Ron Paul for Pres..

I can only hope that Ron Paul can get better recognized and get the republican nomination. I'd actually vote for a big party if he got in. But really he's a libertarian taking an old Republic stance of small government.

I like bill Maher and he can usually handle himself in a debate but Ron Paul totally destroys Maher in this interview. Best he can do is keep saying "against the civil war" but Ron Paul points out that the Civil war had very little to do with slavery.

CERT Disaster Training

What you are looking at here is not BBQs gone wild. Its serious distaster training in progress at the down town fire department. Vanessa, myself and many friends are taking a disaster training course sponsered by FEMA so that we will be valuable to ourselves and our community in the aftermath of a disaster such as an Earth quake or major terrorist attack.

After we graduate from the course we will receive a Disaster pre-paredness backpack and be on some kind of reverse 911 emergency assistance list.

The Price is Right

With the recent retirement of Bob Barker I thought I would share my appearance on TPIR for those that missed the airing.

Donovan Pretends

Shortly after Donovan's Birthday we got this little gem videoed.

Donovan Turns 3!

After Filling up 300 balloons we got Donovan's 3rd birthday party started. He had a great time playing with the other kids and finally getting his "Thomas the" Train birthday cake. Several days earlier Donovan had been claiming it was his birthday. We finally had him understanding his birthday is June 1st and that he was turning 3 years old. Vanessa came up with some good games for the kids including pin the number 1 on Thomas, finding Gummy Bears in a bunch of wet pasta, finding marshmellows in flower, and a pinata. Donovan and the kids enjoyed all the bubble toys and then we let the kids release most of the balloons into the night sky. By the end of the night Donovan just conked out while trying to stay up to watch more Thomas the Train on TV.

Lake Mead

We started the Memorial day weekend on friday morning 8am renting jet skis and towing them out to lake mead. Renting and gassing them up took a long time but just after 10am we were in the water.
The skis took some getting used to and we had some early slow falls.
Then we all took turns on the 4 rented skis which were tons of fun.
The water skis were broken out and shortly thereafter Dave's Tibia got very broken by the water skis. That was the end of the water skis and did put a damper on things. We got Dave back to shore and wheeled him back to the car so Merideth could get him to the hospital.
After zipping out to Hoover damn we were all getting a bit playful on the jetskis. We caught the attention of the police and JT received a $300 reckless boating ticket. The cops were being rather overzealos almost siting another of our group for *almost* towing a water skier incorrectly.Towards the end of the day everyone was pushing their jetskis to the limit.We did have some damage to the jetskis (someone stepped on the jet breaking a bracket and we had some cracks from bad docking) which added $100 to the rental bill. Even with some of the bad luck we had, overall it was a great time and after learning some lessons I'd love to do it again.

Sis got skillz

After having a big famliy mothers day brunch at Mon Ami Gabi in Paris we went over to my sister's charicature booth over at the Aladdin and had her draw Donovan. She did one a bout a year and a half ago, so I want to keep getting them done every so often as he grows up.

Good Article

'Gun-Free Zones'
By DAVID B. KOPEL
April 18, 2007; Page A17

The bucolic campus of Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Va., would seem to have little in common with the Trolley Square shopping mall in Salt Lake City. Yet both share an important characteristic, common to the site of almost every other notorious mass murder in recent years: They are "gun-free zones."

Forty American states now have "shall issue" or similar laws, by which officials issue a pistol carry permit upon request to any adult who passes a background check and (in most states) a safety class. Research by Carlisle Moody of the College of William and Mary, and others, suggests that these laws provide law-abiding citizens some protection against violent crime. But in many states there are certain places, especially schools, set aside as off-limits for guns. In Virginia, universities aren't "gun-free zones" by statute, but college officials are allowed to impose anti-gun rules. The result is that mass murderers know where they can commit their crimes.

Private property owners also have the right to prohibit lawful gun possession. And some shopping malls have adopted anti-gun rules. Trolley Square was one, as announced by an unequivocal sign, "No weapons allowed on Trolley Square property."

In February of this year a young man walked past the sign prohibiting him from carrying a gun on the premises and began shooting people who moments earlier were leisurely shopping at Trolley Square. He killed five.

Fortunately, someone else -- off-duty Ogden, Utah, police officer Kenneth Hammond -- also did not comply with the mall's rules. After hearing "popping" sounds, Mr. Hammond investigated and immediately opened fire on the gunman. With his aggressive response, Mr. Hammond prevented other innocent bystanders from getting hurt. He bought time for the local police to respond, while stopping the gunman from hunting down other victims.

At Virginia Tech's sprawling campus in southwestern Va., the local police arrived at the engineering building a few minutes after the start of the murder spree, and after a few critical minutes, broke through the doors that Cho Seung-Hui had apparently chained shut. From what we know now, Cho committed suicide when he realized he'd soon be confronted by the police. But by then, 30 people had been murdered.

But let's take a step back in time. Last year the Virginia legislature defeated a bill that would have ended the "gun-free zones" in Virginia's public universities. At the time, a Virginia Tech associate vice president praised the General Assembly's action "because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus." In an August 2006 editorial for the Roanoke Times, he declared: "Guns don't belong in classrooms. They never will. Virginia Tech has a very sound policy preventing same."

Actually, Virginia Tech's policy only made the killer safer, for it was only the law-abiding victims, and not the criminal, who were prevented from having guns. Virginia Tech's policy bans all guns on campus (except for police and the university's own security guards); even faculty members are prohibited from keeping guns in their cars.

Virginia Tech thus went out of its way to prevent what happened at a Pearl, Miss., high school in 1997, where assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieved a handgun from his car and apprehended a school shooter. Or what happened at Appalachian Law School, in Grundy, Va., in 2002, when a mass murder was stopped by two students with law-enforcement experience, one of whom retrieved his own gun from his vehicle. Or in Edinboro, Pa., a few days after the Pearl event, when a school attack ended after a nearby merchant used a shotgun to force the attacker to desist. Law-abiding citizens routinely defend themselves with firearms. Annually, Americans drive-off home invaders a half-million times, according to a 1997 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Utah, there is no "gun-free schools" exception to the licensed carry law. In K-12 schools and in universities, teachers and other adults can and do legally carry concealed guns. In Utah, there has never been a Columbine-style attack on a school. Nor has there been any of the incidents predicted by self-defense opponents -- such as a teacher drawing a gun on a disrespectful student, or a student stealing a teacher's gun. Israel uses armed teachers as part of a successful program to deter terrorist attacks on schools. Buddhist teachers in southern Thailand are following the Israeli example, because of Islamist terrorism.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., long-time gun control advocates, including Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), agreed that making airplane cockpits into "gun-free zones" had made airplanes much more dangerous for everyone except hijackers. Corrective legislation, supported by large bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress, allowed pilots to carry firearms, while imposing rigorous gun-safety training on pilots who want to carry.

In many states, "gun-free schools" legislation was enacted hastily in the late 1980s or early 1990s due to concerns about juvenile crime. Aimed at juvenile gangsters, the poorly written and overbroad statutes had the disastrous consequence of rendering teachers unable to protect their students.

Reasonable advocates of gun control can still press for a wide variety of items on their agenda, while helping to reform the "gun-free zones" that have become attractive havens for mass killers. If legislators or administrators want to require extensive additional training for armed faculty and other adults, that's fine. Better that some victims be armed than none at all.

The founder of the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, understood the harms resulting from the type of policy created at Virginia Tech. In his "Commonplace Book," Jefferson copied a passage from Cesare Beccaria, the founder of criminology, which was as true on Monday as it always has been:

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

We Got Crabs

After Donovan picked up a little goldfish at his daycare "spring-fling" party we kept it in a vase with water. After surviving for 2 weeks and being named "Frank" by Donovan, we decided to get an aquarium. After getting Frank in the aquarium he seemed very lonely so we started picking up fish and other critters. We now have 3 crabs, 3 gost shrimp, 2 aquatic frogs, 8 neon tetras, 2 black molleys, 2 fancy guppies, 2 red wags, Frank the goldfish and 1 black moore. We did have a Green Spotted Puffer named "barack obama" but he turned out to be very aggressive and ate 2 neon tetras, some gost shrimp and 4 legs off our crabs. So we flushed Barack Obama down the toilet.

Choctaw Nation

A few weeks ago we went to a local Las Vegas meeting of the Choctaw nation. Surprisingly there were probably about 100 poeple at this vegas meeting of these Oklahoma indians. The Chief is holding Donovan in the picture.

Gunsmithing

First time replacing sights on a pistol. Here's some after pictures of TFO (Tritium Fiber Optic) night sights. they're pretty neat, they glow constantly from the radioactive tritium and have a bright glow in lighted environments because of the fiberoptic portion.

AFAN AIDS Walk

Well thanks to all your help I raised $100 wich Penn&Teller doubled to make $200 bucks donated to AFAN. My sister and mother-in-law also joined Penn&Teller team and showed up to walk.
There was quite a lot of poeple there 200 from our team. Overall Team Penn&Teller raised a total of $65,000 donated to AFAN, which was nearly 3 times what they were able to do in the past.
Donovan got to ride along in style for the entire walk. I did actually train for this walk by going to the gym treadmill for a few weeks ahead of time. Perhaps I'll aim for the half marathon next.

This sunday I'm participating in the Las Vegas AIDS walk. I teamed up with the Penn & Teller Team. Please visit my sponser page and help, any donation amount you give will be doubled.

I'll post pictures of the event monday.

XD40 Sub Compact

Took out my new Springfield XD 40 Cal. out to shoot last Friday with my brother. First time shooting it and it felt great. I like it more than my original Glock. Seems like some guns are just built much more solid than others. The only other gun that felt this solid is my colt python revolver (the one shannon likes to shoot) . In my opinion Springfield has really given Glock a run for their money. It's a better pistol for cheaper that comes with more accessories (Holster, speed loader, mag holster). I'm thinking of getting some night sights put on the gun but fear doing the install myself as I have heard the one bad thing about the XD series of pistols is that the sights are SO hard to remove that many armorers refuse to even try. I'll learn more about swapping sights since I think I'll be making this my regular carry gun soon.

Barack Obama

So we went to see Obama yesterday. He was almost an hour late to his speech leaving all us poor folk out in the heat and sun. I ended up getting burned. He talked about problems without really giving any solutions except that 10% of healthcare costs can be reduced by fixing administrative red tape and that he would start bringing back all our troops right away. He did mention that blacks and women shouldn't be slaves and be able to vote. The crowd really got behind him on his anti-slavery and pro-equality points.
I can't really tell what kind of watch he's wearing, but I feel that his fingernails should be more trimmed. At least he's not a nervous nail biter.
Now I assumed this was a PDA phone on his belt when I was taking pictures but now that I look at it I'm begining to think it's not a phone but some other electronic device. Any Ideas? Of course Donovan got selected out of the crowd with his stylish mohawk and vampire powerlike charm.
It's hard to tell but that's my hand on the right shaking Obama's as I took a picture at the same time. There was also a rare JayCat sighting in the crowd.

Brad Ward P.E.

It's been 5 Years since I graduated with my B.S in Mechancial Engineering and now I've finally recieved my Liscence and Stamp to practice Mechanical Engineering here in Nevada. Nevada law required that an engineer work in his field full time for 4 years ( 2 of which under a P.E.) after graduating before he was allowed to take the 8 hour exam for licensure. This summer they enacted a change that allows a graduate to take the exam any time after graduating but still requires the 4 years before they get the license. So I was part of the last engineers that had to get licensure the hard way (being out of school for at least 4 years to forget everything).

Funny Video

El Morro

The day after the wedding there was a planned brunch in old San Juan which is like a midievil european city. After brunch and touring through the city we went to El Morro, which is a fort in old San Juan which had seen some battles and bombardments (even vs USA). We were a bit rushed doing the tour but got plenty of photos.
El Morro, looking out to sea.A model of El Morrow from a birds eye view.

Aaron's Wedding

Here's the wedding on the beach in San Juan January 3rd, 2007. The wedding went well in that it rained before and after but was perfectly clear during the planned time. Once we got done doing post ceremony photos it started to rain as we walked inside. Donovan was also the ring-bearer and brought me the rings with Vanessa's guidance. Figure this is about Donovan's 5th wedding and time for him to get involved. Even though it looks like the officiant (the Bride's brother) is going to grab the ring pillow Donovan stopped him and said "No for daddy!".

El Yunque

The start of my brother's wedding festivities included a brunch out in "El Yunque" rain forest in Puerto Rico. We had our brunch then proceeded to hike almost a mile down a steep river until getting to this waterfall. It was humid and warm but the waterfall was ice cold. It was very powerfull too. The water felt like a powerfull massager bearing down on our backs. That's Me and Aaron in the photo.