The Base10 Range Experience.
Base10 went to the range today. Not the cooking range. Or the home on the range, but the "shootin' range." Going to shoot is part of the annual ritual (historical note: it used to be twice-yearly). The best part about it is that the range is egalitarian. Your age, your politics, your race, your gender simply do not matter. This is the one time during the year (for many of us at least) that combat skills rule the day.

Base10 has an odd feeling this year though. It is likely the last time he will go to the range. This brings us to the "smurf"/"dinosaur" analogy. When Base10 was a young cop, there was a vast disparity in age groups. There was a large group of people that were at or close to retirement age and a small but rapidly growing group that had just come on the job. (In truth, there is a very small middle group, but they can get their own blogger). The dynamics of the job were set. You were either a "dinosaur"--a rigid thinking old-timer with no creativity or drive--or a "smurf"--an inexperienced turk that had absolutely no understanding of how the job worked. This paradigm worked for a long time.

The thing Base10 finds difficult to deal with is the idea that at some point he changed from smurf to dinosaur. He does not know exactly when this happened and as much as he searches his memory, he cannot exactly locate that instance. It's in there somewhere. Somehwere between when he stopped asking questions about how to do things and when he started telling people how to do things.

But anyway, the range brings this back to you. It's all about how (and in some cases whether) you can shoot. They give you the usual spiel about stance, grip, site alignment and site picture (Base10 thinks these latter topics could be an analogized to websites, but that's another post).

Base10 has always been a good shot. This time was no exception. It greatly pleases him that in spite of losing his hair, his eyesight, his physique and his short term memory, Base10 can still manage to do a little damage to the bad guys.

I'll miss the range. Every company should have their employees take off from work one or two days a year and engage in manly (no offense to girls--they can be good shots too) competition. The outcome is a core value, and the top executives do their shooting along with the newest and lowest level employees. (This isn't strictly true, but you get my point). The range is one of the leveling aspects of the Department and should be continued.
- posted by Base10 @ 9:07 PM