Monday, February 2, 2009

I KNEW It!

Just checked my sitemeter, and I was right. All of the linky-love bumped me from my standard hundred or so hits per week day and sixty or so on the weekends, to over two hundred Sunday and Today.

Thanks, guys!

Home!

Made it back to the old homestead safe and sound, so here's the after-action report I promised.

Shooty Goodness:

Sunday, we all went out to the pasture and made a lot of loud bang noises. You know you're shooting with some talented folks when you hear:

Bang. Plink.

Bang. Plink.

Bang. Plink.

Bang.Plink.Bang.Plink.Bang.Plink.Bang.Plink.

There's also the fact that they were shooting at golf balls (that they couldn't really see) at a hundred yards with twenty two rifles.

Best quotes of the day:

"Oh my god, he wasn't just taking a leak, he was peeing in the bottle."

"Phlegmmy wins the Golden Shower Award, she got the pee bottle."

"Brass Hicky, that sticky Hicky." (To the tune of Brass Monkey)

And, my favorite, at the end of the shoot....

"Does anybody have any real rifle brass to throw out around here so that we don't look like a bunch of wusses?"

After the shoot we went to a little hole-in-the-wall steak house and had the quail appetizers (darned good quail... I was a little leery of restaraunt quail, but it was tasty) while AD took care of the dinner show, doing the entire dinner scene from the Nutty Professor. Perfectly.

I was rolling on the floor, couldn't get a breath, nearly peed myself laughing at him talking about relations. Meanwhile AEPilot Jim was telling the waitress "We can't take him anywhere."



The Drive:

There comes a point in any long drive when your mind starts doing weird things to you. I don't mind my eye getting caught by shapes in the clouds, that happens, but when I start seeing shapes in the cracks in the road, I get a little worried.

So that's when I stopped in Amarillo and got a coffee. And cussed cause MattG got the hands picture put up before me. Ya gotta watch them bigguns. They're sneaky buggers.

But, before I got to the book store, I was driving down the interstate, and suddenly the Farmdog started barking. I glanced back at the vehicle on my right and saw a big golden head stickin out a back window... she was protecting me from the dog in the other vehicle on the interstate. But, what really made me laugh was when the truck got a little ahead of me, I saw another little puppy head sticking out underneath the Golden Retriever's... it was some kind of terrier, and I was only sure it was a dog because there was a nose, and it moved. Everything else was obscured by its long hair blowing every which way like some kind of blonde Medusa.

AD asked me, via text message, if I'd made it home yet while I was sipping coffee and stretching.... When I told him I had stopped for a break and gotten a cup of coffee, he told me to finish my steak from the Japanese Steak House last night. I told him it was gone before noon, and he oinked at me.

"I think I might have gained a half pound while I was there... everyone wanted to feed me."

"Where did you gain a half a pound?????"

"I'm not sure, but I think it might have all gone to my Snark Muscles...."



Because indeed, the snark was strong this weekend. We embarrassed several waitstaff at various eaterys, and each other.

I had an absolute blast, and as glad as I am to be home, it has more to do with the drive than the weekend....

I wanna do it again!

Edit: at the bottom on the right is a new set of links. I'm following the crowd and keeping a running tally of bloggers I've come across outside the fantabulous land of the pixels. If I missed anybody, a real possibility since I was hard pressed to remember all the names at the end of the night, let alone their URL's, just drop me a line and I'll correct the situation.

Amarillo By Morning...

Well I made it to Amarillo, which is around halfway home.

Hit the city limits here and the eyelids were getting droopy, so I made it to Soncy and Heaven In A Store* and pulled in for a break. Got coffee, and since the internet was FUBAR at the hotel this morning, I logged on to the wifi hotspot to check all my... er... stuff.

After perusing things (and I haven't checked my sitemeter since everyone linked to me... I predict a spike in hits bigger than MattG) I'm just gonna go ahead and mention a couple of things... full after action report when I get home and recover from the drive a bit...

Yes, that picture is my hand. And, frankly, it's shocking even to me... Shaking hands with that man is like putting on a warm oven mitt. However, I did notice on that picture (and I have the same one, not stolen but gifted by OldNFO) that it tends to emphasize our respective... attributes, as MattG put it.

The ginormity of his hands makes mine look even smaller, and the bittyness of mine make his look even bigger.

Also, to everyone that was at the shoot, the Farmdog misses you. She's in the car right now looking at me through the window as if to ask me where the nice man who smells like bacon is. (Nope, AEPilot Jim, you're never going to live it down. It's entirely too much fun.)

Meanwhile, I'm going to go finish my coffee and get back on the road... that white line's just getting longer, and the saddle is starting to get cold.**







*Barnes and Noble Booksellers, with Starbucks.

** Double points to anyone who gets the song reference here, and why it's apropos after a drive this long.