I'm continuing down the path of becoming certified in as many firearm-related disciplines as I can. I'm now an NRA Certified Trainer for Pistols, Rifles and Shotguns. In July if all goes well, I should become certified as a Texas Concealed Handgun License instructor.

I've completed two Gunsmith Courses this spring with certificates in process for both. I'm working on getting my duckies in a row to obtain a Federal Firearms License which will allow me to actully work on guns for profit as well as buy and sell them as a dealer.

To facilitate this new secondary career track I've launched a new website = www.texasgunpros.com (or www.txgunpros.com or thegunpros.com) along with fellow gun enthusiast Jerry Colliver.

Another milestone has been crossed. The book that started out life as The Jesus Nut has go ...

It was back to Mississippi to see Dad over Easter weekend. He's making some progress, but there's a long way to go. His spirits are good, however, and that's a big part of the battle.

Congress passed that Healthcare Bill that nobody wanted and it remains to be seen what that's going to do to the insurance company where I work. Meanwhile, I'm moving along with what could possibly be my next career - Firearms Instructor. I've just become an NRA Certified Instructor in Basic Pistol and hope to add other qualifications soon. I've also been accepted into the Texas DPS Concealed Handgun Instructor Course that will be conducted toward the end of July. I'm about 3/4 through the Gunsmith Course I started a few months ago.

The web business continues to bring in a few jobs here and there, and somewhere on the back burner are some books I sure want to finish. Oh and the trees are all green now, the grass is growing and needing mowing. We brought some more ...

Since my last post life has changed a bit. In early March my dad was taken to the hospital because of aspiration pneumonia. When it seemed he was getting better, he got worse, then wound up in ICU on a respirator for a few days. Dad is 87 and has been living alone, driving and pretty much doing what he wanted to do, except he hadn't been walking very well. All of that has changed now.

Dad pretty much understands he won't be going back home to live. He's currently in a rehab Nursing Center and from there will most likely move into a VA home. Which one is still undecided.

I live in Texas, my blood sister lives in Northwest Arkansas and our step-sister lives in Tupelo. None of us are close to Dad. And if we could move him into one of our homes, we couldn't care for him, as he needs help with Activites of Daily Living or ADL as we call it in the insurance business.

These days come for most of us, but we're never ready for it. Dad is very much aw ...

I've enrolled in a Gunsmith Course and am really enjoying it. I may or may not ever practice as a gunsmith, but the skills I'm learning can at least be put to good use caring for and restoring my own guns. I've started working on a Marlin 80, 7-shot .22 that I bought from Camp Yocona for $4 about 45 years ago. They were selling it because it was worn out. I bought it because of sentimental value. It's the gun I used for most of the shooting I did for all of the NRA Junior Rifleman patches I earned at scout camp.

For as long as I've known the gun it was always a single shot because somewhere along the way the magazine had been lost. That was easy to fix. When I set out to bring the rifle back to life I went online and found parts readily available. I ordered a magazine, a firing pin and a firing pin spring. The magazine is here already. While waiting for the other parts to arrive, I'm refinishing the stock. I hope to be able to take my grandsons shooting with this rifle in the near ...

First, a testimony to prayer. I pray all the time for protection for my family, starting with Joyce and I and extending to the kids, grandkids, brothers and sisters and parents. Lately, I've been the benefactor of answers to that prayer on several occasions. Distracted drivers have come close to hitting me while in my truck and on foot and each time it seems to me that the only way an accident and corresponding injury was prevented was divine intervention. I hope those invisible angels sent to protect us don't get bruises when hit by a car. I also wish people would slow down and pay attention . . . and look both directions before pulling out into traffic. This is making me rethink getting another motorcycle.

Friday night after going to the earliest of Gateway's multiple Christmas productions Joyce and I went with Nate and his family to a local Italian restaurant to get some pizza. Nate's daughter Abby--three years old and as cute as they come --was acros ...

I run a few email lists mostly for classes from Oxford or University High School. The other day I posted to a couple of these lists a link to an article with a conservative perspective on the current administration's background and performance. It appears I offended some folks.

I'm concerned for our country and I believe people - voters - need to be looking at issues and thinking for themselves instead of just following the media's coverage, which is always biased one way or the other. It seems to me far too many folks vote with their emotions and not their heads. 

In the process of trying to encourage some thinking, I stirred up some liberals. Their reaction didn't surprise me. I've seen this time and again. If you challenge a conservative's views the conservative will tell you what they believe, why they believe it, the historical perspective on it, the benefits of their position and the negative impact of the oppo ...

I thought I shared this the other day, but I guess it didn't get posted. Anyone who has read my blog entries in recent months, knows I've been going to the pistol range a couple of times a month and that I'm trying to improve my aim.

The other day I was thinking about how a lot of guys play golf and they're always trying to improve their golf scores. They compare their score with others and with their own performance. That made me think about a way to record my skill with a pistol in a way other than subjectively looking at the targets and making a judgement call about whether they were better or worse than the previous shooting session. In other words, I wasn't keeping score.

I decided to create a game I called "9mm Golf" which actually can be played with any caliber, even .22.  My original idea was to put nine golf greens on a piece of paper, using a dark green color, then put an inner green circle of a lighter color and lastly an ...

I went the entire month of October without posting to my blog. It's not for lack of things to say. So much is happening around our world now that to try to comment on it all would be overwhelming.

For one thing, the industry I work in, the health insurance industry, is under fire from an administration that has an agenda. That agenda has little bearing on the realities of what real people are facing on a day to day basis.

Another thing is the Fort Hood shooting that happened last week. That shooting affected me in a number of ways. First, that it was on a military base against military people by one who was supposedly one of their own was, to me, unthinkable. This is just additional evidence of how we have dropped our guard under the guise of political correctness.

On the heals of that shooting were a couple of workplace shootings. My buddy Jerry has a saying, "there're going to be a lot more shootings." He may be right. People are ...

Since becoming actively involved in the sport of shooting again, I've found myself reading magazines and online forums for tips on how to be a better shooter. In every session at the pistol range I have lots of shots hit the target, but I have my share of wild shots, too. I know that even major league pitchers throw the occasional wild pitch or passed ball, but that doesn't stop me from trying to become more accurate with every shot.

Last Sunday morning, September 30, Phillip, Nathan and I went to the range for some shooting prior to going to church. I pulled some ammo out of the back of the drawer that I'd bought a while back because the price was reasonable. The cartridges were 124 grain FMJ Winchester white box.

When I started shooting, no matter what gun I was using, my shots were scattered all over the place. Look at photos 14 and 15 in this galllery

All summer long we prayed for rain. In the past few days we've gotten it--almost 10 inches at the house. That should help with the water table and perhaps save a few trees. Some of our Mississippi and Arkansas transplanted pines are growing several inches a week. That's fun to watch.

I realized the other day that this has been the year of licenses for me. Early in the year, or maybe it was late last year, I finally got a Texas Motorcycle license. I've been riding motorcycles most of my life and still have a dream of getting a nice Harley Cruiser before I get too old to enjoy it, so decided to get legal. This summer I've added a Texas Insurance Agent License - Life and Health. I've been teaching insurance agents how to sell their products for three years now. It was time to back my qualifications with a little paper. The same week I received the Insurance License in the mail I got my Texas Concealed Handgun License. Carry a concealed handgun fulltime has already become sec ...