We went to a gun show at the Fort Lauderdale War Memorial Auditorium yesterday. And in spite of the fact that there was another gun show running concurrently in Dade county, the place was solidly packed. As in, can’t move, can’t breathe, think I’m bolting out the side door, sardine tin packed.

But, mission at hand, we persevered and Mike bought a stealthy new carry piece. He’d gone with Kel-Tec in mind, but I and every dealer he spoke with talked him out of it, so he ended up with a subcompact little Ruger LCP, a .380 double action with a laser. You can’t believe how tiny and light the thing is; like a deadly toy.

Gun show regulars in Dade county back in the early 90′s, people watching was half the fun for us. The crowds then were mostly… ‘aficionados’. Lots of strange shirts, bandanas, rough looking types…
This crowd was ‘just folks’. I only saw one Harley t-shirt. There were people of all ages, from every walk of life. The disparity between then and now was stunning.

Interesting facts about the auditorium – Opening in 1950, it cost just $450,000. in community donated funds to build.
The lobby floor features the names of WWII battles radiating from a floor seal and there’s also a statue of a Vietnam War soldier, donated by the Gold Star Mothers in the mid 1970’s.

The Ten Commandments sit out front. It IS city property and atheist groups have tried to get it removed, but evidently someone has fought for them. I was surprised and pleased to see them.

This image is stock from around 1990, but they look the same today.

California suburbanites fresh to rural Texas in 1964, my folks rented an older place on the outskirts of a small town. Comprised of at least an acre of land with a pretty little creek meandering through the south side of the property, it turned out to be a magical playground for me.

Stables, run down yet still serviceable, stood behind the house. That fact alone was enough to excite the hell out of a seven year old girl whose prize possession was a Radio Flyer spring horse. Though my parents had their own reasons for relocating, when I was within earshot they told people we’d moved to Texas so I could have a horse and a collie just like Lassie.

It’s comforting to know that at least once in my life I knew what I wanted with some certainty.

Those stables were not to house my horse, but they fed the dream and I visited them with a frequency that can only be described as obsessive. A sweet, child sized playhouse sat mostly unused, as my interests did not lie in that direction.

Actually, there seemed a general sense of confusion related to my choice of activities at the stable and creek, but after gentle persuasion in the direction of the pretty little playhouse failed nobody bothered me about it again.
Dubbed a ‘tomboy’ and left to my own devices I filled the stable with pretend horses.

The two story house had a lovely, light filled kitchen with a cozy built in booth and a massive pecan tree in the front yard whose branches brushed my bedroom window on stormy nights. It took an hour to get to school on the bus and an hour back in the evenings, but I never wanted to leave. School was a distraction from the new-found delights of rural life.

After passing one winter there we did leave; my parents bought a house… if you can call it that. I hated it, but it had land and a barn and in time they added to the land. Mom didn’t care, but Dad loved the land. Loved owning it, working it, loved putting crops in and watching them grow, much like the calves, chicks and piglets. I didn’t learn my love of the life from him, it was already there. But he nursed it as I followed him around like a puppy. We fixed fence, fed the livestock, plowed, harvested, raked… you name it. And I was in Heaven, just a big ol’ donkey farm girl.

I got the horse; more than one. Though they tried, the collie didn’t work out… but I think I did all right on my own.

So why am I thinking about that first Texas house? Romanticizing it even. Well, my sister-in-law’s wealthy friend will give her a couple of horses if she has the place for them. Not just any nags, we’re talking about retired hunters. Gorgeous, winning horses put out to pasture in their prime because she’s ‘been there, done that’. I tell you I can smell the horse.

Not happening, not right now… probably not ever. But since she brought the subject up a couple of days ago, hinting that we could get a place with land together if Mike and I would only move back to Texas… My thoughts have wandered back to that house with the stables…

And all at once I’m seven again and the dream is alive.

When asked what he thought about the video of Marines urinating on dead terrorists, Congressman Allen West said:

“I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

“All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

“The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

“As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.”

Weekly Standard

Love.this.man. God willing, he will be president one day.

Click for a larger image...

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t discriminate against the foolish…

California has ever been regarded as an innovative new frontier, but Roger Hedgecock shines a big maglite into its oozing abscesses and the underlying disease: socialism.  It affects the rest of America to varying degrees, though they have a much more advanced case…

A peek into the future if obama wins re-election:

Read California's Not Dreamin' in its entirety.

Found this early today, most probably the work of the neighborhood raccoon family. I think they’re the only ones with enough strength to pull the bowl off its stem.

Just wish it hadn’t broken.

Just wish I could un-know the fact that Romney won New Hampshire, but that ain’t happening either.

Mike had never flown Spirit Airlines before, but the round trip Fort Lauderdale to Dallas ticket was cheap, so he took a chance. How bad could it be, really? One airline is much like another and all are overseen by government agencies.

How bad? They wouldn’t let him check in online and print out his boarding pass. Seems like a small thing, especially to those who don’t travel much. But that failure means more time and money; online check in, his bag would have been $20, but at the counter it was twice that.

I think their motto is “We supply the plane and the fuel”. That’s it.

Coming home last night was a nightmare. Mike dutifully showed at the counter around 2:00p for his 5:00p flight, but they reported the plane had ‘broken’, then said it had been delayed for 4 hours. They tried to book him on another flight, but no joy.
So he went to eat dinner [in the terminal] and came back. Everyone at the Spirit counter was gone. And his flight didn’t show on the board.

Although he’d just worked almost 40 hours overtime, Mike’s mood was good. He waited some more and asked questions, but nobody knew anything, obviously because they weren’t Spirit personnel. But he had a good time trying to wheedle his knife back from TSA.
I had to call customer service [the number is not on their website] to find out that the flight would take off, but 5 hours late. It turned out to be 7 hours late. No information over the loud speaker, no phone calls to waiting customers. Nada. They were basically in limbo for 7 hours with no information. The plane didn’t get in until after 3:00a. [Which may explain some of my crankiness.]

Never, ever again. Delays are expected, extremely poor customer service in such a competitive industry is not. And not tolerated.
On the bright side, they didn’t lose his luggage. Only reason they’re not getting an F-.

I had two hours of sleep before my SIL called to tell me that her site had been hacked, so the majority of the morning has been spent with that… but I’m not complaining; Mike’s home.

Well, it’s finally happened; I agree with Rachel Maddow about something.

Hell, he already signed NDAA; it’s law. He can detain anyone, even American citizens, for no reason at all. If you might be a threat sometime in the future, look out!

At 5:35:
“My administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime so that our efforts are consistent with our values and our constitution”.

A new ‘regime’ outside the courts, to imprison people indefinitely without charging them with a crime.