aubreyturner.org

I’ve been hearing people clamoring for artificial turf for the Keller high school fields since I’ve moved here.  I’ve also been hearing how the Keller schools are hurting for money and how they might raise the (already outrageously high) tax rates to cover the budget problems.  It looks like the turf(obnoxious registration required) has won out over common sense.

Synthetic turf will be installed at the Keller Athletic Complex before the football season begins this fall, trustees decided Monday night.

…

The Keller stadium is closest to Keller High School. Synthetic turf for Central and Fossil Ridge high schools will be included in a planned September bond election, trustees decided. Until the other schools get synthetic turf, the three will share the athletic complex.

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The synthetic turf will cost $432,000 and will be purchased with funds from the district’s exclusive beverage contract with Coca-Cola.

The contract, which guarantees that only Coca-Cola products are sold on district property, has generated a discretionary fund of $919,777, said Kent Morrison, assistant superintendent of finance. The fund will generate more than $1.3 million over the 15-year term of the contract.

The remainder of the fund will be used for a districtwide curriculum audit expected to cost $75,000 and applied toward the purchase of textbooks. The district predicts that nearly 2,000 new students will attend Keller schools in the fall.

If they’ve got money to spend on freakin’ artificial turf I’d better not hear any crap about raising the tax rates due to budget problems.  They should have applied this money to real educational spending before artificial turf. 

But, then what do I know?  I don’t worship at the altar of the sport of football (for those of you who might not be from Texas, high school football is more of a religion than a sport around here, with many of the larger schools having stadiums that would be more suited to semi-pro clubs).  I just seems like I end up paying for it…

Texas has a plethora of specialized license plates available now.  But I hadn’t seen the one for the Knights of Columbus until yesterday.  Here’s the sample plate:

Given the wording at the bottom it got me to wondering why no one had sued the state over it yet.

I don’t usually care much for sports, especially baseball, which I find slow and boring.  Anyhow, this story was on one of the TV news shows this morning (there’s a good picture of incident at that link).  There was also an article about it in this morning’s Ft. Worth Star-Telegram.

Nicholas O’Brien’s first Texas Rangers game became an encounter to remember when another fan shoved the 4-year-old out of the way and into the spotlight.

Edie and Jeff O’Brien had just wanted to take their son for a nice afternoon at the ballpark. Then, Rangers center fielder Gary Matthews came to bat in the third inning with the Rangers trailing 12-0.

Matthews sent a high foul ball toward Section 22, between home plate and the St. Louis Cardinals’ third-base dugout.

“It was coming straight at us,” Edie O’Brien said. “I felt this person jumping, and I felt my husband trying to grab Nick. The guy was on my legs and feet, and I was trying to push the guy off.

“The next thing we knew, the guy had the ball.”

The man, described as being in his 30s, was sitting a row behind the O’Briens. When he dove for the ball, he knocked Nicholas into the seats and ended up sprawled at the O’Briens’ feet. The man came up with the foul ball and—despite jeers and boos from the crowd, who wanted him to give the ball to Nicholas—put it in his pocket.

This cretin eventually left (along with the woman who was with him) after being heckled by the crowd for the next inning.  The crowd had taken to shouting “Give him the ball” at the unidentified jerk, although he just sat there smirking.

Fortunately, the boy was unhurt and one of the St. Louis players gave the boy a bat and ball.  He was also given a bat from one of the Rangers and ended up with three more balls before the game was over.  But it makes you wonder what other activities the unidentified jerk might enjoy.  Knocking down little old ladies?  Stealing candy from babies?  Kicking puppies?  They all sound like they’d be just to his liking…

This may be an innovative way to hide valuables in plain sight, but it really leaves you thinking about the kind of mind that would come up with something like that.

I bought my Kimber Ultra CDP II just about two years ago as a primary carry piece.  At the time I just didn’t like any of the options in my “arsenal” for carry.  The Glock 19 was a little too big and heavy.  The Sig P232, while the right size, is a .380ACP which didn’t inspire confidence, even with Hydrashoks.  The Kel-Tec P11 was both small and light, but I always had a bit of nagging doubt about trusting a $230 gun. 

Anyhow, the Kimber seemed to be the answer to all of my needs.  It was small, light, concealable, and packed a respectable punch.  I promptly put 500 rounds through it to verify its reliablity.  I learned that it only likes certain brands of ammo, but when fed with that ammo using good magazines that it was very reliable.  In order to maintain proficiency with it my usual range routine was to start off the session with one box of .45 through the Kimber, followed by firing whatever other guns I had brought, and finishing up with another box of .45 in the Kimber.  I try to get to the range every week, although there have been a number of times where I went two or three weeks between sessions.  Because of this it’s hard for me to exactly estimate how many rounds I fired through the Kimber.  If I had gone every week for two years, it would be over 10,000 rounds.  My best estimate, though, given the missed weeks, would be somewhere over 8,000 rounds.

When I bought the Kimber I was sure to read the manual and learn all of its controls and how to disassemble it.  There was also this interesting chart on Page 7 concerning spring replacement.  I remarked that it seemed to be a pretty short replacement cycle for the springs, but then promptly forgot about it.  The replacement cycle is every 1800 rounds for the recoil spring, every 5000 rounds for the firing pin spring, and every 5000 rounds for the mainspring.  Given this, it’s kind of surprising that the recoil spring hadn’t broken a long time ago.  It finally failed the Friday before my trip to Colorado, causing me to rely on the KelTec for the trip, as it was the most concealable (at least with the holsters I currently own; the Glock and Sig tend to print more as they ride kind of high—I need to find a nice low-rider IWB rig for the Sig).

This is just a friendly reminder for all you gun owners to read your manuals and replace your springs if you have been neglecting it like I did.  In the meantime, this has pointed out to me the need to have a high-quality .45 backup (or perhaps a .357 snubby).  Something small, light, trustworthy, and highly concealable.  I’m going to go to the Dallas Market Hall gun show this weekend and take a look at some of the small .45s and lightweight .357s.  I’ve had my eye on the Para Carry as well as the Springfield Ultra Compact as good small .45s.  Para also has a new double-stack .45 called the Warthog which might be promising.  The downside is that they’re all in the $900 range (although I’d hope to get a better deal at a gun show).  On the revolver side, perhaps something like this Taurus might do the trick.  What will ultimately decide it will be how it feels in the hand and how concealable it seems.

Since we were close enough, we made a day trip to Manitou Springs, where we looked in a bunch of junk shops.  Later we rode the Cog Railway to the top of Pike’s Peak.  There were lots of dire warnings about the thin air at that altitude (14,110 ft) on the rail tickets, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  They don’t give you much time at the top before the train leaves (they have to carefully coordinate the trains, since there is only one line with a few sidings; they point out that the difference between being a passenger and a hiker is one minute).  Because of this I rushed around a bit to try to get some pictures at the top, which left me a bit winded from going too fast. 

A view from the top:

My niece and me, along with the junk we picked up at the store at the top of the mountain:

The idea of national reciprocity has been on my mind of late for several reasons.  When I got back from my trip there was a fundraising letter from NRA-ILA concerning a national reciprocity bill.  Also, in the big kerfuffle over gay marriage there was a lot of discussion of federalism and the “full faith and credit” clause, which led some people to bring up concealed carry.

It is my understanding that the “full faith and credit” clause does not actually require any state to recognize a marriage license issued by another state if that marriage is contrary to the laws of the first state.  We see the same sort of thing today with concealed carry laws.  This is one of the joys as well as one of the curses of our system.  Each state can do things as it sees fit.  Unfortunately, this leads to a patchwork of conflicting laws which can snare a traveller who is not careful.

As an example, consider my trip to Colorado last week.  Texas does not yet have reciprocity with Colorado, and it’s impossible for New Mexico to have reciprocity with any other state until they fix their concealed carry laws.  However, it turns out that Colorado does have reciprocity with New Hampshire.  And New Hampshire will issue a permit to out-of-state residents if they already have a permit in their home state (it’s a pretty simple process).  That took care of the Colorado carry issue, although it didn’t fix the problem with New Mexico.  Fortunately, New Mexico has a car-carry provision (as does Colorado) and we didn’t spend much time in New Mexico.

I don’t see how any national law could constitutionally impose reciprocity across the country.  It appears to me that it would take a constitutional amendment.  That having been said, I don’t really want the feds messing around with state laws, even if some of the states choose to be buttheads about it (e.x. The People’s Republics of California and Illinois).  Something I think that Congress could do, though, would be to repeal all federal laws that interfere with state carry laws on federal property.  Right now, it is against federal law to carry in the Post Office or in National Parks.  It is also my understanding that on a military base it is up to the base commander to decide whether carry is to be allowed. 

Given all of this, I’d propose a federal law that simply recognized the provisions in each state for carrying firearms.  The federal law would recognize state firearms laws in all federal facilities, except for military bases and federal courts.  On a military base, it would remove from the base commander’s discretion the ability to ban carry by civilians in any area that is commonly open to the public, leaving it to his discretion to make decisions for areas commonly off limits to the general public.  For federal courts, it would only apply to the courtroom and directly-related areas.  Other federal agencies (like FBI/IRS/DEA/BATFE) could not get around the law by locating themselves in a federal court building.  They would have to recognize the carry laws in whatever state they happen to be operating in.

This would make life easier for people who carry, who then don’t have to worry that their legally concealed weapon becomes a 10-year federal felony if they forget about it when going to the Post Office.  It would restore the right to defend oneself at places like Yellowstone and The Grand Canyon.  Finally, it means one doesn’t have to jump through hoops to get a simple form at the IRS office.

Last Sunday morning we left for Colorado and returned late Saturday evening. 

A few observations and thoughts from the trip:

• My dog took the trip surprisingly well, given her history of getting sick.  I think part of it was that she’s gotten more used to riding in the truck, though I cheated a bit by using some calming supplements.  I also got an extra fan to put in the back seat just for her since she tends to get hot easily.
• Given the number of Texas license plates I saw in Colorado, maybe we should consider merging the two states into one.  We’d need to borrow a bit of New Mexico as a corridor, though…
• Is there a contract you have to sign when you buy an RV or travel trailer that says you have to drive at least 5MPH under the speed limit and can’t move out of the way?  Is there a bonus payment clause in the contract if you speed up to avoid being passed in the rare passing zones that present themselves?  There’s a section of Highway 64 in New Mexico where there are no opportunities to pass for miles at a time and there’s always some obstructionist in the way.  It must be a cause of continuing problems because the state has put up signs urging patience (one of them also says “Courtesy Pays”).
• I particularly liked the fact that the speed limit on I-25 in Colorado is 75 in the southern part of the state.  Since traffic tends to move a bit above the posted speed, it really speeds up that part of the trip (and helps make up for the time wasted sitting behind hostile RV drivers in New Mexico).
• You don’t really appreciate how big the state of Texas is until you’ve spent most of the day just trying to reach the border.  Of our 700 mile trip, two-thirds of it was spent getting to the New Mexico border.  If I lived in East Texas this would have been a two day trip.

Just returned from a week-long trip to Colorado.  More to come…

This incident makes you wonder if there are people who are just too stupid to live.

Student may face charges for making toxic drink

A West Texas student who mixed a chemical cocktail that landed a teen-ager in the hospital will face a felony charge if the student who drank it chooses to press charges, authorities said Tuesday.

Ector County Schools Police Chief Henry Jackson said the Odessa High School student, who drank the chemical on a dare, is considering pressing an aggravated assault charge. That charge is a second-degree felony.

“The person who mixed it knew it was bad,” Jackson said in a story in Tuesday’s online edition of the Odessa American.

The student, a 17-year-old recent transfer to Odessa High from Andrews, spent several days in the hospital after being found in a school hallway bleeding from the nose and mouth.

His identity has not been made public.

It seems odd to me that the idiot who made the drink could be charged if someone is stupid enough to drink it.  How stupid do you have to be to drink something if you don’t know what’s in it?