Neurotech - the weblog of Luke Reeves

Just came back tonight from Iron Bridge, a good weekend overall. The plane rides were goddamned nightmares - on the way there we were delayed since the stewardess was late an hour. Then on the way home tonight (or rather late last night) the plane turned around about 15 minutes into the air. We’d been redirected back to Sault Ste. Marie due to a bad storm around Pearson, which may or may not have actually been bad. So another nice hour and half wait in an empty airport. Ugh.

But the weekend itself was worth the pain of travelling. I went to my mom’s retirement on Friday, very nice. The town has like 600 people, right? Yet there’s two guys from Toronto that run a restaurant there and that’s where the party was (it’s named the Red Top, for whatever it’s worth). So they prepared an awesome meal for us, minus this nasty-ass cold avacado soup.

Then on Saturday I shot guns. And it was good. Me, my father and my cousin Maureen went out with a .22 and a 30º06. It was amazing. We blasted the shit out of pop cans for an afternoon, and I was an excellent shot - actually we all were. The .22 rifle was sweet, it essentially feels like a pellet gun on steroids and you can haul off with the 10 round clip in less than 5 seconds. Cool stuff, but no penetrating power. The 30º06 though - good Lord. That was awesome. This thing fires 7.62mm rounds with shells that are over 7cm long, they’re absolutely awesome - totally phallic. This thing deafened me, and my dad and I fired about five rounds from it. I put a hole in a can of apple juice that was like six fucking inches around. And then I couldn’t hear for an hour out of my right ear. But whoah, it was worth it. That thing is just amazingly powerful - apparently our boys (hehe) used it in World War I but it wasn’t as effective as it should have been due to the massive noise and painful recoil… So they went back to 5.56mm-based weapons.

Listen to me, I sound like a gun nut. I assure you I’m not. This is probably the first time I’ve handled one in many years, and I really would never hunt and kill anything. Well, not animals at least. I just find guns superbly cool in a weird, ultra-macho way. And most, if not all, of my knowledge about firearms comes from my dad, who served in our army for a while.

Anyways. One thing about the north though that I hadn’t anticipated was the absolute ferocity of the mosquitoes. My dad snagged a great photo of me waving away bugs using one of the rifles, with the terror visible in my eyes. Hahahaha.

That night Ron crashed at my place, which was totally awesome since we haven’t hung out in like two years. We watched the majority of Jay and Silent Bob Strike back and laughed our asses off… Which reminds me; anyone who’s a fan of Kevin Smith absolutely has to watch “An Evening With Kevin Smith“, it’s totally entertaining even though it’s just him talking.

Today I just lounged around with Ron and the family and then took off. In about five hours or so it’s off to the airport again for Japan, unfortunately on the bankrupt UAL. That always freaks me out - I’m constantly wondering if their mechanics are jerking off because they’re underpaid or something. Oh well, I’ll post when I get there. Or later tonight, since I doubt sleep is in the cards.