Tonight we’re just going to post links to some things going on out there in the blogosphere . . .
Signal 94: Shovel ready medical plan for seniors.
Gun Rights Examiner: L.A. Gun Bust raises questions.
The Liberty Sphere: Cash for clunkers a government spy program!
According to Mr. Completely, you should “Get Your Registration and Reservations in ASAP.” They have blocked out rooms for Wednesday the 9th, through Sunday the 13th. Damsel and I have already made our hotel reservations and continue to plan the trip. We’re going to drive from the Los Angeles area and plan to make some touristy stops going and coming.
As for the GBR-IV event, we’re looking forward to meeting other attendees, participating in the events and activities, and, of course, winning one or more of the door prize drawings. Ride Fast and Shoot Straight has a rundown on some of the events and prizes.
A quick update to getting a Nevada CCW permit: We won’t have enough time to get through all the hoops required for a permit – however, we think that open carry may be do-able. I’ll continue to do the research, but this is on the OpenCarry.org website:
Nevada is a traditional open carry state with complete state preemption of firearms laws. However, Clark County (Las Vegas) is grandfathered so as to continue a “Deadly Weapons” registration scheme. Fortunately, Nevada law exempts travelers to and through Nevada from these registration requirements for 60 days.
Open carry seems to be allowed in vehicles and on one’s person as long as the weapon is visible. We’ll continue to evaluate this option.
For the last week or so, we have been making arrangements to attend the Gun Blogger Rendezvous which will be at the Silver Legacy Hotel in Reno, Nevada. The event is scheduled for September 10-13, 2009. We’ve sent off our registration and made the hotel reservations, so all we need to do is fill in some details for the trip (we’re driving from the Los Angeles area), like staying near Yosemite NP on the way up and the Owens Valley on the way back. We’re looking forward to going to Reno.
Over the years, we have visited Reno many, many times, enjoying every visit. We’ve been going to Reno ever since it really was “The Biggest Little City in the World.” Don’t get us wrong, we like the bright lights and big hotels in the New Reno, but we’re also quite nostalgic about the way it was.
In August of 2007, we posted about Reno’s famous welcome sign. Here is the original article repeated here:
Pigeon Dung and Reno’s Famous Sign
After reading news accounts about the contribution of pigeon dung to the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, I was reminded about how pigeons similarly factored into the destruction of the famous “RENO – The Biggest little city in the world” sign that spans the entrance to the downtown gambling district. I recall reading a the story in the 1980’s about how the old sign became inhabited by pigeons that roosted or nested in the sign. They got in through gaps in the sign and, of course, pooped while they were in there.
Image right: Reno sign, 1980’s – click to enlarge
Eventually, despite having been evicted several times by the city’s maintenance crews, the pigeon problem persisted until one day there was an electrical short-circuit in the sign. The methane from the dung ignited; there was a minor explosion and a fire afterwards that damaged the sign beyond repair. The sign was removed and subsequently replaced by a newer Vegas-style beauty which electronically beckons visitors to the downtown district. While it’s a beautiful sight, the new sign doesn’t have the old sign’s charm and breaks the promise for a “little city” beyond. Recent visitors to the new Reno, if they knew the old Reno, will know what I mean.
Image left: New Reno sign – click to enlarge
As for pigeons? They’re just rats with wings.
We decided to rent an RV and camp in Phoenix last week while attending the NRA Convention because we wanted to bring our dog, Bear. She’s eleven years old and we’re quite attached to her. Besides, Damsel and I had such a wonderful time camping out last December for our Winter RV Cruise, that we knew this would be fun.
One problem we had because the dog with us, was a logistical balance between getting her in a doggie day care center near the campground and getting transportation to the Convention. We wanted to go to the exhibits on Friday and did OK with that, but we had traffic, parking and proximity to the Center problems because of the overwhelming attendance. By the time we finished with the exhibit hall, it was time to head back to doggie day care and thence back to the RV.
One thing that needs to be said is that without Bitter and the 2A Bash groundwork, we would have waited in the two-hour lines to even get into the place. We got our stuff in the media room and headed into the exhibits. Thanks again to the organizers and to the NRA staff.
We’re sorry we didn’t have the chance to attend the Bash meetings and mingle in the media room. I actively looked at people in the exhibit hall hoping to spot another blogger and say hello, but that seemed to be a needle in the haystack proposition. Plus the guns and exhibits were there to distract us, naturally.
Eventually, we will be able to hook up with some of the other bloggers. We especially would like to meet Bitter and Sebastian to personally thank them for their help this year. I’m going to be retired next year and I assume we will have more time to get involved.
It was fun – I composed this panorama while we were parked in the campground – we’re the Cruise America rig in the middle. Several of the other rigs in this row were also there with NRA folks. Click the panorama for full size.
We have been experiencing problems with the database server over the last 36 hours or so. I am advised that there may be additional periods of interruption, so please be patient if that should occur.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
We’re currently backing up the website files and database. When that is concluded, we’re going to be off line for a while while our Internet Services Provider (ISP) moves us to a bigger and faster server. Hang in there if things aren’t working since there will be an IP address change that will result in the Domain Name Servers having to re-associate the IP with the URL. We might be gone for several hours while that is happening.
A couple of days ago, our server upgraded the operating system, which managed to break some of the scripts I use for this site. It turned out to be a good thing, because I re-wrote some of the scripts using more up-to-date features. One of those features is AJAX or Asynchronous JavaScript And XML which is said to be “JavaScript on Steroids” by some.
I had been wanting to make the readout of the hit counter on the “Never Forget” tribute a dynamically-updated widget, so I went to work and made it happen. Now, when you look at the tribute statistics in the sidebar, you will see the counter update in (more or less) real-time as the tribute is served up to yet another website. The rate at which it increments is higher during day and evening hours in the U.S., so I presume most of the people seeing it are in the western hemisphere.
As of this posting, the counter is about ready to roll past 48 million hits – wow!
Disclaimer: if you don’t have JavaScript enabled, you will not see the counter.