aubreyturner.org

It’s odd sometimes how observations seem to come together in clusters.  I’d never been to Pittsburgh before last weekend and didn’t know much about the city and didn’t give it much thought.  So when the book I was reading on the flight out and back mentioned Pittsburgh’s Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth street bridges on the return flight (which coincidentally enough were in some of the pictures I took from the convention center), it got my attention.

The same thing goes for Palomino.  I stumbled across this restaurant across the street from the Hilton (in the Gateway towers) on Sunday evening.  It was a bit pricey, but the food and service were good.  What got my attention was that I heard a commercial on the radio this morning for them.  It turns out that there’s one in Dallas.

It just seems odd to me that all these references show up just after I have been to these locations.  Of course, it’s possible that I was just aware of them now and that made them more likely to be noticed.  But I’m not entirely convinced that this is the case.

On Sunday afternoon after I’d finished up in the exhibit hall I decided to go check out Point State Park, which is across the street from where I’d been staying.

I accidentally stumbled into a trade fair and military demonstration for the 250th anniversary of the French and Indian War.

They featured demonstrations of the weaponry and tactics of the period.  However, as always, safety must come first:

The French reenactors marched out under a white flag.  There were some comments from the crowd when they did this. 

It wouldn’t be an NRA meeting without some protesters.  As I suspected, this turned into a confluence of anti-war, anti-Bush, and anti-American causes.

This one offended me greatly by implying that our military is too stupid to have really volunteered for service.

But the moonbat-of-the-day award has to go to this offensive idiot:

The hatred and frustration of the anti-everything folks is breathtaking.  I think part of their accusations of hatred on the part of the NRA is projection of their own hate and fear.

Of course, given the fact that approximately 60,000 people showed up for the NRA meeting, the number of protesters was kind of pathetic.  One NRA member commented to me that if he couldn’t organize a better protest than that he’d have stayed home.  Here’s a picture of their march as it arrived at the protest venue.

I felt kind of sorry for this kid.  He obviously was dragged into this.  Perhaps we have a future NRA member in the making, when he starts investigating alternative viewpoints to those of his parents.

This display had me puzzled for a while, since it was only visible from inside the protest area.  NRA members would not have been able to see it, since they were using the sidewalk on the other side of it.  Later, I noticed that when you view it from the protest area it is directly under the NRA sign.  I’m not sure if that was intentionally done for contrast or they were just afraid to provoke the NRA that much (although given some of the other signs I saw, this is probably not the case).

I also couldn’t help but notice that the ACLU sent “volunteer observers.”  I was kind of curious as to what they were planning to observe, but questioning one of the nearby observers as to their purpose was unhelpful.  He wouldn’t answer me as to what they were expecting.  But I wouldn’t doubt that they were expecting trouble from NRA members, given their warped view of us.  For the most part any response from NRA members was limited to a few conversations and the occasional yell of a returned slogan.  One of the “observers” made a snarky comment after we photographed them to the effect that we should have asked permission.  Bitter overheard them and had to restrain herself from going over and quoting the appropriate Supreme Court case (which decided that you don’t have to have permission to photograph someone in a public place).  Personally, I think if someone is that touchy about being photographed, then maybe she shouldn’t be associating with moonbats.  Despite their status as “observers,” I couldn’t help but get the vibe that the ACLU was more sympathetic to the protesters than to the NRA.

During lunch on Saturday I went walkabout in downtown Pittsburgh in search of a place to eat that wasn’t already overrun with NRA members.  One good sign was that most of the businesses in the area had signs welcoming NRA members.  I think most of the them were happy to have us because of the money we were bringing (I overheard one NRA staffer in the elevator who said that it was estimated that the NRA meeting was bringing $7 million into the Pittsburgh economy; I don’t doubt it, given how expensive everything was).  The only people who seemed unhappy with us were the protesters (more on them later).

But as I was walking down Liberty Avenue (at least I think it was Liberty, I’m a bit fuzzy now on which street it was), I came across this:

It took me a few seconds to overcome the cognitive dissonance of a guy with a donkey in downtown Pittsburgh.  It turns out that he and the young woman next to him were out to advertise the opening of a new smoothie shop on Tenth (across from the Westin).  I’m not sure what a donkey has to do with smoothies, but it definitely got people’s attention.

The members meeting itself was more of an opportunity for the NRA leadership to try to rally the troops than anything else.  There were a couple of resolutions that we voted on, but nothing of earth-shattering importance.  I think in the future that I will be unlikely to travel long distances for meetings, although I’ll likely go to the one next year, since it will be in Houston, which is fairly close (at least in terms of distances in Texas). 

On the other hand, it was good to meet Bitter in person.  I didn’t personally observe a great amount of bitchiness, but then I suppose I was on her good side.    But now I’ve got a face and a voice to put with her posts.

It was brought up in one of the speeches that the upcoming election takes on special significance in that up to four Supreme Court members could be appointed in the next Presidential term.  Further, it is becoming inevitable that the Supreme Court will rule soon on a Second Amendment case (I’ve gotten the impression over the years that the NRA leadership has always been afraid of a 2nd Amendment case getting to the USSC and has been less than helpful with those who have tried to take their cases that far; I think now the leadership knows that it either has to get on the train or be run over by it).  While I have a lot of problems with George W. Bush, I can only imagine the havoc a John Kerry-appointed surpreme court would wreak on the 2nd Amendment (not to mention on a host of other issues).

One of the traditions at these meetings is to recognize the oldest and youngest NRA life members in attendance.  The oldest was a gentleman from Wisconsin who was 98.

He was not only still sharp mentally (he gave a pretty good speech) but he had walked the entire show floor and seen all the exhibits under his own power.

At 8:00pm on Saturday there was a members’ banquet.  Unfortunately, due to security measures taken for Vice President Cheney’s visit, everything was late.  We didn’t get served until approximately 9:30pm.  For entertainment they had a comic (I can’t recall his name right now, although he was OK) and Lee Greenwood.

I think by far the biggest attraction of the NRA Annual Meeting was the exhibit hall.  It was advertised as “Four Acres of Guns & Gear.”  All of the major manufacturers as well as a host of other companies were there.

Here’s a view on the west half of the hall, taken before the exhibits opened on Saturday morning.

Ruger had one of the largest and best exhibits.

I’m not sure what EAA was thinking, but if they were trying to win the award for using drainage pipe in a gun show display, then they would have surely won it.

After the meeting concluded, the exhibits were open.  It was estimated that approximately 60,000 people attended (although I suspect the majority of that number were people who went for the exhibits, since I know the main meeting didn’t have near that many people).

When I saw this little beauty, I couldn’t help but think of Kim du Toit, given his expressed interested in rifles with full stocks.  Of course, he might have to sell a kidney or something to afford this one:

Here’s a link with more info on the Blaser K95 Stutzen.

I’ve been trying to figure out how I’m going to bring back an extra 40 pounds or so of junk I picked up at the NRA meeting in the exhibit hall.  I think I got one of every pamphlet, catalog, and flyer that was offered.  I also picked up some hats and other assorted junk.  I picked up an extra bag that I can carry on, but my worry is that the other stuff that I had to pack in my suitcase will put it over 50 pounds (American charges an extra $25.00 for bags weighing 51 to 75 pounds).

I also took about 200 pictures of the exhibits, the meeting, the protesters, and Point State Park.  When I get home I’m going to reduce their size and write up a few posts.  I’ve got some really outrageous pictures of the protesters that definitely need to be shown.

On my trip to Minnesota last month I was pleased when the seatbelt fit me with four or five inches to spare.  I hadn’t flown in several years and the last time I’d flown I’d needed the belt extender.  However, on the return trip I was concerned that the belt was pretty snug.  I wondered how I’d gained four inches without having to buy new clothes (and how I’d done all this in the course of just one week!).  This morning when I got on the plane the seatbelt fit with four or five inches to spare again.  I’m certain that I didn’t lose that much weight in the last five or six weeks.

The only conclusion I can come to now is that each plane has seatbelts with different lengths.  The first image that came to mind was an aircraft mechanic or assembly-line worker eyeballing the belts and cutting them to his whim.  But then I started putting things together and came to the conclusion that newer planes and older planes with new seats have longer seatbelts than the older ones (these were all Super 80’s, which seem to be the bulk of American’s fleet; the seats and the labelling on the tray-tables lead me to think that the first and last S80 I was on were newer than the middle one).  Of course, this is all supposition as to whether this is the case, but I do know that I’m not fluctuating four or five inches between flights.

The banner over the entrance to the convention center advertises “4 Acres of Guns and Gear.”  I’m not going to question the veracity of that statement (FYI—here’s a link to a PDF of the floor layout). 

I wandered around the exhibit hall for a few hours but quickly got to the point where my eyes had glazed over and I couldn’t take in anything else.  I took a couple of pictures to try to get a sense of the size of the hall.  To correlate the pictures with the floor plan, I was standing just inside the door in the middle of the hall.  The first picture is facing left and the second photo is facing right.

As an aside, my hotel room has free wireless internet access, so if there’s time at the end of the day I can get online.

I’m going to the NRA Annual Meeting this weekend.  I’ll be flying out this morning and returning Monday afternoon.  Depending on the schedule and availability of internet access, I may not post anything until I return.