Why do I carry?

I've always been fascinated with guns. As a young kid growing up I owned many BB guns. My friends and I would often go into the woods and practice shooting tin cans, paper plates, each other and even an occasional stray cat here and there...sorry you cat/animal lovers.

Not so funny story though, someone called the cops on us when we were back in the woods shooting "stuff" one day. The police came and gave us all a tongue lashing then confiscated all our BB guns. We had to have each of our parents go to the police station to retrieve them. My parents never went to get mine back. Lesson learned.

I'm a little older and wiser now (at least I think) and my love for guns has stayed with me. Safety to me is the number one rule of owning a firearm. It takes a lot of discipline, self control, common sense and a complete understanding of the power a firearm yields. Not to mention the fact that it takes a great amount of responsibility and mental capacity and many many hours of training to even carry a firearm must less own one.

I have been licensed to legally carry a firearm for years now and I feel that it is my constitutional right to have that privilege as a US citizen. In order for you to receive this right however, you must jump through many hoops and pass all the tests and qualifications that the State and local governments deem necessary. Then and only then will you be considered for what is called a CPL (Concealed Pistol license), also known as a CCW (Concealed Carry Weapon).

I often get mixed reactions from people when they find out my stance on owning and being able to legally carry a firearm. There have been many times where people just don't understand the certain views and reasoning behind it all.

"My gosh, you carry a gun and you have kids!"
All the more reason to. I want to be able to start educating my kids early on and show them the importance of gun safety and it's consequences.

"It's not like you live in a bad neighborhood or anything"
Last time I checked crime has no boundaries. As a matter of fact criminals come to the burb's because that's where the money is. Many people deal with the problem of crime by convincing themselves that they live, work, and travel only in special "crime-free" zones. Invariably, they react with shock and hurt surprise when they discover that criminals do not play by the rules and do not respect these imaginary boundaries. If, however, you understand that crime can occur anywhere at anytime, and if you understand that you can be maimed or mortally wounded in mere seconds, you may wish to consider whether you are willing to place the responsibility for safeguarding your life in the hands of others.

"Why do you even need to carry a gun anyways?"
I can go on and on with with this question but I won't, instead let me pose this question, why do you need car insurance? We all know we have it just in case you get in an accident to cover property or personal damages right? Well the same concept here with a gun, just in case there is a need to ever use my firearm in a life threatening situation to protect either myself or my family it's there as my insurance policy. I've often said it's better to have it and not use it then to not have it when my life depended on it. Carry as if your life depends on it, because one day...it just might.

In 1991, when then-Attorney General Richard Thornburgh released the FBI's annual crime statistics, he noted that it is now more likely that a person will be the victim of a violent crime than that he will be in an auto accident. Despite this, most people readily believe that the existence of the police relieves them of the responsibility to take full measures to protect themselves. The police, however, are not personal bodyguards. Rather, they act as a general deterrent to crime, both by their presence and by apprehending criminals after the fact. As numerous courts have held, they have no legal obligation to protect anyone in particular. You cannot sue them for failing to prevent you from being the victim of a crime.

In light of the Virginia Tech massacre you'll notice a lot of movement from the government relating to gun control and it's laws. Movement such as trying to institute a law that would've prevented this type of situation to have even occurred. I think a lot of people are either mis-informed or very closed minded though when it comes to these gun control laws. Let's be honest here having more and more strict gun control laws in place does not stop the "bad guy" from getting there hands on a gun. Bad guys will always have a means to get guns anytime they want.

John Stossel, from ABC news just came out with a new book. It's called 'Myth's, Lies and Downright Stupidity'. If you haven't read or seen it yet do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. One of the things he covers in his book is about Gun control and it's laws. Here he is being interviewed about his book, specifically about the gun control.... http://www.abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3085634

Here's yet another video of Stossels reports about 'Gun control is not really crime control'
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3149487

So why do I carry? Simple, I refuse to be a victim. My motto: "be nice and kind to everyone but carry a concealed firearm."

The "To do" list....

Well every year if you live in Michigan you know that coming out of hibernation from the long cold winter season is a great time. Spring always brings a huge freakin' smile to my face....which eventually turns into emotions of anger then ultimately complete and utter depression.

Depression because the list of things you know that need to get done every year to get both yourself and the house ready for summer seems to grow longer and longer every year. Anger because you know you'll often times never get to some of the things on the list. This often times leads to drinking. Cheers, have one on me.

One of the things Arlene and I wanted to do this year was to re-do the front yard landscaping. What a pain in the crapper! There's something to be said about hiring a landscape company to come out and do all the work for you. Of course just like everything else, I pride myself into being able to screw things up on my own...I mean to do things on my own. That and the fact that I don't want to pay someone thousands of dollars to do something I can do for a hell of a lot less. They're all a bunch of thieves, trust me.

First we dealt with the bushes. I would describe these bushes as something you would see at an abandon house. Seriously they were in horrible shape. It only took my 9 yrs to come to this conclusion.

We yanked out about 90% of the bushes in the front of our house. With the aide of my trusty chain saw and the help of my neighbors Chevy TrailBlazer and my brother-in-laws Toyota Tacoma, we were able to persuade the bushes to release themselves from the death grip on which they had on the earth. They didn't come out quietly. I swear these bushes were possessed. My chainsaw had a heck of a time cutting through some of them. I think I even heard one of them screaming for help as I held it down with one foot and chopped it's trunk off.

Well everything came out eventually...I managed to keep the damage to a minimum. Broken landscape light a ruptured underground sprinkler hose and a huge splinter was all the casualties. Easily fixable, "honey where's the duct tape and the tweezers!?"

Next, get out the check book because everything that was taken out will need to be replaced with plants that costs 100 times more then the crap you ripped out. All the flowers, bushes, mulch and even a couple Japanese maple trees in which to replace the 1000 yr old bushes needed to be bought. I tell ya', I'm in the wrong business. The money people charge for these things are ridiculous. No wonder the guy who owns Farmer John's Nursery drives a freakin' 80k thousand dollar car.

Not only did we replace all the landscaping but I went even as far as re-doing all the outside lighting as well. Did I mention "pain in the azz"? That's another story in itself... Let's stay focused here.

Well it's about 90% done now. All in all as long as Arlene's happy I'm content. Time to work on the backyard now. I'll see you at the bar, that's where I left my "to do list".

Here's some pics...

Got kind of a rock theme going on.

This planter area had a nasty brick retaining wall that we took down last year and replaced them with boulders.

Spiral bushes with 3 Azaleas flanking the middle. These are nice because they flower in the spring.

Japanese Maple and 3 rhododendron's in the middle...it's hard to see in this pic because of the ivy in the background on the wall. These also flower in the spring.

4X

Well, thanks to my bike sponsor, SOUL CYCLES, I will be taking delivery of one of the nicest 4-cross frames out there.

The Matador.
Almost 2 years in development, the Matador is a lightweight full suspension dual purpose rig. The frame lends itself to 2 different set ups (4X (6.5 x 1.5+100mm) / Mid-Travel Slopestyle (7.5 x 2.0+130mm) ). The frame features a machined scissor link for additional rear end lateral stiffness. A 6mm thick front shock mount tying the top and down tubes together to add stiffness and minimize down tube torsion and twisting.

It will be equipped with a FOX DHX 5 Air, it's the top of the line air suspension FOX offers. I can't wait to get it built up and tear up the slalom/Downhill/4X courses with it.

Watch out for the "Old guy" cause' I'm comin'!

24 hrs of HELL!

Well, I'm regressing in my old age... our team, MTB-LIFE decided to start doing some endurance racing this year. So Nate and the guys talked me into going out and punishing myself to do the 24 hrs of Boyne over the Memorial weekend.

It was probably one of the hardest races physically that I've done in a long long time. Mind you I've been mainly concentrating on Downhill racing for many years and that I haven't raced XC in over 10+ years.

The course was roughly 10 mile laps with about 980ft of climbing per lap. It started to rain on us at about 1:20am Sunday morning. I ended up pulling my hamstring muscle and had extreme back spasms.... but we prevailed and ended up winning the race. It wasn't without a lot of hard work. Thanks to our newcomer on the team, Justin, who tore up each burning lap. We all tore up each lap for that matter.

We ended up beating the second place U of M team by 1 whole lap (approx. 10 miles).

Thanks to our bike sponsor SOUL CYCLES for providing our bikes and giving us support. Thanks to Meagan and Kristine for being our support and tech team. :-)

We plan on punishing ourselves more this year. Yippee.