Memorial Day

To all those men and women through our nation's history who have paid the ultimate price, I thank you and salute you.

We live, and always have lived, in a dangerous world. We are able to have our three day weekends and barbecue cookouts in no small part because of the sacrifices of our armed forces. To forget that is to open the door to evil.

How you spend your day and how you honor the fallen is your business, and I will not presume to tell you what to do, beyond this. Please, do something to honor them, even if it's just a moments quiet personal reflection.

Skimmer spotted at NRAAM!

 OK, so it's not actually a skimmer:

 skim·mer

[skim-er] 

noun

4. a stiff, wide-brimmed hat with a shallow flat crown, usually made of straw.

But it is a straw hat, and has become one of Scribbler's trademarks.

ScribblersDad here, for my second-ever post. One of Scribbler's nicknames, bestowed upon him by the ever present bevy of young ladies who seemed to miraculously materialize around him whenever I visited him at school, was "Hat-Boy." He has a fondness for hats, and a not inconsequential collection of same. One, a light colored straw hat, has pretty much become a trademark for him in the gunny community:

 Last year, we went to Houston with press passes arranged by Scribbler. I got to go along as the official photographer. Despite my shortcomings as same, he nonetheless invited me back this year.

What a kid.

I was pleasantly surprised at the number of people who remembered Scribbler from last year, and many remembered the hat. Not surprisingly, none remembered his trusty sidekick, but it did lend an aura of legitimacy to our efforts that so many recalled Scribbler.

I hope to have a number of posts up reflecting the plethora of gunny goodness that is NRAAM (or is it "the" NRAAM?), but Scribbler asked me to post an overview of this year's convention.

My overall take? Yes, there were nine acres of surprise, delight, craftmanship, and innovation mixed with JAARMs (Scribbler's term for "just another AR maker"), but what continues to float my boat is the sheer number of REALLY nice people in this community.

We saw friends old and made friends new, and I can honestly say I have never met a gunblogger I didn't like. As a dad, the way this community has welcomed, embraced, and supported my son is nothing short of wonderful.

I am grateful for you all.

-ScribblersDad 

All The Goodies

Finals are now (essentially) over for me, so I can crawl out from under my rock and actually write something.

I have a hard time coming up with places to start writing on this one. The NRA Annual Meeting is three days jam packed full of guns, gear, and great people. It is all but impossible to remember everything, and the photos taken are most all on Dad's camera in Chicago.

For now, some highlights.

Remington has all sorts of interesting stuff going on right now, to the point that they'll get a full post a bit later. For now, the R51 is neat, I like airguns, the Ultimate Muzzleloader intrigues and confuses me, and their commemorative 1911 won my drool-worthiest gun in show.

MGI's Hydra modular AR15 is both the most innovative thing I've seen in the AR platform in, well... ever, and just plain neat too. I'd love to play with one. Ambulance Driver has a good report here. Even though he stole the term JAARM from me.

Dan Coonan has come out with a commander length 1911 in .357. It's a truly beautiful piece of engineering, and is actually substantially different than the full size. Mr. Coonan was kind enough to give us a rundown of the pistol, and I feel safe in saying that in addition to doing really neat engineering, he's just a flat out nice guy.

Nemesis Arms has taken their standard Vanquish model and rendered it fully ambidextrous in the Valkyrie. It's a very simple change, but very interesting in a bolt action. The Ives' are interesting people and quite fun to talk to as well.

More specific guns and gear will follow. These are just the new things that caught my eye.

One of the best parts about NRA of course is the people. Both behind the booths and walking the floor with us, there are interesting, fun, and nice people. I got to reconnect with a number of faces from last year, as well as putting faces to some familiar names. Linoge of Walls of the City, Midwest Chick of Non-Original Rants, and Dennis of Dragon Leatherworks all stopped by to chat, and will be going onto the blogroll as soon as the editing tool works like it's supposed to. If I met you at NRA and I haven't noted it, please know it's me being forgetful, not you offending me! If your name should be up there, shoot me an email at scribblerscrawls (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll get that fixed.

That's all for now. More (with pictures!) in the next few weeks, largely being when I get hands on the pictures.