Majcher.com

I was reading the lonely planet guide to Texas last night, and came across the section explaining the Texan (and American) views on firearms to foreign travelers. As you might expect, they're all for 'em. Of particular note was the story about the Luby's cafeteria incident, and how laws were changed afterwards to allow more citizens to carry concealed weapons. One story of note is that of a woman who watched her mother and father get gunned down in front of her. She usually carried a handgun in her purse (illegally), but left it in the car that day. She became very vocal afterwards about being able to carry concealed, as she believed that if she had her weapon, her parents would still be alive today. Apparently, a lot of Texans felt the same way. Their response to a mass shooting: give people more guns! Wooo! I can tell I'm going to like this state already.

I was thinking of this just now, because of a funny little thing that happened. I'm sitting here, working away on HTML/XSL stuff. I take a little break to do some dry-fire practice with my revolver. Take out the hollowpoints, put in the snap-caps, and try to work out that little twitch to the left I still get sometimes. The doorbell rings. I figure it's just my usual UPS guy with more presents from Amazon, so I jump up, shove the revolver in my pocket, and buzz him in. It's not the UPS guy, just some guy in business casual that I don't recognize, holding a clipboard, with no identifying marks. He nods to me, says, "Hi, I'm Phil," and tries to walk past me, into the apartment.

Uh, no.

We finally get it straightened out that he's from Bekins movers, and he was scheduled to come over and look at our stuff and give us an estimate for how much it would cost to pack up all our junk and ship it to Austin. We decided to go with another solution, but apparently, the Bekins guy didn't get the cancellation notice or something, and showed up anyway. It all turned out just fine, but it was a little weird there for a minute while I was calling Bernie to verify the appointment and cancellation with one hand, with my other hand in my pocket. So, just for future reference, guys: tell people exactly who you are, where you're from, and what you're doing, and maybe even show some ID before strolling into someone's house. The next guy may not be as reasonable and composed as I was. (To those of you who know me, and are snickering right now: shut up!)

Okay, back to the XSL.