Exercising my Second Amendment right
Posted 12 February, 2008 by Graham in usa
One of the great pleasures of travel is the perspective it provides.
In France children get sent home from school for wearing religious symbols, such as an Islamic headscarf. Religion is dangerous.
In England, only special units of the police are allowed firearms. Guns are dangerous.
Here in America it is illegal to import unpasteurized soft cheese. Cheese with flavor is dangerous. Guns, however are not. Oh no.
To celebrate Jeff’s birthday, we went to the San Gabriel Valley’s biggest indoor firing range, and got us some firearms. The vetting procedure is stringent – you need to bring a friend (the no-suicide rule), and you need to be over 12.
Once through that process, the fun begins. You select your gun, your target, and get shooting.
Our friends picked a Glock 9mm, a light. modern handgun popular with law enforcement. Jeff picked the Ruger Redhawk .44 Magnum, the largest and most powerful gun he could legally rent, which can only be described as a six shooter version of the gun Rambo pulls off the side of a helicopter in Rambo 2. I selected a Colt .45 with a rifle conversion kit and laser scope, featured on the left.
We also selected the most human shaped targets they had (and I can’t really justify that part). On the range you hang your target from a hook, use the powered winch to send it down to the other end, and blast away.
The laser scope and rifle kit made our gun very accurate, and almost took the fun out of it. We swapped with friends, and I got to fire the .44 Magnum. WOW! Despite the warnings, nothing could of prepared me for the noise, the recoil, and the flame that briefly seems to engulf the weapon when you fire. I can see why Dirty Harry liked it.
Afterwords we went to dinner, and chatted happily about what, in the United Kingdom, would of gotten us at least five years in jail. Vive le difference!
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Merry Christmas from Pasadena
Posted 31 December, 2007 by Graham in usa
We’ve just spent Christmas in Pasadena, a suburb of Los Angeles. The area we are staying is amazing – each street co-ordinates so each house on that street has the same parkway decorations. Ours are Xmas trees and presents (photo on Flickr). The local association co-ordinating it hands out awards for best overall decorations, best parkway decorations, and best religious decorations.
Christianity sits uneasily with political correctness here – officially everyone celebrates the ‘Holidays’, which includes the Jewish Hanukkah, the invented Kwanzaa, and why not the more ancient Dies Natalis Solis Invicti – but many Christians resent the atheistic-izing of what they perceive as their holiday.
Luckily, the shops don’t take sides, selling inflatable nativity scenes alongside this marvel, Santa’s Jazz Band. Each character stands about human height, the whole inflatable plays jazz music, and each festive musician lights up when his instrument is playing. Happy Holidays!
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Wine tasting in Sideways country
Posted 28 December, 2007 by Graham in usa
With our friends Jim and Valerie we went wine tasting in early December around Los Olivos, North of Los Angeles. This is the area the film Sideways is in / about.
The wine is mostly Rhone varietals, which happens to be some of my favorite grapes.
The photo is of a very friendly bartender / wine consultant at the last wine tasting room we visited, before dinner. The wine here was much better than what I have tasted in Napa.
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Fremont street
Posted 17 December, 2007 by Graham in usa
At the bottom of this picture is Fremont Street, Las Vegas, a pedestrianized street in downtown Vegas, where all the action used to be before the strip took over – now it’s less classy and more fun than the strip, with better odds.
Up there catching your eye is the biggest big screen on the planet, the central part of the Fremont Street Experience. Only in Vegas.
We spent one night in Vegas with fantastic friends we met on our trip in Africa – it’s great to be shown around by locals. Janette won loads of coins from a slot machine.
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A Grand Canyon and a bigger tear
Posted 16 December, 2007 by Graham in usa
The last stop on our South West leg was the Grand Canyon. It’s very, very Grand (in the French sense). When I first set eyes on it it took my breath away.
We hiked the 12 miles (~20 Km) round trip on the Bright Angel Trail (that took my breath away too, especially on the way back up!) to Plateau Point, near the Colorado River which carved the canyon. We passed Bighorn Sheep on the way down and Mule Deer on the way back up.
Grand Canyon National Park was sadly the last of our camping, so we made a big fire to burn all our wood, and had us a personal party involving posh s’mores and good beer.
The morning of the 2nd November 2007, 141 days, or 4 months and 19 days, after we set off from London for Uganda on the 14th of June, we packed our camping gear for the last time of our trip and drove down Route 66 to Las Vegas, feeling very lucky indeed.
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