R.I.P. Tylar

I grew up with you, man. From kindergarten all the way through our years at Capital, we were just stupid together. Always pushing the limits and laughing whether things went right or wrong... through tee-ball, soccer, basketball, baseball, swimming, football, "extreme-sledding" (haha), snowboarding and everything else, we made some outrageous memories. Rest in Peace, breh... we miss you here.

"Remembering is an act of resurrection, each repetition a vital layer of mourning, in memory of those we are sure to meet again."

"He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man."

Shooting Videos on YouTube

The videos on this page are from YouTube and were filmed by either Mark, or Courtney using Mark's digital video camera. The video entitled Sunday Afternoons was shot in early October on one of our routine Sunday excursions up to Jackass Gulch while the video entitled Shooting Shenanigans was more recent. We spend every Sunday on the mountainside pushing lead downrange. When darkness falls, we pull out a hickory-smoker and grill steaks to the ambient sounds of coyotes, crickets, and random stories told between friends. The trips have become longer and longer as the weather cools and the trips become more fun and relaxing. We bring a Marlin M-25N, a Browning .22WMR BPR, a Roebuck 12 gauge, and our newest addition, the custom Savage M-12, to the hill. Mark enjoys destroying anything in sight with his 12 gauge and often does destroy everything he sees. Mark's probably the most easy going guy I've ever met and he's never in a bad mood, so his wild shotgun antics are a bit of a surprise. James is our tag along buddy who is more than content with getting off campus for a day every week. While we offer to let him shoot every time, he simply declines and goes back to cracking jokes and making video suggestions. Courtney (my girlfriend) recently asked me to teach her to shoot. Her first taste of the sport was Christmas break of our Freshman year, when she came to Illinois for a week. We got her the Marlin M-25N and slapped a Redfield Scout scope on it. While I had doubts of her actual reasons for picking up shooting, she's proven to me that she's in it for herself and that she's really beginning to love shooting every bit as much as I do. With every trip, she moves her targets further up the hill and becomes more and more consistent. Mark is enjoying exploiting my shooting for videos. He buys random things to shoot and brings them along. His real passion on these trips (other than blowing things up) is his video camera. He sets up the shots and video tapes them, thus, the videos you see on this page. If you visit YouTube and type in my full name, you will find any shooting videos that I haven't posted on this site. The next time we go up (26th October) we plan to coordinate and tape a shot that I will take with the 5.56mm Savage from approximately 600+ yards. As I will have cell phone reception from where I am shooting and they will not (accross from where the target is) we will have to use hand signals or walkie talkies to make the video work. A 600+ yard shot is nothing new to me, but coordinating it with Mark's camera work will make it interesting!

Custom Precision Rifle:

I'm building a custom precision rifle chambered in 5.56mm (.223). Here are some of the components being integrated:

1. Action: Savage M-12 Bolt Action (short), the ejector resembles the Mauser 98
   
2. Barrel: M-12 (5.56mm) 1" diameter HEAVY, 26" in length, Button Rifled (1:9 RH) to stabilize yawing bullets up to and including 70+ grains
3. Optics: Mili-radian reticle, range estimation, 4-24X40
4. Stock: CHOATE ("ultimate-sniper") carbon fiber, pistol grip, adjustable cheek-piece and butt-pad, mono-pod adjustment beneath butt of stock, serrated fore-stock with contoured grip, angled nose-piece with sling swivel stud, bi-pod attachment and accessory rails.
5. Trigger: since Savage's (non-accutrigger) triggers tend to be "creepers" I'm installing a Rifle-Basix target and sniper trigger assembly. While the accutrigger is amazing, it's not what I'm looking to put on this rifle.
   

Arguing against Gay Marriage without reverting to religious doctrine:

1. Most arguments for the legitimacy of homosexuality have to do primarily with the assumption that it is a natural tendency that people are born with. This can be countered easily, because society has given us umpteen prime examples that closely parallel this theory. Certain "natural tendencies" (even hereditary tendencies) have been black-flagged as unacceptable by our society today. The tendency to commit horrible crimes without remorse is called sociopathy. This is probably the most extreme and easily understood example. Some others are cannibalism and murder. Anything regularly occurring in nature will do. The ultimate pincer movement would be to follow from the opposite direction. Pointing out that homosexual trends occur nowhere else in nature forces the oppostiong to admitt a fundamental flaw in the "natural theory" or they may revert to one of the following...
   
2. Another argument in support of gay marriage is the separation of church and state. Some say that the suppression and limitations of marriage licenses excluding all relationships outside of those between man and woman are caused solely by the influence of the religious establishment upon the sovereign government. Marriage was introduced solely by the religious establishment and continues to be a religious bond (first and foremost) today. The legal equivalent (separated from the church) is a civil union. Marriage is also listed in article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the language: MEN AND WOMEN of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. (this demonstrates that your point of view is still a WORLD point of view)
   
3. The third argument is based on the ambiguity of the noun, love. To say that any relationship founded on legitimate love constitutes marriage, is to make a claim that intimidates the opposing side. It would seem that the only way to dispel such a claim would be to attack the true definition of love, but there is no concrete definition of the word. The best argument that I have found is the introduction of grossly extreme hypothetical situations that push the "pro-gay marriage" side further and further to their own extreme to the point that they become uneasy with their own logic. You might suggest that anybody that falls in love with their own mother or father should be entitled to a legal incestuous marriage. Polygamy is another great example. Anything leading up to and including beastiality will do as long as it parallels and allows for a mutual bond founded on "love." (i.e. an inanimate object cannot love a person back, so it is not a good example)... This is NOT a diversionary tactic nor a tangent, but an attack of their logical support for gay marriage. Once they say that incest, polygamy, or beastiality is wrong, all you need to do is tie each relationship to "love" and demonstrate that one cannot simply draw the line where it is convenient. Either "love knows no bounds" or there are natural boundaries in place. Forcing them to deal in absolutes pushes them into discomfort with their own logic. If you attack the reason for their belief, you attack the validity of their belief.
4. It is apparent that liberal views are much more popular these days. This is NOT because they are all morally right, but because they are trendy. It's more popular to be "progressive" these days. People want to affect change no matter what the cost. Certain terms have been popularized and tied to gay marriage: open mindedness, free thinking, accepting, ignorant (negative term describing those against gay marriage that can be countered as long as you present your argument intelligently), and many others... most of the time all that is necessary to deflect the above terms are their own true definitions. Educate yourself on what these terms truly represent. The reason these terms are popularized is their ambiguity and the ease with which arbitrary definitions can be tied to them.
5. There are many more points on your side of the discussion, but I don't care to post any more tonight. These are mostly to get you started thinking. I know that, to the religious individual, reverting to your faith seems fool proof, but it is largely ineffective. You have to discuss these topics on a purely secular basis to make forward progress with most people. The beauty with this subject is that it is so fundamentally black and white that the discussion can remain just as clear. Introduction of religious doctrine can blur the black and white subject into a gray enigma if introduced too early. Let me know if you have any questions (assuming you actually read this and/or care about it)... anybody care to guess what my position on gay marriage really is?
   

Today

Wednesdays are my excruciatingly long days. I usually start the day at 5:30 AM by going to the base and doing weapons checks. I stay there for between 1 and 3 hours before coming back for more coffee or a short cat nap. I go to math at 10 in the morning and go straight to practice for a few hours after that. I have an hour break for lunch and homework and then I go to Spanish. This class is definitely my most frustrating as I don't know any Spanish and my professor thinks that speaking all Spanish is the best way to teach a 101 class... it's not. After Spanish, I rush back to my apartment and grab my horn and music for the Big Band practice. I leave practice early to get to my Police Law lecture by 6:15 even though it starts at 6 (it's the best I can do)... the lecture goes until 9 PM... basically I'm pulling a 6AM-9PM day (not including homework).

Today was long, but with quite a few good moments: I actually understood the arithmetic in class this morning, I survived another rehearsal with Ogle (the fairy that directs the Philharmonic), we actually received the list of some charts in our repertoire for the Lab Band, I aced a big test in my Police Law class, and I successfully argued against homosexuality using only secular points (something I've never tried) and actually out spoke upwards of seven people. I might even post the points used in this discussion, because (especially for the religious) it is very difficult to find concrete points not based on religious doctrine. But, in order to actually explain your point of view it is always more effective to speak in terms understood and validated by the opposition.

FALL 2008

I attend Boise State University, where I study Criminal Justice and participate in Blue Thunder and the Lab Band (Jazz Big Band). This is my second year, but only my second semester with the Criminal Justice program.
I started out as a Music Education major, because I was offered a full ride scholarship just to play and I confused my love of playing and writing music with the love of teaching (two totally different aspects of musicianship). Midway through the semester, I was playing at a home football game when I received a phone call and a message telling me that my grandfather had passed away. I left to Kentucky, where I played TAPS and my arrangement of Brahms at his funeral. Our family erupted in a disgusting dispute over the estate. I came back to Boise realizing that I didn't want conduct music for the rest of my life and I lost my motivation. In short, my first semester of college could not have been more of a disaster.
Moving into the second semester, I spent a month at my home in snowy Illinois thinking of different careers. I needed something that I could be passionate about for the rest of my life. And so I chose Criminal Justice. My second semester could not have gone better. I pulled A's in my classes and enjoyed every one of them. I won two national rifle matches and was awarded various other titles and records on the firing range...I picked up a job with a civilian/military contracted company involved in the training of military marksmen. I work under a gentleman many years my elder and I've learned more than is imaginable from him in this short time.
I spent the summer in San Jose, CA with my girlfriend and her family. I coached sports camps (mostly lacrosse) and eventually took a trip to Disneyland, California Adventure, and Magic Mountain... it was everything I had dreamed about and more. At the beginning of August, I flew in to Illinois for two weeks with my family. An incredible storm hit during dinner on the first Monday of the month. I spent the next few days cutting fallen trees and dragging them back to the house to burn. We lost about 12 trees that I can remember. The rest of the week was spent target shooting and sighting in a new scope for my coyote rifle. I built a target carriage and spent the rest of my time between my cousin Andy's place and having fun with my family.

That brings me to the beginning of this semester. I am currently enrolled in a math class, philosophy, Blue Thunder, Spanish, Police Law, and Jazz Band... totaling at 22 credit hours worth per week. But, since two of my classes are music ensembles, I am only pulling 16 credits out of the semester. I'm a section leader in the Blue Thunder this year and have been keeping busy with my playing. Other than classes, I spend my time with my friends, my roommates, and my girlfriend.
I've spent a lot of my time sitting outside on a bench smoking my pipe with Mark, reading, watching movies (most recently Appaloosa and Quarantine), Jamming, going shooting, and grilling out. I try to fill my spare time with relaxing activities during the more hectic fall semester. We have already established a routine in my apartment. We go shooting in the mountains every Sunday afternoon until the sun goes down. Then we pull out the Hickory Smoker and grill steaks. (there's a video at the top of the page)... On Tuesdays and Fridays we go sell our plasma for extra cash (no time for a steady job in the fall). On most nights, Mark, Courtney, and I play each other in Halo. None of us are really any good, so we enjoy playing with each other exclusively, because no one person ruins it for the rest.
I know that this post was long and boring, but without it, my college story would start in Chapter 2.That's the basic update... now everything's up to speed!

What this page is all about...

This is basically an outlet for spontaneous thoughts and epiphanies as well as an obscure journal for my loved ones to read. I often find myself walking by the river, writing/playing music, reading, drinking my morning cup of coffee, or looking downrange with my finger on the trigger when something personally significant crosses my mind. Sometimes, I'm in a situation conducive to further expansion of the particular thought and it's during those times that I see somewhat of a reflection of self in whatever it is that I am pondering.