I'd made alphas on all the paper targets. Then they showed me the steel. I had hit every steel I shot at but, oddly enough, not the little one in the back corner I hadn't bothered to fire at! I asked for permission to run over and knee it. This was denied. That wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't done exactly the same thing with a different popper on my second run. Seven shots on 8 poppers. Twice.