A New Year, A New You/Me?

This year the Noisykids and I have endeavored to be more active in the great outdoors. We have been preparing for a garden, working on some sort of exercise program, and doing some totally new things.

Well, sort of new things. We have always enjoyed shooting air rifles, and now we are branching out into air shotguns!

Air shotguns are not new(check out this link), but recently a company from Spain called Gamo started selling an air shotgun in the U.S. Several of the older Noisykids wanted one, and they made a great Christmas present.

Here is a video of one of the Noisykids shooting a can.



I was trying to set up this shot so that you could see the can after it was peppered with #9 shot. What should have happened is that the water in the can would stream out of the holes, giving it a kind of 'cartoon' look about it. Do you recall seeing Saturday morning cartoon characters who would take a drink, with the liquid just running out of them?

Am I the only one who remembers Saturday morning cartoons?

Anyways, as you can see the can was so close to the shotgun that it just got blown away. Not very impressive. You can see how the water sprays back towards the shotgun.

Here is another Noisykid who just reached the age to shoot some of the smaller 'big' guns:



Note how the camera makes it look as if the bottle just disappeared. This video was taken by my cell phone, and it is not the highest quality.

Air shotguns are fine for the back yard, but to go after bigger and better targets, we needed a shotgun. We have taken up skeet and trap shooting, and some day we shall go hunting for little birds that turn into little chickens in the oven.

I need a lot of practice to become proficient at trap and skeet, but here is a video of one of my sister-in-laws hitting a 'clay' thrown out by a machine. I stopped the video a little early, so you missed the victory dance:



Oh well. It is late and I have to clean that shotgun before I go shooting tomorrow.

I shall have to write later about how we have taken up the martial art of Taekwon Do!

How about a baby picture?


Here is Bernard, earlier this week, ready for his visit to the pediatrician on one of the few cold days we have had this Winter.

Today was 80 degrees....I love Texas - but I love my wife more.