Terminator Salvation

My friend Lisa is only slightly less-nerdy than I am, and we're both big fans of the Terminator series. Which is to say, the first one was great and the second one even better, while the third one totally sucked. We had high hopes for the fourth installment of the series, "Terminator Salvation."

She came by my house on Thursday afternoon and hung out while I welded some of the aluminum railings I'm installing on the staircase in my house. She looked up movie times while I forgot not once, but twice, to ground the pipe I was welding. I had the pipe clamped in my bench vise with rubber pads installed, to keep from marring the aluminum. The ground clamp for my TIG machine was on the welding table as usual, and when I hit the pedal the 200 amps I wasn't feeding into the insulated pipe decided instead to shoot out my left arm.

Believe me, I yelped. Then I managed to do it a second time on a different weld. It was pretty funny actually.

All day yesterday I had a tic in my left shoulder. I wonder if it had anything to do with the shock I gave myself.

Following those shenanigans, I took a quick shower to wash the metal smell off me and put a fresh battery in my digital recorder, stuffed some tri-folds in my back pocket, slipped the Glock and mags into place and we hit the street.

It's just over a mile and a half down a pretty heavily traveled thoroughfare to the local theatre complex. We decided to walk it as it was a beautiful day. Usually the police have a speed trap set up on that road, often enough that I've considered picketing with one friend and two signs, one ahead of their position reading "SLOW DOWN SPEED TRAP AHEAD" and another after their position reading "DID WE SAVE YOUR ASS-HOW ABOUT A DONATION?"

I don't know about you but if I were exceeding some arbitrarily imposed "limit" and someone warned me off about it, I'd throw them twenty bucks in a heartbeat. Can you imagine if you organized the homeless? Those guys already do pretty well panhandling (for the bleeding hearts out there, uncommon sense says they wouldn't do it if they weren't getting paid) but think about how well they'd do if they provided an actual service. Two guys, two signs and a tip jar and identify all the usual hideouts the cops use. And ironically, they'd actually be getting people to slow down- something the police have been unable to accomplish. Not that I'm surprised...the state makes soooo much money off victimless traffic "crimes" that there is no way they truly want people to drive slower.

My buddy Dennis called me from traffic court on Wednesday, and said that he had added up the fines during the proceedings from one courtroom during the afternoon session. The haul? $40,000.00. Yep, forty thousand dollars.

How embarrassing.

But I digress. There were no police fleecing the people that day, nor were they protecting or serving. So we walked, with my cattle dog, all the way there. We didn't shoot anyone and no one suffered a coronary.

When we arrived at our destination we had just ten minutes before the movies started so we beat feet to the nearby Vons because I had been craving ice cream for a week. It was late afternoon and the place was hoppin'. Ben and Jerry's was 2 for 7 bucks so we grabbed a Chunky Monkey and a Cherry Garcia. A few little kids oohed and ahhhed over my dog Sioux, (and I can't blame them, she is the smartest, prettiest cattledog ever) and all the soccer moms smiled at us, as did the people in the checkout line, the checker and the store management. No one screamed and no one was shot. A little old lady, had to be 80 years old, eyed my gun and I could just tell she was considering wrestling me to the floor and stealing it from me, then using it to go on a shooting spree, rob the store and fly to Belize. I caught her eye and gave her a wink and she thought better of it. Maybe she'll finish out her days free from the guilt of crime. We can only pray for her, poor dear.

Then it was out the door and to the theatre where we bought tickets at the inside counter and took a moment to give some guy on someone else's cell phone directions to the theatre. Those crazy gun-lovers are not only tall and handsome, but helpful too. Dammit! What a public relations nightmare.

Two hours later we walked back to my house in the fading light. I felt like a sow because I ate a pint-and-a half of our 2 pints of B&J. I guess Lisa can't throw back ice cream like she can shots. My friend lit out for home and that was that.

The movie? It sucked. It's not even a rental. Don't waste your money or your life.