…to put in 6 tough yet rewarding years in the Navy, survive and overcome physically and mentally from a terrorist attack only to fall victim to the Girls Gone Wild bus?

That’s right, some time last week while driving through downtown, I miss the giant bus on its way to some club…Chip believes it went to Purgatory, I guess…the name sounds fitting.

Could you imagine the news headlines to that…I’d be the source of random comedy for the rest of my life.

…to never pull of a joke like that again!

It happened on April 1st. Ramon mentioned how it was April First and that we should get someone good. I just rolled my eyes. April Fool’s jokes…pleah.

As we had our breakfast breaks I thought about it and figured why not. I pulled out my phone and more or less wrote the message that I had reenlisted the week prior and had received orders to ship out to training before being deployed overseas. Nothing really big, I thought. I scrolled through my phone book and sent it to a good number of my friends and hit “Send.” I thought nothing of it as I wrapped up my breakfast and went on to work.

Throughout the course of the day I got bombarded by message replies. Parties and get-togethers were already being arranged by some people. Some buddies up in VA were already messaging everyone else of my pending arrival. The word was out, Chris was back in uniform and ready to KATN.

Feverishly, I began letting everyone know that it was a joke. In no way did I ever envision that it would be bought so well. It was nuts. Even got a phone call from Michelle, and well I’m glad I wasn’t in Virginia!

Heather yesterday told me that I should’ve stuck with the joke and went to all the parties. Wow, my head was reeling just imagining how deep underwater I would be if I ever did that. I may be tough, but all the collective masses putting their heads together to plan a come back makes me shudder. Even Heather flicking her scissors in my general direction temporarily put me on alert!

However, I did get two people calling me out right away. Moni and Agnes came on my phone and didn’t buy it! Well, I don’t have any prizes, lol… But yeah, I think that will be the last April Fool’s joke I’ll make in a while, lol.

Well, maybe karma did come back to me. I dropped the ball big time…I missed a massive opportunity as far as some tactical gear goes. One of my buddies, always looking out for me, came across a piece of kit I was looking at getting and at a deal that was just simply too good to pass up. He shot me a line yesterday and let me know what the deal was. I agreed I’d call him before noon the following day and let him know if the deal would be a go. Of course, that night I decided I would go for it.

Have I ever mentioned my memory sucks? Good. Suffice to say, Christine let me know of my grave error later on and I let the deal of the year slip past my fingers. You can ask Christine, I was verbally punching my face just about all day today!

Before I realized my mistake, we were at the Dallas Auto Show. I went previously on Saturday as well and checked it out with John and his wife, but had a tight schedule so I only got to see some highlights with them. Today, I went with the intention of covering the entire show with some thoroughness. My initial impression of the show was positive, being probably the best one that I’ve been to, and this was my third year. Stay tuned for pics and a video detailing my adventure!

Interesting was the fact that the Mesquite Police had a recruiting area in the Dallas Auto Show this year. Pretty neat. MySpacers will get to see my new profile pic of the MPD Fembot Tricycle. I know…that’s not what it really is called.

My top fives from the auto show this year are the Nissan GT-R, Audi R8, Dodge Challenger, Cadillac XLR-V and Chevrolet Corvette ZR1. Concept nod goes to the Jeep Trailhawk.

Then, while it was already planned ahead of time, going to the shooting range just seemed to make sense to vent my frustrations of missing out on the deal of the year. Thinking there may have been the chance that everything works out, I saved some money and bought a mere hundred rounds of ammo. Christine did the same…after standing around for about five minutes while the counter person left. To most, Christine still doesn’t have that look of the desire to shoot guns, lol!

After my frustrations and the fact that it was mid-afternoon, decided not to bother getting rifle ammo…wouldn’t have time for that anyways.

So to the pistol range we went. As we setup, we once again found the day’s “mouthers.” These mouthers are the guys that seem to like to hear them talk and usually do not have sufficient substance to complement said talk. It’s not just the fact that they’re talking, but also what they’re talking about and how they’re talking. I’m a good veteran of hearing these crowds over the years. Navy people can probably get a good example of this. It’s called your local VBSS team. I’m not throwing everyone VBSS under the bus, but let’s just say that my time on the Cole that there were more fingers on my one hand than there were members of our VBSS team that I felt genuine enough that they were competent enough AND I didn’t have to worry about. Statistically though…yeah.

We figured a good medium was the 15 yard range and we setup there. Turns out that one of the mouthers was in the military. He wasn’t so bad, though. Once he got to shooting he wasn’t talking much. Nonetheless, his 7 yard group was over twice the size of Christine’s 15 yard group…and she lost our contest and had to buy me ice cream!

Well, we didn’t really care. He was quiet and I was just bored and looking around and he was close enough I could see his target. Eventually, though, a group of guys showed up next to us and setup for the 15 yard line. Okay, now these went past the category of mouthers and they were now civy-VBSS. Lots and lots of talk and lots of oh check out my Rock River AR with Larue Rail, TangoDown foregrip and ACOG. Blah blah blah blah blah. I couldn’t even hear myself yelling at ME for missing the deal of the year!

I already told Christine they were going to suck at shooting. And they did. One guy started firing some good groups until I saw the profile of a 1911 in my peripheral. Sure enough, he picked up either a Glock or a Ruger that they brought and I was able to stand by my statement. We had setup some tactical targets which would be more forgiving for Christine as I refined a few tips to her and watched her accuracy go up…but she still had to buy me ice cream!

Buy now, the civy-VBSS team posted a new target that had multiple two-inch diameter Shoot-N-C’s scattered throughout. They couldn’t even hit a six inch circle earlier…

Shots were fired as they fired at every part of the paper’s surface, every part except the two inch circles. Everytime a round would hit they would comment, “Good shooting!” It’s only good if you consistently do it, otherwise it’s dumb luck. Then they remarked at how hard it was…see comment about six-inch target above. Then they made the comment, “Yeah, this is where a laser would come in handy…next time I’ll bring my laser.”

No…this is where all of you get off the lane, move over to the THREE yard lane with your six-inch target and start there and move up to the five, seven and so forth distances. You don’t make some electronic gizmo make up for your crappy handiwork. Remember a while back when I went with a couple of coworkers over to George’s Area 51 and did some shooting? I was tagging targets with open sights three times the distance that Alpha Team was with their RDS systems, they should’ve been able to hit it faster, more accurately and more consistently. Oh well…

Needless to say, Christine and I got our entertainment as her group was about 1/4 the size of our loud-talking neighbors and I had the group the size of an orange…so Christine would get me ice cream.

Earlier in the week, I had the opportunity to attend another drill from an LE officer who even got the opportunity to help train the Iraqis in firearms proficiency. There were eight of us in various modes of tacticalness, I suppose. To my surprise I believe I was the only person with a stock weapon. We did some drills with the pistol, and it appears that as far as experience level I was at the bottom rung. I was definitely not catching up with the lingo, stories of training were shared but I really had none to give out except my Navy times and other somewhat informal events like this, and I think I’m the only person that hasn’t done some form of competition.

That said, it appears I was ranking up there…only trailing behind an active shooter in training, competition and drills. I forgot what he did though, but he showed up with his own bullets that he loaded…that’s about all I remember. We ended up doing four competitions in the end. That guy one two, then I came up won a prize myself. The final competition, our lone participant with a 1911 had the upper hand over us and won first prize, with me coming in second and receiving a prize as well.

I take that as an accomplishment. I don’t want to be stuck up on myself but I don’t know what I did that made me valuable…truly…while I was in the Navy. I know it’s a mix of heart, attitude, logic and all this other fuzzy principles. I know my time in CAP and Police Explorers honed it some…but I said honed, not taught.

In a world of books, Internet forums, sites, magazines and here there everywhere and the seemingly endless “my gun and gear is blacker than yours” (and for those that are not tactically fluent, but are racially fluent, this is meaning the black gun, black gear, etc…so don’t give me your speeches and moans). I was here, welcome to learn. I said nothing and expected lots, and I received lots. The guy running the show challenged me. Most of the guys to my left and right were not talkers, mouthers or VBSS clones. I don’t spend a lot of time sitting around learning techniques and gear flavors of the week. It was important to do that in the Navy because third-class Firecontrolmen don’t know a single thing about ATFP, I was the most clueless idiot and I should never have a gun. Yup.

But now I’m out. Not saying I’m staying static, I need to evolve. But the need to follow the fads and spend money on “research” isn’t there anymore. Want to know my research? My research is about twenty minutes a day, in my head, while I eat lunch. I figure out the solution…THEN I will find (not research) to find the means to accomplish my solution.

Is this close minded? Most likely. But I am a civilian right now and that’s no excuse, except that it seems everyone’s buying into everyone else’s info, ranging (very rarely) to a pot of gold all the way to complete crap. That’s because nobody wants to figure it out anymore, let’s just Google it or go to our favorite forum and listen to what the 11-year old airsofter who has convinced us that he is an 80-year veteran and served in all military branches, all SOF units and even created a few that are stationed in the underwater island of Atlantis.

I think the tactical world is unfortunately being a big fad. Here’s the thing…look hard at yourself. Any tactical conversation you have…are your answers to questions really and truly yours…or are you just reflecting someone else’s. Sure there’s a time to relay (as skill and experience would offer)…but you’re missing the point. Is it really your answer?

Lastly, Glenn has emphasized this as well. To really be honest with yourself, you have to question everything. EVERYTHING. So is this technique or concept, you’ve been able to reinforce it for years and you are dead set on it. There are a lot of things that I have realized and am sure of…I still constantly question and evaluate. For a year or two, I made the mistake and got a little lazy of answering questions with answers that came from someone else and stayed with principles with very little thought. I’ve been trying to change that…strangely, I am getting much better. Don’t have to agree with it…but if everyone agreed, then no one is thinking.

So for my website’s blog, I think I can add the category of “Seanism” to this blog. Many Cole Sailors around my time frame will know Sean, so that’s really all that needs to be said. While Christine was posing one of her random (grotesque) medical questions, I…in the spirit of Stu’s skits…came up with my own random (slightly) medical questions:

In those shooting video games, if you shot a pregnant terrorist in the abdomen/crotch, would you receive a “Headshot” score?

It’s all relative…don’t take it literally…

But yeah, I guess not really the stereotypical face of a Sheepdog either, eh? Lol…

Happy Birthday to Christine! Though she realizes she doesn’t enjoy being a communist, lol! However, things couldn’t work out between work and other things…

Then this Saturday, in comes the messy (can you believe this is what they put on the US meteorological surface map for almost all of Texas…) weather that swept through southern Cali and most of Arizona and New Mexico. Despite the cold, windy and rainy Saturday, it was nothing to stop Christine for a grand moment…

(btw…the following pics you can click to see a little bigger…)

The Sheepdog with newer, better, fangs. You can understand all this Sheepdog talk by clicking here to see a rather old, but pretty important and profound, article…or be a sheep and ignore. Baa!
So off to the range it was, after getting some ammo (ugh, and prices went up a few days ago…with $18.42 being the latest for 100 rounds of WWB in 9mm…for comparison, I paid under $6 for the same box in the Navy, and about $12 last year) we made our way for the range in hopes that the bad weather would keep the number of shooters to a quiet minimum. If the ground was soggy, who cares…we’ll function check.

Upon arrival, the soil held up very well and we calmly put our targets up. We had another shooter in the lane next to us as we set up at the seven yard range. I know, some of you hardcore shooters are wondering what is up with that. Well, that distance is good enough for us to view and get feedback on our shots, we can’t bring our targets back in. Once they are set up, that’s it while the range is hot. Ultimately also, it’s raining…the less I’m walking on wet ground, the better! The three of us set up our targets, though my target was the only one that was Certified by Christopher™ installed.

The range was called hot and we proceeded to begin loading. Because of the sudden increase in price, we didn’t buy as much ammo as we liked. Therefore, I was going to keep my shooting to a minimum while Christine would maximize as many rounds fired as possible to contribute to the function testing of her new weapon. I had just gotten a new set of magazines and wanted to put at least two full charges through and figured I’d do the first series through my pistol, then get the second run through Christine’s. As we loaded, I noted that Christine was having a jolly hard time trying to load the rounds in the mag. It would be easy at first until the capacity was near its limits. I know of several pistols where it would be near impossible for her to load to full capacity.

Well, I wasn’t going to wait…we had less than two hours to fire what we could before she had to go to work. Loaded up, I went ahead and commenced a rapid and almost continuous stream of fire. Not trying to be accurate or anything, just didn’t want my shots to go in the white…that’s all that mattered to me. Then a mag change and on to the next magazine. Same drill and in less than a minute, my slide locked back and I dropped my empty mag. All rounds fired, no issues, bore clear, no apparent casualties…no shots in the white, I don’t have to buy Christine any ice cream!

So I look over at Christine…she’s still trying to load her two mags! I just smile and lightly tease as I grab a fingerful of ammo and begin loading up the mags again. At the point near finishing loading the mags, she tells me she has one more round left, I tell her to hurry because I’m gonna beat her…with four rounds remaining in my hand. She goes off and at any point in time I expect her to relax from her tensed state and declare herself loaded up! Three rounds in my hand… two rounds… one round…

“HA!” I yell as I slam my final loaded mag on her table. I win! In the span it took her to load two mags, I had loaded my two mags, then fired both of them, and loaded them again, finally grabbing my camera to snap a picture!

Well, can’t say she was done since I took the last round and loaded it. Commence gloatfest!

She then got situated and commenced her string of fire of my two mags. It is apparent, these new pistols…especially when you didn’t really give them a cleaning beforehand. Shortly after walking off with her purchase we did a quick stripdown and put some lube in some key areas and now have it running…in the cold, wet and dusty range. The gritty trigger was pretty apparent and it showed in her marksmanship (my target’s on the left, hers is on the right).

While it needs more testing, my mags passed their initial tests and will be tested once more later before I have them deemed serviceable.

The rain was falling and the wind was blowing. Our fellow shooter’s targets was the first to go. Being soggy, wet and blown by wind, his target broke off from some of his pins. A few minutes later, the same happened for Christine and her target fell. She fired up the target as it was with her remaining mag and I offered her my target, still standing. Wet, soggy, yet undaunted thanks to Certified by Christopher™ target installation!

Yes, my rounds were still on my target, but I had none on the white. That’s all that mattered.

Christine fired her next magazine…

…oh boy, I’m getting lots of ice cream, lol!

(yes, she’s now using my target on the left, still standing!)

We had to call the range cold to allow two new shooters to set up their targets and Christine and I relaxed while the other fellow went up to put up a new target. He lined his new target with pins all over the place. Pssh, I didn’t need that, ha ha!

We did chat a little, however, while waiting for the range to get hot. He offered us some of his targets, but that’s okay I said. He said Christine had already shot off most of the target, and yes she did. With the exception of a few rounds, a large ragged hole about the size of my fist now appeared in the center of the target. At this point in time, even I was a little impressed my target was still standing. I didn’t mention it earlier, but we did our best to save time. I loaded up the rounds as Christine passed empty mags to me and I loaded them up, making note of the two mags and making sure equal rounds were fired…which only counted near the end, as the rest of the time they were completely loaded.

The range was called hot and Christine continued her firing test as I continued to load. Eventually, our shooting neighbor packed up and headed out with one last query as to whether we wanted his extra targets. To be honest, I wanted to be gone by the time the next cease fire came up…we had about an hour and fifteen minutes till Christine had to work.

About five minutes later, two other guys showed up and just kind of hung around while waiting for the cease fire. Naturally, between small talk, a couple of glances to look at Christine shoot. Then it was done, the boxes were empty. Christine has fire a little under 300 rounds through her new weapon. All rounds fired, one failure for slide lock on empty mag (never came back so we’ll surmise her thumb was on the slide lock), bore clear, no apparent casualties.

With that, we did a rudimentary wipedown and cleaned up on our lane, then took one last glance at the still standing target before we headed out.

The rest of the day, and weekend, was full of unexpected and crazy moments. Mainly on the road as people tried ramming Christine, or even running me off the highway. Got to see Melissa’s new place, pretty nice. Also had a pleasant surprise in Tony’s new change of work schedule and got to enjoy a silly bout at dinner, the three of us.

But now…time to work. It’s been pretty crazy last week…what will this week bring? I still need to catch up on some parts for blogs. The new features I want to implement on my site…I’ll probably hold off for a few weeks and do a basic update in the upcoming days for now. But hey, who’s really looking anyways, lol.

Borrowing from a phrase so well known in Texas and now putting the proper application… “Don’t Mess With Christina!”

So yesterday’s drive into Silent Hill was just flat out amusing. I barely left the physical metroplex (which to me is the ring of highways surrounding the Dallas/Fort Worth area…in this case, it’s I-20) when I noticed the sky getting darker and darker. By the time I hit Ennis, a dark bluish gray misty fog was in play and it was pretty much like that for my entire trip. As I made my exit and arrived to my destination, I started getting some crackling radio feedback. I did my drop off and headed back, arriving back on I-45 with patches of clouds and a sunny blue sky. How amusing.

So last weekend was the confirmation round. Confirmation round is pretty much done and moving on now to acquisition phase.

So I decided that perhaps I’d TRY to at least eat a little “better” (more green sunshine for my belly…ugh…) before the onslaught of Thanksgiving and then Christmas down the line. Then I get a call from Wayne while I’m driving to and from Silent Hill. Our favorite Whataburger is back…

…after so much waiting and enduring other limited menu pieces that we didn’t really care for, our A1 Thick and Hearty Burger is back! Oh well, I guess I’ll be acclimated to being a Fat Fat Fattie by the time the turkey gets tossed in the oven!

Since that page is a general special page, if you hit the above link and it shows something else…no more A1 Burger for you!

Ah, and Christine would make a GREAT AC-130 gunner. Though it goes to show that even between the two of us, our methodology of fighting can differ a little bit.

Strange studies…did you see the study that women with bigger hips are probably brighter and have a higher chance of giving birth to smarter kids? Or how about while here in Texas the women look good, but Dallas is rated to have the ugliest women in the state? How do they come up with this stuff? Though as far as vanity goes, Texas is the lowest in custom license plates (1%) while Virginia is the highest (16%). This brought a laugh from Chip, a certain Family Cruise visit easily proved it. I remember when we were even going through the airport parking lot how everyone was commenting on the various license plates. Then there’s the study that shows a stronger bond and esprit de corps in the workplace with a higher amount of swearing…well, I did have generally a great group of people and great experience in the Navy, ha ha!

…well, okay not really. But last Friday, I was doing a pickup run for work. The location was Jewett, TX, which was about two to three hours one way to get from my company to the destination. I also had to do a shipping run in the Fort Worth area beforehand…so little did I know this was going to occupy virtually all of my workday on Friday.

When they say getting there is half the fun, for me…it was most of the “fun.” Once again, I faced the relentless evil of the growing stupidity of drivers in this state. It’s not because Texans are getting dumber…but our major cities are growing, I know the metroplex is growing as well. I get slower and slower on the highway during my commute…I leave earlier for work, yet do not arrive any earlier. The past two weeks I’ve come to a complete and full stop at least once in the highway during both commutes. So, like Virginia Beach receiving an influx of people due to the military and having horrible drivers in general, so the same is happening here amongst other factors.

I have also started to notice that at least every other day I will encounter a vehicle that is behind me with their high-beam lights on. HEY! There’s street lights all over I-30 between Dallas and Mesquite, there’s lights from buildings on either side of the highway, we are jampacked with cars that have their lights on and we’re often barely going above 40 miles per hour. There is absolutely no reason why you should have your high-beams on in the first place. Believe me, I know when they’re on or if they’re just crummy headlights. Too bad for an unlucky set of you who have been blinded back by me…I happen to carry a fairly bright flashlight (and you’d better believe that you’re convincing me to get one even brighter…) because I’m tired of having to wear my sunglasses when the sun isn’t even over the horizon!

So…have you noticed how I almost always digress on every blog post, lol! So anyways, let’s just say that getting there was all the fun…trust me! So now I arrive there. I’ve never been there before and it’s a giant steel plant of some sort. Security tells me I’m supposed to meet the person who is going to load my flatbed up at a certain location and gives me directions, which I dutifully follow. As I’m coming up to where I’m supposed to go, I take in the sights…very industrial, which is to be expected. As I’m going up a shallow dirt hill, I see train tracks with several open top cars on the rails. They are piled with rusted pieces of steel pipe sections of varying geometry. Between myself and the cars stretch a pile of these rusted steel pipe pieces. Two small cranes are up near the cars and are pulling several pieces of steel out of the car, swiveling over the pile and dropping them. One crane grabs first and lifts as the second crane grabs, yet they somehow drop the pipes at the same time. So you have two quick crunching noises followed by a long crash. It seemed like a slow version of an ambient Silent Hill soundtrack. As I drove by, they seemed oblivious of my presence as they dumped more steel on the pile when I came alongside them. I watched as several pieces rolled my way before coming to a stop less than five feet away. I started wondering about liability but by then I passed them by as they continued the Silent Hill track.

While this is going on, I look to my right and see a square man-made pond with water. Suspended above it was several angles of piping in various angles, at certain points they had a sprinkler nozzle that misted water over the pond. I have no clue what that’s for, but just helped bring more bizarreness to my current situational awareness.

I drove around and finally found who I was supposed to meet. He and everyone else I saw looked weary, tired and hunched over. Almost completely coated in something that looked like dust. He told me he would get the parts and went into the dark warehouse. As I waited, I caught sight of various particles floating by. I could not tell if it was dust, ash or light mists of water. I looked back over to the pond and saw that between it and myself was a large houselike building with what appeared to be an exhaust on its roof. It looked like one of the exhaust nozzles for the Space Shuttle. I cannot tell if I was getting soot from the exhaust or if misty water was blowing from the pond. But the cranes were continuing with their Silent Hill beat.

We loaded up some blades and went around to see if I could load one more crate of blades. As the dusty creepy guy stumbled off, I thought of how weird a place I was in.

Then I heard the siren…the same (well, slightly higher pitched) siren in all the Silent Hills that slightly gave me a chill. What was going on?!? My friend came out and said the crate was too big so I was good with what I already loaded in the truck. I asked about the siren and he said it was for their overhead crane that was moving in the warehouse. When I told him it was like an air-raid siren he just teased that I had been in Dallas too long. Well, in my years of industrial environments both during and after the Navy, cranes either beeped or rang a bell, not an air-raid siren. And air-raid sirens sounded exactly like they do. With that done…I headed back.

Monday, I had to go back to retrieve the second crate…the experience was still the same, though!

Saturday was another easy day, though while I was at where Tony worked I ran into him (though I was trying real hard not to shadow him in a Red Cell type mode)…so I small talked with him here and there, though he had to go through different floors and I used an elevator to meet him. Though going to the elevator every time meant I met and chatted with various women on the elevator. Must be super shopping spree day last Saturday…Tony just shook his head when I came out while still in conversation.

Sunday, Christine and I hit up the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens, well specifically just the Japanese Gardens. I found out that there was a Japanese Fall Festival during the weekend, though Christine had to work on Saturday. We weren’t so sure of the schedule and actually arrived their early. That was good though, as we were able to take our time and explore most of the Japanese Garden. It was fairly nice, though it was still very green from the summer…but some plants were starting to get into Fall Mode.

This was one of those days I wished it was cloudy. The Garden was cool and sunny, though the trees cast strong shadows. It was going to be tough for me and my picture taking. I think I managed to pull off some decent shots.

Talk about a world of compromise. We wanted to check out some activities, the one we were conflicting for was the Japanese tea ceremony. However, the ceremony was three hours long and in viewing it, we would miss several other things happening throughout the garden. Ugh…oh well. Something to look forward to next time.

Mainly, we checked out the Japanese swordsmanship exhibit, where Christine could witness a newspaper photographer switching her camera mode into Machine Gun mode when taking action photos. Thanks to firearms training, I did not have to do that…nor was my camera capable of firing off that many frames per second. After looking around, we went to check out a Karate demonstration which was fairly typical, though as far as a motivational show and quality of students it looked fairly good. I’ve seen various demonstrations in different festivals, some good and some bad. Their presentation was good.

Following that was some American Ninjitsu demonstration which was…interesting. No real show going on, straight and basic demonstration, though I think they were able to redeem themselves as one of their students was a Hispanic girl who was aged somewhere between 6-10, my guess. She also had her younger brother there demonstrating, as well as to be used as her punching bag, lol. Though in the end, I liked their show of technique vs. the flashy throw baby powder at the crowd show in a previous festival that had Christine and I tearing up in laughter. It just wasn’t much of a show.

Afterwards was some Japanese dancing of some sort. I have no clue what it is, but for all matters Japanese and Korean, Christine will know…so once I remember to ask her I’ll figure out what it is. To me, it seems like your stereotypical Japanese female dance, umbrellas, fans and all. This consisted of a group of girls that were part of an exchange program, either high school or college…though their dance wasn’t what I mentioned above. It looked like para para dancing, but for moving in a parade, and not to Eurobeat. The other group that was the highlight of the show were three almost elderly Japanese women and a fourth lady, American, and probably in her mid to upper 20s and she actually did a surprisingly good job.

Afterwards, it was the Dondoku taiko group based in Fort Worth. It was here that I realized something new with my camera. My latest lens mounted on my camera has VR (Virbration Reduction) which, obviously, uses more battery power. I just didn’t know how much until I realized that my battery was low enough my camera’s shutter no longer worked. Thankfully we brought my standby Sony camera and the taiko drummers weren’t so dynamic enough, and the sun was bright anyway, that the Sony had no problem taking the final set of pictures of the day.

Afterwards, we found and tried a Chinese buffet in Arlington that Wayne told me about that he really liked. While not the best I’ve tried around here, it is in the top five and will be a place I consider returning to the next time I’m in the area. Wayne asked if I saw…but I forgot…

…though earlier this week I finally got to see. The first arch completed that will be one of two arches that will support the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium. It’s big…I’ll get some pictures hopefully soon.

Some have asked me my thoughts about Maximum Tune 3…guess you saw the picture in my previous blog. If you’re completely new to the Maximum Tune experience you’ll probably like it. If you have experience (at least completed the game), eh… Not saying it’s bad, but for me it’s not compelling. I’m not an arcade zealot and with the precious hours I have for my weekend, it’s not that compelling for me to play it. Will I play it more? Yes. It’s currently the only racing game in my life that I do halfway decent in (besides, in a race between Dylan and myself, Dylan won…see? Told you I sucked!).

But the most impressive thing for me is just the soundtrack. Yuzo Koshiro had a challenge to up the ante after doing a good job with the previous two arcade soundtracks. He did good here as well. Graphics? They’re cleaner (read, more cartoony…though not in a bad way)…you’ll be disappointed if you’re expecting realism. There are revisions on the map as far as where you can race, different obstacles and a slightly different way of navigation. The thing I don’t like is night doesn’t look like night anymore…it’s not dark. Not in the city, not on the mountainside of Hakone. I don’t like that…that is my current and genuine gripe with this installment.

If you’re a bling zealot (must have your name on every row of the high score, must have an aura that sends flames shooting out of the machines, and need stars bigger than the giant Nazi medal Major Koenig was awarded) then this is your game. It has some Ghost Mode and all. The story is more or less unchanged, just the order of things is a little different. For someone who has played the second game and has successfully finished it a few times and have come upon the limit of my racer gaming skills, this third version…while very good…doesn’t really do anything for me. I will play and get a few things here and there…but I’m looking for a new game.

Besides, who needs games like Initial D or Maximum Tune…they don’t hold a candle to this…

Or even this…

Now that’s cool, and there’s no virtual satisfaction there! All real!

Anyways, this got long again! Oh, you wanna see the Japanese Festival pics, they’re on my Picasa page now and will be on my site when it gets updated in a week or two!