Kids today...I don't get it.

Last week-end, I was up in Michigan for a few hours and my nephew, The Spud, who was once such a cute little kid, is now sixteen years old, and he has dyed his hair red and grown it out to the point that, from the back, he looks like that chick from the Wendy's commercials.

Can anyone with a kid explain kids to me?

Be Alert, Be Aware! Here He Comes!

My Nephew, The Spud, turns SIXTEEN today. And he's just started Driver's Ed.

So, in his honor...and as a warning to the rest of you all...

Hounds to the Hound Park

Because I've been neglecting my canines recently.

At the dog park last night, Murphy chases down his prey, a little old lady.

Whoops. Sorry Mom. But at least Belle is well behaved, lying in the grass.

Here, they work as a pack, hunting for a groundhog that was over here a bit before.

Spud is well guarded by the dogs up on the park bandstand

And here, the dogs were going for a nice walk with Spud until they realized that I wasn't joining them. They like the boy, but they're not going anywhere with anyone who isn't me.

And yeah, I know...the kid needs a haircut in the worst way.

Spud to the Range for Machine Gun Fun!

So what does one do with a nephew visiting from out of town? Why, you you take him shooting, of course.

Here he is trying out the .300 AAC shorty with full-powered rounds and no suppressor.

And here he is shooting it suppressed.

(And yeah...I belatedly caught the lack of safety glasses here and we had a discussion about that.)

Then we moved on to bigger things. Hell, he's been good enough to earn some trigger time on "the Pig".

After that, we put a box of sporting clays down on the 50-yard berm and went "Dueling .22 rifles" on them until they were gone. Here he is with my M&P-15 .22lr. (And yeah, he's got a muddy ass. Boys are supposed to get muddy...even this one.)

And since this is real shooting and not "Call of Duty", he learned some shooting positions today, both prone (above) and sitting (below).

He did great. No clays survived.

Then it was time to try some pistol shooting on the steel plates with the Browning Hi-Power.

He got off to a bit of a slow start here, but surprisingly, as soon as he started listening to what I was telling him about stance, grip, sights and trigger, the plates started dropping like clockwork. Funny how that works, isn't it?

We spent a few hours out there, and he was safe and followed directions. My only real complaint is that when it comes to policing brass, he's the slowest brass-picker-upper I've ever seen. But we can work on that. As far as shooting goes, I'm proud of him.

Christmas with the dogs.

So it was off for Christmas to Grandmas's house last week for the dogs, and for Belle it was the first time.

We started off on a sour note, with baths for the pair.

"Turn that water on and you're gonna regret this..."

"Yup. I will get you for this. Count on it."

"No fair! I just had one of these last month!"

"We put it to a vote. It was unanimous. You suck. Now let us in so we can shake water all over your stuff."

Then it was off for an 8-hour drive up to Michigan. (OK, 8 hrs, 20 minutes, but only because I let Proud Hillbilly, who carpooled up to see her family, drive part of the way. Talk about Letting Miss Daisy Drive...) The dogs, penned up behind an impromptu cargo screen made from a baby gate and bungee cords, rode fairly nicely. Murphy still has riding issues, but it seemed like Belle calmed him down a lot. The dogs did fairly well at Grandma's, except for Belle mistaking Grandma's bedroom for the potty place. (Cost to rent carpet steam cleaner: $36.00.) But on Christmas morning, Santa didn't hold it against her as she and Murphy got hooked up with a pair of Kong Wubba toys. My mom got them each one. (And they squeak. I'll get even for that.)

Here, the male/female difference was apparent. Murphy chomped his, swung his, threw his and basically did everything that he could to kill it. Belle, on the other hand, gently caressed hers, grooming it and nurturing it and treating it like a cherished doll or a pup. Naturally Murphy spent most of his day trying to get hers too, and she did everything that she could to get his, so the Kongs changed hands (paws) quite a bit while my mom tried to explain to them that the light one was Belle's and the dark one was Murphy's.

"I win!"

Here, Gunnery Sgt. Murphy inspects the Spud's new shooting muffs.

"Do you think I'm cute, Private Pyle? Do you think I'm funny?"

Santa's armorers hooked Spud up with a new Airsoft H&K MP5 this year. Full-auto plastic BB fun.

In the end though, as everyone else pitched in to clean the house, the dogs called it a day and dozed off, no doubt dreaming of a fat UPS man in a red suit, and reindeer steaks.

We hope your Christmas was good, too.

A solution in search of a problem...

That's how my friend Tom described the Smith and Wesson M&P 15-22 rifle when I told him that I was thinking about getting one.

That rifle, for those who aren't familiar with it, is a .22lr version of the AR-15.

I thought about what he said, and it didn't take long to realize that he was right. Sure, it's a fun shooter, but there's no real practical point to it. But after shooting Aaron's (and getting a special Smith and Wesson price deal on one), I bought one anyway.

There's still no point to it, but it's a darned fun shooter.

And it's great for The Spud, too. Here he is with it at the Lapeer gravel pit last week:

He wore it out. He's got more rounds through it now that I do.
And unlike so many of the Bubbas at the range that day, (Accurately described in detail here at The Shekel) he was both responsible and safe.

I'm thinking that that range is going to get shut down sooner or later, just because of the large number of blatantly unsafe shooters that I keep seeing there. It's only a matter of time before someone gets hurt or killed, and when that happens...bye, bye, free, unsupervised range.

And here's the Spud with my Mini-14.

Again--he's safe and he takes the time to actually aim, unlike so many of the "Hey, watch me bump-fire this like an asshole..." crowd.

And here's Aaron with his Saiga shotgun, with detachable magazine and Eotech optic.

He was making the Bubbas jealous all up and down the line with it. (Plus he actually hits what he aims at, unlike the majority of idiots out there who were simply spraying rounds in the general direction of the berm as fast as they could jerk their triggers.)

We couldn't stay there too long because we were expected back for a joint-family dinner with his clan and mine that evening, but we got some shooting in so it was good, Bubbas notwithstanding.

Spud's Day on Mackinac Island

The weather for the flight in could not have been better--high cirrus clouds and no wind to speak of. Much better than the 600-foot ceiling and wind gusting to 35mph that kept us grounded in Sault Ste. Marie the previous day.

I told Spud to go watch for the taxi as I tied down the plane and settled up with Dennis, the State of Michigan airport worker who made it clear that his priority in life was getting that $10.50 landing fee from each of us pilots who'd just come in. (Welcome to Mackinac Island!) I did not tell Spud that the "taxi" was a horse-drawn carriage as no cars are allowed on Mackinac Island.

Spud loved this, having never been on a horse-drawn carriage ride before. It was neat and a time-saver, but $14.00 for the two of us to go a mile and a half? Welcome to Mackinac Island!

The carriage dropped us off at the Grand Hotel, pictured here.

I've stayed here in earlier times when I had a job that required my presence here and someone else was footing that bill. The hotel boasts the world's longest front porch, but if non-guests wish to sit on it and buy $7.00 iced teas to sip, you have to pay $10.00 each just to walk out on it. Welcome to Mackinac Island!

We walked from the hotel over to Fort Mackinac, the stone fort overlooking the harbor and Straits of Mackinac that the British obligingly built before we kicked them out after the war of Independence. (Sneaky rat bastards took it back in 1812, though...)

The fort was chock-full of re-enactors demonstrating early army life from both the British and American perspectives.

Here, the American soldiers demonstrate tactics with authentic Trapdoor Springfields.

They let him hold one and Spud was in awe of that rifle, pronouncing it to be "SO cool!"

I guess theirs are "cooler" than mine since he wasn't at all interested in shooting mine when he was here last year. Kids...

He got to check out an India-pattern .75 musket too, courtesy of his "British" friend.

And there was a cannon demonstration of the six-pounder variety.

I offered the gun crew a case of beer if they could het one of the ferries coming into the harbor, and I upped it to two cases if they could even come close to a low-flying airplane that was overflying the waterfront, but they didn't take me up on it.
As the fort was originally designed to protect the straits, it had lots of cannon.

Sadly all of the original guns that used to be here were hauled in during World War Two and melted down for the iron.

Here's Spud in the guardhouse stockade. Since he was gullible enough to walk into the open cell, I decided to make him part of the exhibit for a bit.

He wasn't amused, but several other tourists were. And I did let him out after a while.

Next, we hiked over to Arch Rock, a natural stone formation on the east side of the island.

Then it was a hike up to Skull Cave.

The Spudster was a little put out by this one. He was expecting something big and deep that he could explore. Sorry, fella!
Then it was back into town.

I took him to the office of Dr. William Beaumont, one-time army surgeon for the fort. Spud got to see and learn how he studied human digestion by treating a patient who was shot through the abdomen yet lived. The hole in the man's stomach never really sealed up, so Beaumont spent a couple of years looking into his stomach and putting various items in on pieces of string to see what the digestive process did. Spud was thoroughly grossed out, but he sure remembered it when asked about it later.

Then it was off to the blacksmith shop. Spud had been looking forward to this.

We stayed here for quite some time and Spud thought it was the greatest thing. Now he wants to be a blacksmith when he grows up. Hated to tell him that there's not much call for it these days. Maybe he should look into the buggy whip manufacturing business instead.

After dinner, we took one more walk about town.

Then it was time to fly out and head home.

Gratuitous Mackinac Bridge photos follow.