bryan wann :: binary fury

I survived the concealed handgun course. If you ever need to get a Texas CHL or any sort of firearms training, I highly recommend Ross and Dottie Bransford over at CHL-Texas.com (warning: embedded sound). Ross is a very interesting character. To describe him I’d use all these phrases: successful businessman, red-blooded Texan, anti-liberal, Vietnam veteran, ex-drill instructor, and somebody who’s very passionate and knowledgeable about firearms and law.

Their class was very informative, interesting and fun, but quite a bit to pack into a 10 hour sitting. I learned quite a bit about the history of Texas which was set as a foundation to explain why gun laws in the state are what they are today. We talked about many firearm, legal, human behavior things I was maybe subconsiously aware of but didn’t really think about.

We were also gently ribbed about our “liberal” thoughts and how our generation is all too willing to give up freedoms given to us by the constitution. Basically, you have the right to live even if it means taking another person’s life. Many examples were made of the liberal-ness of Travis county, the Austin American-Statesman (and the media in general), and Texas prosecutors. We went through the Texas penal code and various scenarios to show how they can be interpreted. There’s some truly screwed up laws relating to guns and self defense.

Also in the penal code is a section that says a peace officer can call upon a citizen to help him carry out his duties (think “forming a sheriff’s posse”) and the citizen must obey. The citizen takes on all responsibilities and authority of the officer, BUT the citizen can still be slapped with a civil suit, and if the citizen injures or kills a bystander, they can be arrested and convicted! Welcome to Texas.

I’ve been a gun owner for all my life. I haven’t kept track of gun laws and I was surprised at what was being passed through legislature. Now that I have to follow these laws closer than I ever have before, it’s certainly got my attention to stand up for my rights as a gun owner and individual. I did some browsing around on NRA’s website and found a page where they keep track of current legislative and news items that applies to Texas. Most interesting to me (which Ross mentioned) is proposed “Castle doctrine” legislature. I definately want to see this to pass.

Currently, Texas has “duty to retreat” provisions which means a person is not authorized to use deadly force if a reasonable person would have escaped/retreated — including in your own home — unless there is immediate risk to protect yourself or to prevent things like aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, and robbery. More, the code says “The fact that conduct is justified under this chapter does not abolish or impair any remedy for the conduct that is available in a civil suit.” This means, if I kill somebody in self defense the dead asshole’s family can sue me for bankrupting them because of the expense of their defense. The “castle doctrine” bill would fix both of these. (Hopefully, if it’s not gutted).

My interest is certainly piqued, I have a lot more reading to do.

Argh! This hellacious week is over, finally. There wasn’t a night go by this week that I got a full night sleep due to being on-call. The sore throat I picked up last week is still annoying me. /whah. It was a mistake going out yesterday, holiday shopping has began. Cars going to the mall were backed up down 360; Westgate and Brodie were pretty packed too. If they weren’t buying loot, they were buying Christmas trees.

Nathan convinced me to finally get around to getting my Texas concealed handgun license, so we both signed up for a class taking place in a couple of weeks.

A small geocaching trip today turned into a 9 mile hike along the Greenbelt. I got it in my head to find a trail that I could use to cut across the Greenbelt to be able to walk/run to work. The cache today was in the vicinity of a trail that followed a transmission line right of way, so I took of exploring. Fortunately, the right of way is an established mountain bike trail, and at the end of the ROW clearing there was a trail leading down to the creek bottom. There was a trail leading to the north and south along the creekbed. I went south for a while and wound up at a familiar place, the Sculptured Falls. Back in March, the creek was running and one had to skip from rock to rock to cross the creek. Today it was bone dry, save for a small pool at the bottom of the falls.

Ideally, to get to either our current office or new office, I need to continue going northeast. One mile south is the Twin Falls 360/MoPac access, 2 miles north is the Camp Craft “Hill of Life” access. Looking at Google Earth, there appears to be trails leading southwest from 360 down to the falls that might solve my problem. Exploring those will be an adventure for next weekend.

I hadn’t been there before, so I hiked up to the Camp Craft trailhead. The Hill of Life is about a half mile of gravel road that keeps going up up up from the creek bed. Apparently the promising local trail running club kids do repeats up this hill, those animals. I went back to the creekbed, trying to find GCJQ4V. This is the second time I judged the best way in wrong. The GPS said “.25 miles southwest”. I said “how hard could it be?” I followed a mountain bike trail which led me up a steep rocky hill. Since this cache promised a great view of the skyline, I figured I must be on track. Eventually after several minutes of following the winding trail, I wasn’t ascending anymore and didn’t seem to be getting any closer. I didn’t feel like bushwhacking a quarter mile so I abandoned the hunt and went off in search of my transmission line waypoint, following another mountain bike trail. There was a deep ravine between me and the waypoint, so I gave in and went bushwhacking. I climbed up the hill and found the right-of-way. Tired, I headed for home.

Now that I’ve reviewed my GPS waypoints and the terrain on Google Maps, turns out I would’ve stumbled across GCJQ4V had I kept going west on the trail before I bailed and crossed the ravine. Again, an adventure for another weekend.

Dark at 6:30 PM. How weird. After running yesterday and hiking today, my feet, calves and quads positively have burning coals in them. I want to sleep to give my body a rest, but I’m too wired on caffeine.