Sounds weird, but this is the bloom on a beavertail cactus. The cactus is similar to the prickly pear cactus whose growth is similar to the flat oval structure of a beaver’s tail. These hot pink springtime flowers are seen in various locations in Joshua Tree National Park.
The gunography for today’s shoot was fairly simple. Damsel’s Warthog and her 20 gauge “Junior” Remington 870 plus my Glock 30 and full-sized 12 gauge 870. Since we were at the gun show yesterday, we figured that this could be a short session at the range and we would have satisfied our gun stuff urges for the weekend.
We started with the .45 caliber guns. We only brought 50 rounds per gun, so that went pretty fast. Damsel put up a bullseye target for the first forty out of 100 rounds. When it got to the point that the middle of that target was shot away, we put up the first silhouette target. I had first shots on it and tried to practice the Mozambique – two to the heart and one to the head – while two rounds landed in the heart area and one to the left upper temple. I figured this wasn’t a record so no photos taken. Instead, we finished the .45 rounds and broke out the shotguns.
In the video above, I took shots on the silhouette trying to shoot off the right side. Voila! It went down, hanging only by threads. Then Damsel gave it the coup dé grâs after which she proceeded to give the target dimples.
Not much shooting today, but a lot of fun.
Update: Thanks to Robb Allen for the link!
These roses are now in the vase as our weekend centerpiece. This bi-color variety, according to the wrapper, are medium sized with medium petal count and medium green foliage. There’s nothing mediocre about this beautiful color, though. Click on the image to enlarge.
I grabbed this frame from a video I made of Damsel firing her 20 gauge shotgun last weekend. I was looking for the perfect muzzle flash when I noticed that two, and possibly three of her ejected shells were in mid-air at the same time. Look closely at the two yellow blurs – one coming out of the port and one just falling past the table. Extrapolating the position of the third shell would seem to indicate it, too, still has not hit the floor.
You can watch Damsel’s rapid-action shooting here.
A while back in a post about bad mayors (think Ray Nagin) we called out Antonio Villaraigosa for what he is – a failure.
So much promise, so much disappointment:
In preparing for this month’s cover story, an open letter to Antonio Villaraigosa, writer-at-large Ed Leibowitz spoke to a range of civic figures to plumb their views. Whether from critics or supporters, the opinions were near unanimous: The mayor, who started his first term with such promise, has been a terrible disappointment. With a couple of exceptions, all the conversations were off the record—Ed was free to quote the person but not identify them. Which is to say, these civic figures were willing to say things about the mayor in private that they wouldn’t say in public. One can easily imagine some of their reasons. They didn’t want to alienate a powerful elected official whose help for a project or a campaign they might need in the future. This isn’t unusual.
It would be impossible, for example, to report on Washington, D.C., and Hollywood—two cultures where everyone is worried about offending the person they just knifed in the back—without having off-the-record conversations.
Speaking of Ray Nagin, read this.
