“Excuse me, would you mind moving over just a little bit? I know it’s not loaded, but it’s just not polite,” cautioned the guy behind the counter. In the course of explaining its operation, he had been pointing an MP5A3 submachine gun at a pair of customers browsing at the far end of the display. They obligingly moved out of the way.
Saturday I went shooting in New Hampshire with Mar and Taylor. I was raised to be afraid of guns, and prior to this weekend I had handled nothing bigger than a .22 pistol. So at first I was a little nervous holding a loaded machine gun in my hands. Of course it turned out to be a lot of fun. Between the MP5 and the WWII-vintage M1A1 Tommy gun that we rented, we kicked 8 boxes of ammunition in a very short amount of time. Both guns had a full automatic setting, which surprised me. (Is that even legal?) The Tommy gun (which shoots .45 caliber ammo at about 700 rounds per minute) is just ridiculous: it’s heavy, it’s loud, it gets burning hot, it shoots the empty brass about 8 feet out the side, and it perforates the paper targets beyond recognition in seconds. I felt like shouting “Infidels!” at the targets but I doubted that the others on the range would appreciate my humor. Anyway, I’m sure the Good Doc would be proud.
On Sunday I went to get some ice cream. A big group of hipster messenger types eating outside hollered “nice bike man!” I talked bikes with them for a while and determined that my GTB track frame is part of their dream vehicle. (It happens that the manufacturer went out of business years ago and they are very hard to find.)
“I’m not good enough to do the brakeless skid-stop,” I confessed at one point.
“Yes you are. We have faith in you!” said the strangers, who ride without brakes.
It’s a nice feeling to have such street cred that people far cooler than I am will shout out from time to time.
Jenn’s wedding pictures will be online by the end of the week. I’m done with the B&W. I have to do the color scans next.
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