5/15/2019

Oh boy, where do I begin? 

I'm a legal adult now, though that doesn't mean I'm suddenly an actual adult now. I'll still live with my mom through college, and I do not mind that at all. Adulthood scares me, so as of now, my goals are go to work like I have been, finish my book, find a few hobbies, stay healthy, and most of all, get comfortable driving! I think I'll take the semester off to learn how to drive in Denver and practice a few trades, and start up college in the winter. Shouldn't be too hard, right? My parents both said community college was way easier than high school, and judging by how hard I worked, especially during the last two weeks of school, I believe them. I'm going into adulthood absolutely brain-fried, and I'm not sure when I'll recover from working on only physics and pre-calc since I turned in my research paper. While I'm proud of myself for going from Algebra 0.5 to pre-calc and modern physics in less than 365 days, I can't see myself ever becoming a physicist or mathematician. Ever. 

But, on a completely different note, I had a wonderful birthday! I headed up to Greeley to hang out with Uncle Courtney and Aunt Sharon for the day. The horses were turned out to the pasture for the summer a couple months ago, and are too feral for my liking. The last thing I wanted was to get bucked off in the middle of the neighbor's cornfield, which is right next to a busy middle school and main road. So instead, we headed off to the range to shoot a handful of firearms, from uncle Courtney's little .17 caliber rifle, to his big .45 caliber handgun. I haven't touched a handgun in years, so my aim was off by a lot until we got to the last 9 bullets of the day, when my handgun training from several years ago finally kicked in. 

Uncle Courtney hopes that I'll join his granddaughters at a concealed carry course in the fall. While I cannot legally own a handgun or get my concealed carry permit until I turn 21, I can attend a concealed carry course and get the proper certifications before then. So when I do turn 21, I can go to the sheriff's office with my certification card, sign a piece of paper, pay $200, and be able to legally carry for 10 years before having to renew my certifications. In this day and age, I want to be able to properly defend myself and others from a safer distance, which is what a carry will do. In Colorado, I can legally open carry a handgun. However, I know that often attracts a lot of unwanted attention, especially in very politically progressive places such as Boulder and Denver, so I'd rather conceal carry just in case the highly unlikely thing happens. If I lived in Texas, that'd be a completely different story. But because I live in a very blue state, and am surrounded by progressives, I need to conceal my 2nd amendment rights (no offense to progressives. I actually agree with them in a few ways, although my views on guns vastly differ from theirs). As some old saying goes, I'd rather be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. 

However, I can (and probably will very soon) legally buy a rifle and/or a shotgun now that I'm 18. Unfortunately, I can't afford any brand new firearms right now, mostly because I've been shamelessly spending my money on dirtbike gear, art supplies, and sushi. But I can afford certain pre-owned firearms at Cabela's (assuming I don't make a bee-line first to the camo hoodies in the middle of the hunting section). The background check in most Colorado counties, besides Denver and Boulder, takes less than a half-hour. And since I've never had any run-ins with the law, or been admitted to a mental hospital, or been diagnosed with any violent or threatening mental illnesses (even if I ever did, my juvenile records are now sealed and cannot be used against me), it'll be very easy for me to pass the background check and purchase a firearm. The hard part will be finding what I can afford, and then having to choose what I want out of that. I can only afford one rifle, which is like telling a kid in a candy store he can only have one piece. 

Back at uncle Courtney's, after spending 5 hours at the shooting range, he had me shoot a bow for the first time in a decade. Once I got a hold of an air-rifle, I abandoned archery and strictly practiced with rifles. But uncle Courtney wanted me to try out archery again, to see if I still had it in me. Not only that, but he wanted to recreate a picture of 8-year-old me learning how to shoot a bow on my birthday. While my birthday party today was very small, and my cousin, Nathan (the kid in the red shirt looking more nervous than I was when I started my final math test), was stuck at work today, the result of our re-creation still turned out very cool.