Out With A Bang!

Friday will begin my summer travel season with my annual trip to my hometown of Hammond, IN.
With the trip approaching, I thought to myself that I had to do one last CRAZYVEGAS thing before getting out of town. I decided to go ahead and take a trip to The Gun Store.

It has probably been 15 years since I last handled a firearm. I aimed that one at a rice cake in a river and nearly wet myself after taking one shot and handing whatever the gun was right back to its owner. I resolved that since I've spent plenty of time shooting Nerf Darts and cartoon chickens and cartoon zombies...it was time to go and see if I could actually defend myself against an attacker using a firearm in real life.

I could not myself believe what I was about to do. It's very anti-me in many ways. I was so nervous during the drive, thinking, "Why do I feel the need to do this? I should just turn around now and go home..." that I was unaffected by the awful pop music on the radio. Finally, I reminded myself that it's better to have a skill and never use or need it, then to never have it.

It was 105 degrees. The Gun Store is under construction as they expand and add a new range, but they are open. I stood outside with the tourists and waited for my turn to get my name added to the shooter list. It is worth noting that the Gun Store does in fact have a "zombie" package, because like I said on Tuesday, there are many schemes to separate you from your money. Lucky for me, there was a female zombie target for a SIGNIFICANTLY lower price, so I chose that one. After you choose your package and they try to upsell you, you then have to sign a release attesting, "that you're not pregnant or crazy," then you proceed inside, where you hand your ticket to a guy who gives you your target, you pay your fee and then are ushered into a line to wait your turn to shoot.

Incidentally, there is a $50 option for shooting, where you can get a more in-depth tutorial and a semi-private shooting room. Despite my crippling anxiety at the thought of holding a device in my hand that could very really and seriously kill another human, I chose the public range because...it comes with the package I paid for. After you pay and get into the line, you wait...and wait...and wait...and if you're me, you nearly chicken out.

But then a lil blonde lady in a bright pink dress comes out, composes herself and says, "Thanks!" Mackenzie Warren from News 3 was in the store getting footage for her story about how the Palazzo wants to install a gun range in their property on the Strip. This was enough of a distraction that when my instructor J.R., a nice young man who was very patient, ushered me through the door, I hurried in order to not be caught on video.

Going to the Gun Store is completely different from aiming at a rice cake in a river. There are ear protectors, safety glasses, and...well...J.R.s.

Today (Wednesday), as my Summer 2012 TTFN to Las Vegas, I put 19 holes in a paper zombie with a Glock 19. Granted, most of the 19 holes are in her hair.

J.R. offered to take a photo of me AT the range. WITH the gun. I declined. I'm still not exactly comfortable with the whole idea, and wasn't ready to have it immortalized on my SD card (or here). If I ever decide to go back there again, and somehow miraculously get a shot right through the middle of the zombie invader's forehead...then maybe. But that day was not today.

A Passing Fad?

This post starts by making two points:

1. There are a host of schemes out there that seek to separate you from your money, and 

2. If that person you admire and follow on twitter doesn't answer the questions that you tweet to him or her, you probably shouldn't specifically promote that person on your blog. 

I'll address item 2 first. 

So I follow this one guy on twitter. I think when I was setting up my account, I looked for "who to follow," typed in something bland and inoffensive like "urban geography," and I've been following him ever since. Social media in general, and this guy in particular, has led me to a host of instructional materials that I have been able to adapt for my students' use. I strongly encourage my teacher-readers to look for experts in their subject-matter fields to follow. 

Resting on the laurels of my recent and triumphant visit to the Zombie Apocalypse Store, I took a few days off from blogging and was beginning to fear that I wouldn't find any more fodder. Then, an amazing concept popped into my twitter feed courtesy of my silent and reluctant mentor. It's a seminal urban renewal project for the city of Detroit.

Now, moving on to point 1: my cousin Ryan's band Shiloh recently used an internet site called kickstarter to plead for money to make a new album. The band was successfully able to purchase some studio time to work on their new project. A site similar to kickstarter is indiegogo. These funding platforms will have you donating $1 to 27 different, really-great projects in no time, although personally, when I need money, I use Donors Choose.

Z World Detroit is a project asking for funding on indiegogo.

As you can see, the concept is to take advantage of Detroit's urban rot to make a zombie-themed amusement experience where a group of friends go overnight into the gamescape and get chased by zombies. If they get caught, they become zombies themselves and chase other park-goers.

It's brilliant.

But as you can see from the numbers, it's very ambitious and not getting funded, which I completely understand. Not only does the project pander to the niche market of Zombie Apocalypse enthusiasts, it targets a subset of that market: Zombie Apocalypse enthusiasts who are athletic enough to want to run around overnight with their friends, practicing their skills and such. I also doubt the staying power of the Zombie Apocalypse theme. I think that it will eventually play itself out. However! If this project already existed, fully operational, I totally would have tried to get some donors on my favorite funding platform to send my former 8th grade Explorations students to Z World Detroit.

What a creative way to incorporate the Apocalypse to fill a real need - the need to transform and renew blighted cities.

I Just...Couldn't...Resist

Vaguely there, in the back of my mind, I knew it existed. But it took Elias posting a photo on my facebook wall to inspire me to visit my old neighborhood and check this place out.

Yeah, probably not, but more about that later. 

The above photo of the Zombie Apocalypse Store is the one I posted on my log for a nearby geocache. 

My review? The interior was smaller than I expected, but the store is still well-stocked with guns and ammunition (which I didn't look at because even if I had looked, I wouldn't be able to testify to the quality or value of same), knives, MREs, camping supplies and souvenirs. 

I picked up another Emergency Fire Starter, but beware! It was more economical on amazon.com, and I also think that the amazon version has more magnesium than the Zombie store version (obviously, I didn't know that at the time, even though I had my moderately intelligent phone [thank you, Congolese miners!] and could have checked). So...inflated prices due to the owners know you're willing to pay a bit more for a product that is combined with zombie ambiance. 

There are many, many novelty items related to the store's theme, including bumper stickers, posters, books and movies, t-shirts and even bleeding zombie targets.  

There was a heavy flow of traffic in the store from the time I arrived until the time I left. 

BY FAR, the best part about the Zombie Apocalypse Store in Las Vegas (are there any other Zombie Apocalypse Stores in other cities? I ran a google search for this and came up confused) is the little zombie-shooting range. You stand behind the counter, feed two quarters into the slot and get a fixed number of shots to aim at glowing targets. When you hit your glowing target (I know, because it took me exactly two shots each time to get each zombie), the furniture twirls or the zombie head pops up or some other interactive feature gives you positive reinforcement for your good shot. 

There was also a corner of a display case weirdly dedicated to Twinkies, and a Twinkie recipe book. 

The million-dollar question: is the zombie apocalypse store worth the $1.85 in gas that it will cost you to get from my home to the store? 

The answer is mostly yes, especially if you are a tourist here and you've gotten bored and/or lost money on the Strip, or if you live here and guests who do not know about the Zombie Apocalypse Store are coming to visit. 

The answer is no if you are seriously looking for survival items and weaponry. There are other places in town which have these things at a better value. The answer is also no if you live here and are very busy with like, say, a job or something. 

So that's that. Let me know what you think if you visit the store. Lots of people do, I think, because as I was driving home I noticed about 27 "zombie hunter: kill or be eaten" stickers on various cars around town.

From the Food Network to the Quick Care

Are you familiar with Alton Brown?

I bring him up because several years ago while watching the Food Network, I became agitated and asked my friend Krista why he had to stop so often and bore us with technical details about food. She informed me that he is actually a food scientist. I'm not sure what that means, but Alton Brown does have a very good blog that has a current entry about foodscaping that is worth the read while we prepare for a possible apocalypse.  

I bring him up because he (and Sara Oberle) would be appalled at what I am about to say: I invented a raw s'more. You take a piece of graham cracker, a raw marshmallow and a square of chocolate, and you stuff them in your mouth at once, not bothering to heat them in any way whatsoever. 

I bring up my raw s'more to introduce you, in case you did not already know, to my most treasured personality trait, impatience. 

Of course, the very minute the school year ended (a few minutes or hours beforehand, in fact), I fell ill, the victim of a phlegmtastic event. Following the advice of my friend Jodi, I started a Mucinex regimen. Following the advice of my friend Miss Gokey, I quadrupled my water intake. These actions made me feel slightly better. 

Being sick reminded me that I meant to order, but never did, a book recommended by James Wesley Rawles, Where There is no Doctor by David Werner. Lacking this proper manual, I went to the next-best resource, pinterest, where I believe it was Shannon Koistinen who had pinned a link to Mountain Rose Herbs. Clearly, according to the website, you have to sleep at night on top of a large pile of money in order to be healthy and natural. 

Which brings us back to impatience (in this case, also frugality) and raw s'mores. The fourth recipe down the page on the Mountain Rose Herbs website talks about a throat spray made from essential oils. Yeah, I went ahead and threw a sliced lemon and a handful of mint leaves into a pitcher of water and have been drinking lemon-mint water all day. And I feel slightly better.

Here in Las Vegas, there is a doctor, and there is also really good health insurance that I'm fortunate enough to have for the time being and should definitely be taking advantage of. There is something to be said, however, for finding the online recipes, and for beginning to build up an Apocalypse medicine cabinet. Maybe it will contain essential oils.  

Be well, my loyal readers! Hasta la proxima. 

On the Road Again...

Beginning tomorrow and for the next ten or so weeks, many of my friends (and I) will be traveling around the country and to other countries, be it for good, for a few years, or for just a few days or weeks.

With that in mind, I have decided to compile a post dedicated to Travel Safety in this Possibly-Apocalyptic Era. I hope that everyone on the move will remember what it's like to drive in Las Vegas during rain (or, that one time, snow): nobody knows how to act, so everybody freaks out.


IF YOU ARE DRIVING:
Lucky for us, there is, on the internet, a National Road Safety Foundation offering study materials. I choose to share with you their Quick Safety Tips for traveling Into the Elements. Many of these Tips are irrelevant because it's not January. But we all remember that one time we went to Yellowstone and decided to take the exciting route home, only to hit a blizzard on a mountaintop and a sign that said something like, "You may absolutely not go any further unless you have chains on your tires."

Other Tips fall under the domain of common sense: do not attempt to drive down from Windy Ridge to Portland with a cigarette in your left hand, your cell phone in your right, a cool, refreshing beverage between your knees and one pinkie finger on the wheel. The mountain will win.

Also common sense is the need to get trip-checked: make sure your oil is changed, tires are well-inflated, windshield wipers are functional, not dry-rotted. Make sure you bring along your car charger. Yes, yes, yes, we all also remember the days before cell phones, and how scary movies changed forever until writers discovered the trick of adding the "Damn! No signal!" line prior to the Teenagers' arrival at Scary Lake. I say hey! We have the technology, we may as well use it in emergency situations, until the grid goes down and we can't anymore.

If you want to read all of the "Into the Elements" page, you can find it here.

Personally, I also carry a basic car safety kit including jumper cables, tire-changing-implements, gloves, a safety light and flares, along with a fire blanket (and like 5 spare blankets) and at least 1 gallon of water just for me.

IF YOU ARE FLYING:
Remember that most crashes happen during takeoff and touchdown. For this reason, it is best to get a nonstop flight. That being said, if you're flying nonstop to someplace REALLY far away east-west-wise, avoid blood clots by doing some exercises (Susan Lundman recommends these) and possibly, depending on your age and health, wearing compression socks. Finally, vote for respect and integrity, and PAY ATTENTION to the safety-card debriefing (for once). Oh, and don't sit in an exit row if you are not planning on actually lifting that door open!!! More tips can be found here.

ONCE YOU GET WHERE YOU'RE GOING:
Off the top of my head...carry your wallet in your front pocket or your purse over your shoulder. Sit on the aisle in the bus. Walk confidently with your head up and be aware of your surroundings. Don't buy perfume from guys at gas stations. Swarms of adorable children begging for candy may also be skilled pickpockets.

In short, don't let paranoia ruin your trip, but help ensure your trip will be a good one by using your noggin.
Then of course there is my favorite advice of all time: the map is not the territory!

As a sendoff for my friends, I offer the Wayfarer's Prayer, which comes to us from the Jewish tradition and Wikipedia:


"May it be Your will, LORD, our God and the God of our ancestors, that You lead us toward peace, guide our footsteps toward peace, and make us reach our desired destination for life, gladness, and peace. May You rescue us from the hand of every foe, ambush along the way, and from all manner of punishments that assemble to come to earth. May You send blessing in our handiwork, and grant us grace, kindness, and mercy in Your eyes and in the eyes of all who see us. May You hear the sound of our humble request because You are God Who hears prayer requests. Blessed are You, Adonai, Who hears prayer."


And from one of my own traditions, of course: