footwear collection, thoughts on beauty, and tactical training.

I swear all my footwear is entirely functional; I only have 8 pairs here. Sandals, flip-flops, court shoes, winter-type sneakers, good shoes, winter boots, backup hiking boots, and new hiking boots. The 9 pairs (sandals, winter boots, court shoes, sneakers, winter-type sneakers, work boots, beat-up sneakers (for lawnmowing), and two pairs of flip-flops) back home in Fredericton surely don't count.

I don't spend time thinking of shoes, nor do I gasp in amazement when I see a pair of shoes. I buy what I feel I need. But all this has raised some philosophical thoughts in my mind. I know many people buy shoes simply because they find them aesthetically pleasing (absolutely nothing wrong with that); I don't feel like that about any shoes I've bought, but I do see beauty in their functionality. Especially with my new utterly awesome hiking boots. I appreciate most of my shoes' ability to do what they're designed for effectively. Functional beauty and aesthetic beauty are not exclusive from one other. For example finely tuned exotic sports cars are often both gut-wrenchingly gorgeous and more literally gut-wrenchingly good at their abc's*.

I have no idea what I've been rambling about or what the point is.

I biked 14 km this evening to pick up my firearms safety manual; Erik found a place offering the non-restricted firearms safety course over one day. Prior to this it seemed we'd be unarmed since I couldn't find a course offered in time. But while I was away, he found this one-day course at the "International Tactical Training Academy". So I am to receive "tactical training", which will (I assume) enable me to replace people like Worf and Tuvok as a Tactical Officer. The course is all day. I guess we go over the safety and then practice firing some weapons. Maybe there'll be paintball. Anyway the upshot is that we be packin' heat this summer.

This has been another weird and disjointed post from grum. We now return to your regularly scheduled doldrums. Oh but comment first. I like comments.



* accelerating, braking, and cornering