I've got a bunch of pictures from my trip around Colorado, which I'll be putting up from time to time when I have a few minutes.   I had an amazing trip, because between the Colorado Conquest and X-games I had about 5 days of downtime.   My girlfriend Amanda flew out to meet me at Echo after the contest, and then we wanted to tour around Colorado and do a couple of cool things before getting back to work. 

Day #2 of our trip we headed down to Denver to do some shopping, and meet up with my oldest friend Adam Wood. 

As you get older, you'll notice that you start to drift apart with a lot of your friends.   Most of the time its not because you don't want to hang out with them anymore, its just because of geographical differences.   Adam is one of those friends for me, we were basically born together.   I mean he came out in January and I did in March, but basically our parents had us lying in carriages and cribs next to each other and we were chillin', crawlin' and droolin' all over the place together.   Adam and I were super unseparable for a very long time, and he really helped me become who I am.    Its funny, I was suuuuuuuper nerdy in elementary school, and he was that friend that sat me down one day and was like "Ok Doug, we gotta do something about this." and literally gave me cool lessons.   Not that it helped that much, as I could never shake the weirdness, but it was a good lesson in how to blend in when you need it.  

Adam and I were really tight up until the end of elementary school, but at that point his parents sent him away to boarding school.   We hung out when he was back home, but that was the start of the distance.   As we got older, Adam eventually moved out to Colorado to work with his dad in Leadville, Vail and the surrounding areas.   Fast forward to today, Adam is living and working in Denver.  

When we were kids Adam and I always loved guns.   We read punisher comics, got books about them, and had a keen eye for identifying every type of gun that we saw in movies.   Adam was wicked at it, I swear he knew every little detail about every gun ever made.   I was also raised with guns because on my Mom's side of the family Ukki (grandpa in sweedish I think) was a tough bastard.   Lumberjack, trapper, WW vet, he didn't want any grandchildren that couldn't fire a gun, chop wood, wield a knife, gut a fish, etc.   So I was always given lessons, starting with the pellet gun, moving to the .22, 3030 and 12-guage. 

When Adam moved to the states, I knew that he couldn't resist and began building up a collection of different guns.   He loves to hunt, shoot skeet, go to the range, etc.  I mean you can get a rifle in Canada no problem, but you can't get yourself a handgun.   I'm happy about that fact, as really handguns have only one purpose, which is killing other people, so I'll stick to my rifles back home.  

Adam and I at the sports bar.   You can see his girlfriend Heather in the background.

However, after a day of hanging out and being back at Adam's place I couldn't help myself and asked "Ok so come on I know you've got some firearms here... lemmie see!"  Now I know that guns are not a toy, and should ALWAYS be treated with respect.   I think Ukki taught me the best rule ever:  NEVER point a gun at another person unless you intent to kill them.   Loaded, unloaded, even a barrel detached from the rest of the gun he would lose it if we pointed at anyone.   This is the key... never fucking joke about around with a gun, shit aint funny.

Now that being said, keeping the barrel away from anything living, I did have to just hold them.

The dirty harry gun

This .357 was just unreal.  I'd never held a handgun before, nor had I seen one in real life.   I couldn't believe what it was like to hold it, and just how menacing a device this thing really is.   Adam promised me that the next time I come down and visit we'll go out to the range and I can give it a try.   I can't even imagine actually shooting something like this... its just so gnarly.   To be honest I'm kind of happy you can't get one of these easily in Canada... I like knowing that there aren't too many of them around.

Of course I had to make sure that Amanda held it to... what a priceless picture!

This is my type of gun...

A gun like this is actually pretty easy to get in Canada.   I mean its not like you can't just go buy a gun at whatever sports store, its just handguns you can't get.   I think that makes a lot of sense personally, because this is a gun for target shooting and hunting.   There's a real art to shooting a gun, and making a long shot is extremely difficult.   My dad was in the army and for a period in his life, he was ranked 2nd in Canada for rifleshooting.   When he was still shooting a lot, he could consistently light a match from 50 yards with a 3030.  That is an impressive shot.   

So anyways it was cool checking all this shit out, and you can now know that yes us Canadians too can be gun fanatics!    I sure had fun checking out what a handgun felt like, but I don't think I'm going to be packing heat anytime soon.   Though my mom has told me that she's going to give me the old .22 and the 3030, so now I just gotta find a range to shoot at! 

It was awesome seeing my friend Adam too.  Its funny I don't think we'd seen each other since an AC/DC concert in Devener back in like 2002, but sure enough the moment we started talking it was just like no time had passed at all.   We proceeded to tip back some beers for the rest of the evening and just catch up on where life is at. 

Adam and I... too many Coors deep into the evening.