Thai Temple and a Gun Class

Yesterday we went to a Thai Temple which has this little market where you can buy food every Sunday. I waited for about 30 minutes in line for the soup. I figured if there was a line for it, it must be the best thing. Grace tasted it and said that it was just average. I had to admit this was true. However, I did enjoy waiting in line. They try to make it look like you are in Thailand, sort of. I mean obviously you are still in Florida, but the building, the way the trash is separated in wooden boxes, and other stuff, it looks more like Thailand. (from the pictures and movies that I've seen that is.) So waiting in line crowded next to various types of American people (some of the Thai) was sort of part of the experience.
Seeing that place got me thinking, they should just hang up some Tire punching bags and teach Muay Thai too, and a Kung fu School that functioned like this, like a little Community center... a Kung Fu Village, would be cool too. The Kung Fu part would be free. It would make money through donations and these little market events. Or maybe there would be a Chinese School attached to it. You could do that in Florida.

After that Grace dropped me off at a shooting range and I had my first Gun Class. We got a deal through Groupon. At first I was nervous about the class, and the signs on the gun range wall that screamed 2nd Ammendment, Right Wing, and general loud stuff like Obama is an idiot, and all this type of world view, was really not for me.
But everyone was soft spoken, nice and polite and once the class started that was good. We went over gun safety (which is sort of why I was there mostly) and then we loaded and unloaded 6 different guns with fake ammo. The revolver was okay, but after watching them do the other ones, when I picked up the gun I found I didn't remember what I was supposed to do. I felt like an idiot. Luckily I knew I would probably feel like that and the instructors helped me through it, and I was not the only one like that. In fact the other two students were just as beginner as me in regards to that. The "apprentice" teachers, who were actually war veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq, had practiced Gun Sifu hands and were patient teachers. (BTW I know it should now be normal to see veterans who are younger than me as I am now 30. But when I see young faces like that who have come back from war.. well I'm glad they came back. But basically whenever we talk about sending soldiers to war we should pretty much say children instead and be sure that that is what we actually need to do.)

Anyway, I bumbled through all the loading and unloading. The revolvers were the only things I felt comfortable with. And when you think about it, those forms of a gun have been around since wild west times right? Like before real toilets. And the bigger guns, which were supposed to be made to be simple, for a 17 year old to grab and fight (as the younger teacher explained it) well I guess there is a reason why I haven't taken a gun class of this sort until now. As I am not exactly drawn to it.

But once we started shooting that was very nice. It was actually very meditative. Not just the way I did it. But the way they tell you to do it. To take you time. It is like a sort of meditation. So I can see why people can spend all day at the range.
But I'm definitely never buying a gun. Well not any time soon that I can imagine anyway.
Nor will I take up shooting guns as a hobby. Though maybe I will try to again with archery with my homemade bows and stuff. I've seen people do that in open fields. I just need to make a target and get there when nobody is there. Maybe I need to wait till the kids are a little older too.