Two years ago today, my friend Gay_Cynic died.

In February of 2016, Gay_Cynic came to Texas for a visit, and many friends gathered and we had a grand time. He had a wonderful visit and we hoped for a many tomorrows together, hoped for a medical miracle, but mostly, we savored precious time together with dear ones. Gone too soon, and sorely missed. R.I.P., Ray.

A word of recognition and thanks to Law Enforcement Officers

No one ever calls up 9-1-1 to say they are having a good day.

Think about that. The very nature of the emergent situations wherein law enforcement officers are called include the very worst and most tragic events that happen in our society. These situations are often not only the aftermath of a violent situation, but also frequently involve mortal peril for the responders themselves.

Our entire society is indebted to the folks who wear the uniform and who act for the protection of all of the community. LEOs will probably never tell you the horrors they have seen, or of the sheer heartbreak of senseless destruction they have witnessed. Trust me when I say that you don't want to hear these stories. Simply take for granted that despite the awfulness, that woman or man in uniform put on their belt and their badge the next day, and bravely fulfilled their vow to protect and to serve despite what they'd seen the previous day. We are in their debt.

Rodeo Velociraptor in Decatur

There's a neat art studio on one of the main drags in Decatur, just a few doors down from Sweetie Pie's Ribeyes. We stopped there on the way to Dallas last week to grab a chicken-fried ribeye sandwich, and we noticed this fabulous wall art in back of the studio. I love how the arm is 3-D and wraps in front of the pipe. Seems like he'd be pretty hard to saddle, actually!

When something doesn't quite sound right...

Remember a few years back when a news story made a splash about a family leaving a nasty-gram on their credit card receipt to the non-heterosexual person who served them in the restaurant? The story went viral, and a huge go-fund-me campaign raised many thousands of dollars for that waiter who was deemed a victim. The problem was that the family whose credit slip was bandied about the news had kept their own copy of their credit slip, and they did not, in fact, write the nasty message at all. It turned out that the waiter had written the disparaging remarks herself.

Welp. When I read the story in the Dallas Morning News on Saturday that some NRA attendees had been in Ellen's Cafe in Dallas and made vile, racist comments about the waitstaff and kitchen help, I thought immediately that this sounded wrong. I've been to NRAAMs before, and I know these crowds to be the most civil, courteous, and orderly crowds I've ever seen, so it rang false for me that someone went to the trouble of coming to Dallas for the NRAAM, only to be abusive of staff in a local restaurant. In fact, when I attended NRAAM in St. Louis in 2012, some of the custodial staff for the St. Louis facility told one of my party that they loved the crowd of this convention, because things were not torn up, and we didn't leave a lot of garbage behind. They specifically mentioned that we were the only crowd that didn't leave random beer bottles of urine around the place. So, yes, when the people who do the nitty-gritty of maintenance and clean-up after an event say that your crowd is good people, you can rest assured they are not embroidering on the truth.

In short: I didn't believe the restaurateur's claim that NRA members came in to his business speaking loudly and in offensive terms. It sounded made up to me, but I was also open to the possibility that there are outliers who are the bad eggs in the bunch of the NRA crowd. Something can be A truth about a member of a group that is not THE truth of all members of that group. Turns out that the owner of the cafe telegraphed his intentions more than a month before the convention. Even so, I do hope that no one attending the convention would have said the things he claims they did.

I won't be going to that restaurant, ever. I wish no ill upon the owner, Joe Groves, honestly. I think the best hope for American society is for people to learn how to get along, and I think this man has probably been dealing with a raft of blood-pressure-spiking stress for the past 48 hours and for the foreseeable future. I hope he learns a lesson. I am not piling on, here, and I hope that no one will read this post and go heap  more scorn on someone, even if they have earned some contempt. My greater point is that people need to be held accountable so they can recognize when they have been wrong, but there needs to be a resolution that is not merely his opponent caving in. He needs to do some serious soul-searching and realize that he made his own problem, and that maybe, just maybe, the NRA members are humans, too, who deserve to live life as they see fit, and that everyone doesn't have to agree on every little detail.

He has no business dictating the diminution of rights to which I am Constitutionally guaranteed. He and others who share his view that his deception was justified need to grow up and realize that other people have rights and valid reasons for their own points of view. I also celebrate his right to his own viewpoints, up until the point that he knowingly disparages a person or group of people to make political points. Then again, maybe he would prefer the type of patron who leaves beer bottles of urine on the premises of his business. It's a free county.

Made it to the NRAAM!

Parking was astonishing, to say the least, but we are here, happily. The crowd is massive, but this convention center seems much larger than those in Houston and St. Louis. I expected the street to be thronging with protesters, but I have only seen one with an anti-Trump shirt. I'm going to head out onto the floor and will post more updates in a bit.

For the record, this crowd is consistent with my past observation that the crowds at NRA Annual Meetings are the most polite, orderly, and calm groups of people you will see in any large venue. A large crowd is not a pleasant thing, generally, but this group is not so unpleasant as most crowds a fraction this side.

A happy reunion, and other musings.

It was great to gather with friends for a reunion meal last night in Dallas. We drank deep draughts from the meat faucet that is Texas de Brazil, whose food and staff were impeccable. It was great to see old friends, and to make some new ones. :) The parmesan chicken is as wonderful as I remember it to be, as is the wonderful picanha, which is technically top sirloin, I believe. After an appropriate cooling off period, I will look forward to my next visit to TdB!

In several hours, we will mosey over to the NRAAM, where I'll post some photos. We got to town too late to really go to the con yesterday, but it was exciting to see hundreds of motorcycle police from the motorcade near Love Field in town. 

I saw some clips online of Trump's speech at the NRAAM, and I hope he follows through with his commitment to preserve the Second Amendment. 

I am curious about the protest cohort that will be out and about tomorrow near the convention. I saw photos on FB of one sparsely-attended protest with signs that read "Nut-job Racist Assholes", "33,000 violence gun deaths/year",  and "21st Century Guns/ 18th Century Laws", among others. Winning hearts and minds, right? Considering about 12,000 of those gun deaths were law-abiding citizens protecting their own lives from attackers, it's not really rational to claim those deaths as random "gun violence", is it? I'd like to question the young lady whether she believes "18th Century Laws" on freedom of speech apply to what she says on the internet, which is a 20th century development. Finally, there might be some hideous racists who are members of NRA, but I am not aware of any, happily. Likewise, there are probably some vehemently racist people who are anti-gun, too. Something can be A truth without being THE truth, is my point. As for hate, the thing I hate most is the arrogance of someone who uses some extreme (or made-up) example as an excuse to why they should be allowed to impose on my Constitutionally-guaranteed rights. And the question of the killing of innocents really comes down to the flawed human heart-- the means by which murder is committed does not make one murder more heinous than another-- the murderer is culpable. The people killed in the bombing attacks in Austin, or killed by vans or trucks in Canada and Europe, or killed by the 9/11 attackers are not less dead because they weren't killed with guns. People being murdered by knife attack in London these days are not less dead than other dead people, and outlawing every bladed instrument on earth will not stop murder. The strict gun laws of France did not save the people murdered in the offices of Charlie Hebdo or the concert-goers in club Bataclan in Paris. People need to recognize the distinction.

Bittersweet.

Twenty three months ago on May 29, 2016, my friend Ray died. Many people knew him as the blogger Gay_Cynic, and he was a dear friend to me and many others in my blogger community for nearly a decade. Ray was a tireless advocate for a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of the Second Amendment, and in addition to whatever other blogger gatherings our group could muster, we also met at the St. Louis and Houston NRAAMs. For the Houston NRAAM, Ray and I organized a gathering that was very well attended by many fine folk. 

One thing Ray and I were fond of doing was casting forward to think of how we would throw a big grand party for friends attending the NRAAM in Dallas, which happens this weekend. Rather than brood on the party that might have been, I have kept my head in my studies and tried not to think about it too much. But I know that he will be on my mind a great deal this weekend. He would have loved the fact that both the POTUS and Veep will be attending. He would have loved the dickens out of interacting with protesters, as he did to great comic effect at the Houston con. 

I know there will be a thousand instants when you will flash through my mind this weekend, Ray. I miss you. It won't be such a great party without you, but we'll muddle on as best we can. 

Another semester nearly done.

I attend two classes tomorrow, then take a final literature exam Tuesday and do a presentation of my research paper in my rhetoric class on Thursday week, so I am nearly done. I have a tremendous amount of writing to finish. As usually happens when I should be writing, I get a spectacular amount of laundry done, dishes clean, etc. It's amazing how my industrial energy can be diverted from a task at hand. In any case, all shall be completed in eight days, and none too soon.

I will consider that I have roughly ten weeks off, as the last month before the Fall semester will be consumed with preparation for the English Composition classes I will teach this semester. I plan to get a lot of organization done on my house, and to get a great deal of gardening done. This is going to be a great summer. :)

But enough rambling: back to my writing!

Favorite scene

I love the dickens out of Arya Stark, and this scene of her sparring with Brienne of Tarth is fantastic.

Someone had a little fun with the addition of light saber effect:

Then there's the bit where they rehearse:

Fun!