A convention of celebrities

Here we are in Pittsburgh and after a quick stop to the NRA store to get our T-shirts and mugs before the best stuff sold out we hit the exhibit floor. . .



and wow it was crowded! Even taking into account the people attending the Leadership Seminar, who like to listen to politicians drone on, there was still a sea of humanity to fight to get at the free tote bags and to gawk at semi-famous people. Then there was the problem of fighting through the ginormous lines of people who for some reason wanted to pay ridiculous amounts of money to buy crappy hot dogs and hamburgers. One common factor in the 7 conventions I've attended has been the god-awful overpriced food on the convention floor.

One unusual thing about today was that wherever we turned we ran into a celebrity.

Here is convention favorite R. Lee Ermey:



Here is the Nuge:

No surprise there. R Lee Ermey and the Nuge are at every convention

But we turned the corner and what do we see at the Thompson-Kahr booth. The incompetent gold miners from Gold Rush Alaska: Jack and Todd Hoffman. I think they may have tapped a vein of "gold" that will never play out. Maybe they aren't so incompetent after all.



Denise also ran into Chris Reed from Season 2 of Top Shot. Unfortunately I was not able to get a picture. The NRA convention seems to be really popular with the reality show set this year.

Finally we have Hero to all supporters of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Dick Heller:



Thanks again!

We spent a couple of hours of wading through the exhibit area and saw a lot of gunny goodness. But then we found out there was another entire floor of exhibits downstairs! We only had the stamina for a couple of rows but we ran into this strange exhibit:



Now, I have never had the desire to use chewing tobacco, but I have to admit that I have the urge to show my ID and enter into this shrouded domain. Yes, they require an ID to enter. It all seems so naughty, like the darkened adult store at the end of the block that you have to screw up your courage to enter. I never thought I would see the day when chewing tobacco was something to be hidden and whispered about and guns would be cool and openly displayed for all to see. Strange times.

YS

Pittsburgh Bound

Well. It's been awhile. I guess it's more than past time to dust off this blog and put up a new post. As the title implies, we are on our way to Pittsburgh tomorrow at noon. This will be our seventh NRA convention. Time sure does fly by.

We are planning on doing things a little different for this convention. We are going to take our time and not rush as we usually do on the exhibit floor.

We also are not going to attend the Celebration of American Freedom Mom and Apple Pie Experience or whatever they call it.

This year I am calling it the Hucklefuck.

I really have no desire to listen to Mike Hucklebee gas on about whatever he gasses on about. I particularly don't want to partake the experience from uncomfortable stadium seats.

Denise and I really miss the banquet. But I suspect the banquet in Phoenix is the last one we'll enjoy. No, Denise and I will spend Saturday having a nice dinner at one of Pittsburgh's better restaurant's.

We'll raise a toast to the memory of banquet's past and T. Bubba Bechtol (I miss that guy).

We also plan to attend more of the seminars than we have in the past. We've always had to cut short our attendence to one seminar or the other because we were always rushing hither and yon to one event or the other. We plan to rush alot less this time around.

One of the plans we have for this convention is to sample a few of Pittsburgh's eating establishments. One of the places that we might try is famous locally: Primanti Brothers
Unfortunately, they have seem to have been involved in hosting a local event of Mayor Bloomberg's anti-gun jihad, MAIG(Mayor's Against Illegal Guns) More Here

Now my knee jerk reaction is to say: No way in hell am I going to visit this establishment.

But, my more thoughtful side has this reaction: Wouldn't it be better to kill them with kindness as the saying goes.

Think about it.

Instead of empty shops, thousands of hungry, POLITE, gun owners sporting NRA T-shirts and caps show up at Pittsburgh area Primanti Brothers shops and spend money like its going out of style. This shows the owners of Primanti Bros. that NRA members blow away :) the anti-gun community in both wealth and influence.

In fact this policy works well wherever we go in Pittsburgh. Let's show the dour, doommongering bitter enders that gun owners are happy, wealthy forward marching people and that the other side represents the ass end of history.

Couldn't hurt to try.

Anyway, hope to see some of you there!

YS