In no particular order, other than hopefully the order it all happened in-my SHOT Show experience in brief.(still no pics yet-have to get them developed. Sinistral Rifleman has lot of good pics…[url] http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?id=92413 [/url])

Day 1

I managed to talk SinistralRifleman and Garryowen into dragging me along for the show, and more importantly, donating a section of motel room floor for my sleeping bag. Tickets in hand, I rode to the Nashville airport, and promptly missed my flight. Going back to change it, and having to run the security gauntlet again, I came within 30 seconds of missing the next flight to Vegas as well. Cranked up some 80's tunes on the CD players, and settled back for the first 3 hours of the flight to Phoenix. Sat on flight for one more hour listening to some old guy yak my ear off about AZ weather-seriously, he was. What is there to say besides “HOT”?

Claimed luggage, took shuttle, camped out in insanely croweded Circus Circus lobby, with vintage Tarzan book, and aforementioned CD player. all of this was relatively boring right on up to the point where Matt(JoJo) walked in the door, and started striding frantically around the lobby. On the third pass, I took pity on his sorry self, and introduced myself-an interesting encounter, to say the least.

All of this yakking kept me busy until SinistralRifleman showed up-followed in succession by Garryowen, and a small Cav Arms posse. I will not even attempt to make sense of who arrived and left the Cav crew when they did-suffice to say that at different times we had Treetop, his younger brother, Shannon, TopCrest, and Glo1-and a guest from Holland, Gerald. We found it difficult to pin down his accent-Dutch isn’t an easy accent to mock. Just about everyone there was worn out from setting up the Cavalry Arms booth, so most of the “old” people were ready to hit the hay first thing.

We hit the motel room in Cellblock C to drop off luggage, and SR, myself, and JoJo hit the Circus Circus pizza place-not bad. After we got done catching up IRL(In Real Life, for all you non-l33t speaking types), we hit the arcade to lose at some FPS arcade games, and watch JoJo ride the rollercoaster. I learned very quickly that SR's practiced Isosocles posture killed zombies far more accurately than my hasty Turret stance-practice, practice…

We also took a ride to Walgreens to pick up some snacks-JoJo hit on the checkout girl in the worst possible way-

“So, you ever get up to Reno?”
“Uhm, no-it’s really a long ways away.”
I missed most of the middle of the flirtatiousness, but it ended with JoJo saying, “Well, if you ever do come to Reno, you know where to find me!” and taking off like a shot out the door. SR, Shawn and I almost died laughing.


Much later SR and I crashed in our hotel room, and slept so soundly that we only just missed the rest of the Cav crew’s prank on us-Carree Huffman, Derek’s(of AZEX Arms) wife banging on our door, and shouting at us-angry escort style. It would have been funny had we been awake for that…I suspect that we were so tired that, had we woken up, Sinistral would have just opened the door, applied a shot of mace, and closed it again…[:D]

The rest of the trip, the whole show, and the spare time we had, don’t really need to be divvied up in chronological order- the high points of trip and show that come to me off the top of my head will suffice.

20 EggMcMuffins for 6 people’s breakfast (WTH?)

“Hey, these aren’t Pokemon cards!” SR, upon being assailed by escort card distributors.

“I know nothing. Hell, I know less than nothing” Tim Greene(AntiUSSA), random statement.

“So, when can I meet your sister?” SR to Glo1, immediately after expounding upon the art of fighting with intestines.

Sinistral’s photo op with the Taser models…Woohoo!

NSFJoJo begging me on his knees for 40% of MallNinja, Inc. because the Japanese Anime marketing Overlords are dying to buy the concept. Uh, yeah…

Treetop shouting “This is Mantastic” over his sandwich in the café of the MGM Grand. No, we don’t know this guy…

Finally got to hold the Tavor-and bug Chris Barrett about it-Ooohh, must have, must have.

Got to click the LEM trigger of a USP over and over (sooo sweet for a DA trigger)until the line of people forced me to stop marveling over it.

Show Special prices(up to %50 off of some things)! Cheers for people who give good deals on their stuff at the show.

Hanging on for dear life to the inside of the minivan as the Dutchman tried to kill us all in Vegas by pretending not to know the difference between left and right.

Arcade games-I 0wnz3red them all! Well, not exactly- actually, I lost most of them. Next time…

Watching in disbelief as Carree managed to literally magnetically draw people into the booth-just by standing there. Must remember to hire female booth employees next year.

Again, watching in disbelief as JoJo flirted shamelessly with Garryowen’s mom-I believe I told him he should have been born French.
Listening to the people at SOE tell SR that MOLLE gear is not for serious operators-THAT’S why they don’t stock or sell any. Uh huh…We went to Blackhawk’s booth.

Cold pizza on top of the hotel fridge-mmmm…

Goatboy reiterating his pronunciation that “Unreal Torunament sucks!”  

Seeing Ken Hackathorne, Larry Vickers and Robert K. Brown all in our booth within 20 minutes of each other-Mark from 3 Gun Gear tells me that I missed more big firearms and shooting names than I could count on both hands…but then, he knows them all.

Walking from Circus Circus to the Tropicana in one evening-owww, sore feet!

Skipping the Benelli booth to go to the Insight booth to finally get to see the Benelli M4-sheesh-Benelli makes the gun, they need to learn to share it!  

GG&G booth-found an acquaintance, havoc, there, and bothered him for a bit-GG&G has cool stuff.

Discussing how cool and appropriate a group of guys(us, perhaps) in Wermacht uniforms would be under the scale Eiffel tower on the Vegas strip. Dang Frogs…

Derek Huffman refusing to build me a G3 clone on a Federal receiver…bah!

Trijicon’s new TriPower Red Dot sight-if you ain’t got a reticule, you’re not trying. Design redundancy makes for some long lasting light in this baby.

Catalogs! Here, there everywhere-I’m still leaking business cards.

So much happened, I’m positive I haven’t coved it all-but that’s my SHOT show-or what I can remember. I’m sure later I’ll remember the double-flanged widget thingy, or the hilarious remark that was so cool-and when I do, I’ll add it to the list. Mad propz to Shawn Nealon of Cavalry Arms for taking me under the company wing, and allowing me to work his booth-and to all of the Cav Arms crew for making me feel welcome there.

Juggernaut

I still get 40%.

[):)]
NSF

Jojo as you learned, I'll always give you 100%