I went to the 137th annual NRA convention which was in Louisville, Kentucky for the weekend. My trip began Thursday morning around 830am. I had to drive thru the state of Maryland which I hate because of their "common sense" gun laws. I still fail to see how having to go defenseless is common sense? Oh well, their state, their problems. I made it thru Maryland in under two hours, after passing about half a dozen cops. *Cough*cough* Police state. I continued to West Virginia where I happily re-armed myself, and where I drove for about 3 hours thru some very beautiful country. I crossed the Kentucky border around 4pm and made it into Louisville around 8pm. Between West Virginia and Kentucky I saw one cop the entire way. It was a Lexington PD cruiser sitting with his lights on before some road construction. 1 cop in two states, 6 cops in one state... anyone else see a problem here? I got to Louisville and pretty much crashed after some pizza.
Friday- I woke up bright and early and headed off to the convention center with Greg after a quick stop at the store and some breakfast at Sonic... We mingled around the convention floor for a bit. I got a few photos, and stumbled upon R. Lee Ermey. The line was too long so I opted to come back the next day. Later Greg and I went to "The Celebration of American Values forum" with guest speakers John McCain, Mick Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Marcus Lutrell, Greg Stube, Karl Rove, John Bolton and Oliver North. There were a few others but I fail to remember at this time. I think the others were Pro-gun Senators and Reps from congress. We got special "media" seating because we are bloggers. Now I want to point out something rather funny in retrospect, but I was rather pissed at the time. So we are in line for the "Celebration of American Values"... And per John McCain’s request the audience had to be disarmed, and by entering we subject ourselves to search and seizure of property.... Remember, this is "A Celebration of American Values". The hypocrisy just sucks, doesn't it?
After the forum we dipped out and headed back to the hotel to go over to Indiana to have dinner with the blogger group. The restaurant was upstairs in the 2nd largest Bass Pro shop in the world. The store was 4 stories high and would have taken all day to walk thru it. After dinner I had to run over to Best Buy to get a charger for my camera which was about dead. Figures... it stays charged for 3 months, and wants to die when I'm 600 miles from home without my charger. Blah. $50 bucks later I drive back to Kentucky and have a few beers in the hotel room and hit the rack.
Friday- I woke up bright and early and headed off to the convention center with Greg after a quick stop at the store and some breakfast at Sonic... We mingled around the convention floor for a bit. I got a few photos, and stumbled upon R. Lee Ermey. The line was too long so I opted to come back the next day. Later Greg and I went to "The Celebration of American Values forum" with guest speakers John McCain, Mick Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Marcus Lutrell, Greg Stube, Karl Rove, John Bolton and Oliver North. There were a few others but I fail to remember at this time. I think the others were Pro-gun Senators and Reps from congress. We got special "media" seating because we are bloggers. Now I want to point out something rather funny in retrospect, but I was rather pissed at the time. So we are in line for the "Celebration of American Values"... And per John McCain’s request the audience had to be disarmed, and by entering we subject ourselves to search and seizure of property.... Remember, this is "A Celebration of American Values". The hypocrisy just sucks, doesn't it? After the forum we dipped out and headed back to the hotel to go over to Indiana to have dinner with the blogger group. The restaurant was upstairs in the 2nd largest Bass Pro shop in the world. The store was 4 stories high and would have taken all day to walk thru it. After dinner I had to run over to Best Buy to get a charger for my camera which was about dead. Figures... it stays charged for 3 months, and wants to die when I'm 600 miles from home without my charger. Blah. $50 bucks later I drive back to Kentucky and have a few beers in the hotel room and hit the rack.
Saturday - I'm up bright and early again. There was no way in hell I was going to miss out on R. Lee Ermey. I was there for an hour before the opened the doors just to be first in lin
e. Sure enough I was 3rd in line because apparently other people had the same idea. Well I got his autograph and photo with him. Still there wasn't a long wait. At this point I had about 4 hours to kill before the Glenn Beck book signing. I mozied on around the convention floor about 3 times (Which is a lot considering there were probably close to 1000 displays) At 1pm Greg and I met up and successfully made it to be first in line for the Glenn Beck signing. Beck walked right past us, shook our hands and went off to get Ted Nugent’s autograph before he left. We stood there for a few more minutes before Beck went out. His staff was rather pushy and pushed us along as quick as we put that book down. There was no time to get photos or chit chat. I was rather bummed, but I did get his autograph in his book. After the signing we went back to the room and crashed out for a bit before the banquet.
e. Sure enough I was 3rd in line because apparently other people had the same idea. Well I got his autograph and photo with him. Still there wasn't a long wait. At this point I had about 4 hours to kill before the Glenn Beck book signing. I mozied on around the convention floor about 3 times (Which is a lot considering there were probably close to 1000 displays) At 1pm Greg and I met up and successfully made it to be first in line for the Glenn Beck signing. Beck walked right past us, shook our hands and went off to get Ted Nugent’s autograph before he left. We stood there for a few more minutes before Beck went out. His staff was rather pushy and pushed us along as quick as we put that book down. There was no time to get photos or chit chat. I was rather bummed, but I did get his autograph in his book. After the signing we went back to the room and crashed out for a bit before the banquet.The banquet was in a rather large room at the convention center in downtown Louisville. I was near the back of the room, but I'm not complaining since I still managed to get a ticket being on the waiting list and all. The dinner was rather good, and afterwards we heard from a few guest speakers. Wayne LaPierre introduced Bobby Jindal the new Governor of Louisiana. Then the keynote speaker, Glenn Beck. As always his speech was powerful, sarcastic and to the point. I drove home the next morning glad that I went. I got to meet a few well known pro-second amendment celebrities and politicians, as well as picking up a lot of new knowledge about the 2nd Amendment.
No comments:
Post a Comment