Friday, July 24, 2015

The ATF RETURNS! Again...

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Friday, July 17, 2015

Church Camp... No ATF

Sorry kids...  takin' a bunch of kids to church camp this weekend.  I'll be gone till monday.  Y'all are on your own.

Sip something for me.  I'll be detoxing...  involuntarily.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Ilkmoot: After Action Report - Part II

PuppyPalooza was a great time...  but at long last I looked at my watch and realized it was 8:40 and the ATF show was supposed to kick off at 9.   Over the next 10 minutes we tried to figure out who was going where with whom... and eventually a bunch of guys piled into my truck and we bailed for Bastrop. 

I dropped larry off at the house...  or... tried too...  Larry had locked himself out of his house...  somehow.  And that sucked... because all of our fantastic booze was in there.   So now me and Clint have to drive out back to the hotel dry... and try to do the ATF show... dry.

I made it to the room late... called up Six... and he didn't answer the phone so I punted.. and just tried to do the show myself.  There was no hype or even announcement of the show so I doubt very many of you heard it live.  Those of you who did... did.  Anyway Clint realized I was doing the show with no booze... and he was deeply offended by this... so he went out and grabbed a case of Shiner Bock.  God Bless him.    We bullshitted for a while on air... and the door to my hotel room gets thrown open.. and in bursts the boys... with Marrku in tow.  

I killed the show as fast as I could... ran over gave Marrku a huge hug...  which... he was clearly prepared for  because he was not at all uncomfortable.   I was deeply disappointed by this. 

It was drinking and merriment in the room for the next several hours...   I know at one point Josh... a very polite and reserved young man of 25...  was looking at the label on my Knob Creek Barrel Strength Bourbon...   120 proof.

He pours himself a couple fingers.. and takes a drink like its no big deal at all.

Then he nearly explodes.   Face turns red...  eyes clamp down...  I thought the kid was gonna die.

He realized I saw this and he deadpanned "I thought it was gonna come out my nose."

Kid had misread the label.. he thought it said 20 proof.   Just totally ignored that 1 in the hundreds position.   Well... Lesson learned eh? anway we stayed up bullshitting and drinking until at some point we realized Marrku was gone.   Clint was sitting on the foot of the bed... but he was glassy eyed...  no one was home.   We figured it was time to pack it up... and started moving people to the door when I looked down at the bathroom door and see a black socked foot on the floor in the doorway.  We found Marrku inside.   Pictures were taken.

Me and Larry and Matthew got Marrku to bed...  I remember finding a trashcan somewhere to put by the bed...  just in case.   the boys all headed to bed... and I crashed too.

We slepted until about 10...  both Marrku and I were kind of half ass awake...  and I suggested he jump in the shower.  He thought that was an excellent idea... since he really wanted to wash the detroit off...

At some point I got out of bed and walked across the room... and I realized that was a spectacularly bad idea...  so I went right back to bed.

Eventually we got our shit together enough to be mobile... and we decided we needed to get some damn coffee.  I ended up driving right back to that same tex-mex place.. where we proceeded to stuff ourselves on coffee, fajitas, and yep..  Marrku had a beer.

Marrku dug the mexican food.  I had to point out that the next time he started thinking about how fat americans are... he should remember that we have this kind of food available... all the time.  any time we want it.

You'd be fat too.

Now... I know this is taking a while...  but I am a busy guy these days...  so you'll just have to wait.   Because we pick up next at Larry's place...  and then its off to the shooting range.  But all of that...

Is in Part III.

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Ilkmoot: After Action Report

I rolled into Bastrop, TX friday morning...   I had pushed it.  I doubted the hotel would have my room ready at 11am but I decided to stop by and check.  Sure enough the room was ready and I was able to check in.  I was still dressed for driving... meaning I was wearing sloppy beat up cargo shorts...  a t-shirt of some form or another... and generally looked like crap.  It took a few trips to get all the stuff up to the room...  because I had to setup for the ATF show later that night so I had a little more stuff with me than I normally would.

I had just gotten the laptop setup and was checking the internet connection when the hotel phone rang.  Why the hell would the hotel phone ring?  Irritated...  I walked over and grabbed it.

"yeah?"

"Ummmm  this is the front desk...  ...  you have a lot of... guests down here."

oh for fucks sake...

"ok...  I'll be right down."

I grabbed the room key and headed downstairs.  Sure enough... the ambush team was there in the lobby.  I recognized my assailants instantly.  Difster and Clint stand out. I don't remember a lot about this ambush... other than the fact that I am certain I gave someone a hug.  There were several of them there... and I hadn't noticed it at the time but Difster's young son was there to...  which was an awkward realization after I had dropped a few f-bombs and questioned everyone's sexual preferences in various ways.

Apparently they were kidnapping me for lunch.  That was fine with me but I wasn't ready for that quite yet.  I had left a bunch of stuff up in the room.   I headed back up...  changed... strapped on the Steyr as always... and headed back down. 

We went off to a little tex-mex steak place that was near by.  No one had eaten there before... which was bizarre to me.  Difster doesn't eat out much?  Apparently he prefers to eat his mexican at home.   Things were comfortable though...  it was like meeting old friends.  The only really strange moment was when the waitress came for our drink orders... and Clint ordered un-sweet tea like some God Hating Communist...  everyone ordered something like... sweet tea or water with lemon or some crap.  I felt like I was out to lunch with my wife's friends.  I looked at them like they were all insane and got a beer.  What the hell is wrong with you people?
 Then things got worse.. as the guys looked through their menus trying to decide what to order.  This was greatly confusing to me.  The steak page was fairly easy to find and it just doesn't take that long to decide between sirloin or ribeye or t-bone.  And yet... here they were...  thumbing though like they were lost.

While I took this as a bad omen everything worked out ok...  even though Difster ordered his steak burned. I was taken aback by this at first but when I remembered he arrived in Texas via California and Minnesota it made more sense.  Everything was excellent... even though it was more than a little awkward when Clint order Tofu.

It turned out to be an excellent meal... improved by the fact that I was able to put Clint on the spot by asking him to bless it.   To my dismay he handled the prayer with grace enthusiam and class...

dammit.

Finishing up there is was time to ride down to Larry's place.  The ride was plenty comfortable as Larry's little boy was peppering me with questions and tales from Minecraft and Five Nights at Freddies.   Given that I have 3 boys between the ages of 8 and 12 I am used to that.  Once at Larrys I got to meet his lovely wife and we just hung out for a while until Auto_Matthew showed up.  He's not at all what you would expect.   Imagine a 6'1" 150 pound red neck Charlie Brown.   He looks like he's about 20... but he's not.

Not long after Matthew arrived Zack pulled out this board game he invented and was currently trying to market. He spent the next 45 minutes explaining the rules to us... which are about as simple as nuclear physics... and then reminded us that his was the most simple version of the game.

We played the game.. which had something to do with Gods and Empowerment cards... and... I realized if we didn't stop playing soon we'd all revert back to virgins.  Thankfully before that happened I looked up at the clock and realized it was time to head to the airport to pick up the Mad Fin... Marrku... his own self.

We split up... me and larry heading to the airport...  the rest of the guys heading to The Mean Eyed Cat for Puppypalooza.    Oh the way...  Larry got a text from Marrku:

"I am in the shit.  Plane broke.  Stuck in detroit."

Well that certainly had to suck.  After some quick googling around Larry found that the plane wouldn't be landing to much much later... so we turned around and headed for the Mean Eyed Cat.   about 10 of the ilk were already standing around in the patio area when we got there... and we basically showed up and took the place over.

Puppypalooza was a blast.  Farmer Tom and his wife showed up... STG...  DeanHall and Lulabell showed up and kept it from being a total pickle party.  I couldn't even begin to name everyone that showed up there.  I counted over 30 at one point.  We got to meet a lot of folks from the blog world...  but the best thing was the three lurkers that showed up.   One was a Shannon...  and she'd been lurking at Vox's for a long... long time.  She knew all of us and knew all the old stories and was a real kick to have around...  but the other two lurkers...  they sort of showed up and said hi...  told us they were lurkers...  and then...  well...  They lurked.  They basically sat at a table and really didn't talk to anyone unless someone forced them to.

yep... you read that right.

We had real life lurkers.

A great time was had but it passed far to quickly.  I realized I had to get back to fire up the ATF show.. and someone was gonna have to get to the airport to get Marrku.

To Be Continued...

Friday, July 10, 2015

ATF: PUPPYPALOOZA!!!

Ok kids... we're running a little late due to technical difficulties.  Sorry... we're gonna kick it off at 930 central or so...

As for the weekend's kickoff events... they have been spectacular. I didn't count everyone that showed up or came through for the get together but I would say there were probably 30 people there... and we have plenty more coming tomorrow.

Big fun.

here's the link for the show

Tuesday, July 07, 2015

Road Trip

I am busy packing up for a big trip boys.  Turns out this weekend... we're all descending on Austin, Tx for the first ever Ilkmoot.   That's correct...  a great bunch of us Dread Ilk types are heading to the hippy hollow to torment the natives and drink and fuss and generally raise a ruckus.   Shenanigans are in the forecast.

There is a bit of itinerary already... 

Friday 1800 hrs:  Puppypalooza!  We're all meeting for booze and barbecue at the Mean Eyed Cat

Friday 2100 hrs: ATF Show... live from..  who knows... somewhere in Austin... or Bastrop... who knows.

Friday 2200 hrs:  Cigars and Whiskey with Nate...  somewhere in Bastrop probably

...


Saturday am:  breakfast?  somehwere...



Saturday 1300: ILKSHOOT!  Rangetime with the Dread Ilk! 


There are more festivities planned...    this is what I have nailed down right now.  Hopefully you'll at least get some good pics and get to live viacariously if you weren't able to make it.

But fret not.  Next year...  It will be in Alabama.

Friday, July 03, 2015

ATF... yet again

Yeah we're doing the show tonight.  Sorry about missing it last week.  Like I say I was on the road.  I'm here today though...  and we are ready to go.

In fact... I'm kicking things off little early with a pre show Gurkha Ghost.   Oh my...






Yes.

That'll do.

Also... Here's the show link