Dear Brooke,

In 2000 while living in Denver, CO I got very involved with USPSA shooting competitions. It was so much fun and very challenging. I started to gain more weight and wanted an activity that really got me moving and out there but wasn’t just some boring exercise. I happened to come across a flyer for some shooting competition while visiting a local gun shop and decided to go see what “Practical Shooting” was all about.

Needless to say after that first day of watching these guys in action and how nice everyone was (except for a few quirky ones, the camo wearing, either ex or wanna be military ones) I decided this was the “sport” for me. They had competitions almost every weekend in some part of Colorado. It got me traveling around all over the state and seeing new places. It got me some great exercise. It was also a “practical” skill and was really challenging.

I went and purchased, one of my favorite guns to this day, a Para-Ordnance P16-40. With the help of some great local people I got some slight modifications done to make it a little smoother and learned a lot about doing some of those things myself which was pretty educational. I was out just about every weekend shooting and it was TON’s of fun! I even went and spent a week training practically one on one (only one other student that week) with Ron Avery who at the time was one of the top shooters in USPSA / IPSEC and a well known trainer.

Just in that first year I had won a few awards for my class & division and really started to get the hang of it and loving it.

I quit however for a few reasons. Falling in love and not wanting to waste time and money on anything or anyone but her, your mom. She didn’t like guns at all at the time for very personal reasons so I gave it all up. Nothing meant more to me then her so it was what it was. No real regrets to be honest, without that love there wouldn’t be you.

Love,
Dad