aftermath:blowing stuff up on the 4th

Went to Lubbock with the wifey over the holiday weekend to catch up with some friends and fire off some fireworks. (really, I just like getting in the car and traveling with her)

It was a pretty short, yet eventful trip. We showed up on the 4th and immediately got to drinking and lighting fireworks. As I listened to the barely legal mortars going off I realized that now more than ever do I regret not owning a solid portable recorder, but I'll get one soon enough.

All in all it was a good time, and it was good to see everyone again. I'm lucky to have the caliber of friends that I do.

The next day was more eventful though. While the lovely and talented Mrs Coronado was off at the lake with some of her friends, I ended up prepping to go to the gunshop to buy ammo with mine. Now, I've never shot a gun (my parents never even let us have bb guns when we were kids) but I've also never really found that to be something that's lacking in my life either.

In my opinion guns aren't good for much in everyday life, but hey I'm a guy and firing weapons at little paper targets at a range was bound to be a good time.

When I first bore witness to the arsenal that my long-time friends had collected I was pretty amazed. Shotguns, rifles, handguns, and of course semi-automatic weapons. Now I had always known that my friends were kind of West-Texasy southern Republican types, but I really hadn't mentally come to grips with exactly how how deep that particular vein ran. When I informed them that I'd never shot a gun in my life, everyones eyes got wide, fingertips came together, and big smiles started showing up. They were loving the idea of popping my weapon cherry.

So we loaded up on ammo (which is pretty expensive) and headed out to the firing range.

This is the first gun I've ever shot.
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Its a Bushmaster M4, and it is a beast. Its a semiautomatic, though I was only shooting one round at a time. I expected it to have a lot of kick, but due to the compression chamber over the barrel there it was remarkably forgiving.

Here's me getting ready to shoot for the first time -




And here's my shocked expression after letting the first round go.


Dude, that think went BANG!

We also shot a few other rifles and some handguns that day. I was actually pretty ok with the handguns - hitting a bullseye at 25 yards and otherwise marking up the target pretty well. A lot of firing weapons seems to be about being able to breathe, so between that and Red Steel on the Wii I kind of had a head start.

The guys were kind enough to teach me how to set up, load and fire everything and I'm pretty grateful for that.

At the top of my mind now is a return trip with a good recording rig so that we can do it again and this time document it correctly.

Of course we got into a political discussion on the way back, but that was to be expected. I still love them despite their political views, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual.