Neanderpundit

After each segment- ( I was in there nine minutes. It felt like two hours!!!!) the officer in charge critiques your shooting, because the system records each shot you take, how fast, where, etc.

After the second simulation he ran it back and said “Here’s your first shot and here’s … what? I turn to look at him and he runs through the simulation in super slow to find that what he thought was my second shot was my fourth.

“Hold on, you shot three times in the face. The software caught it but the gun only sounded off once” The guns used are specially modified Glocks, with “Magazines” that have CO2 cartridges. The cartridges are what cause the slide to operate, and give you as realistic a feel as possible. Plus during simulation they only fire 15 rounds, and you have to reload.

Anyway, I had shot the gunman three times in the face and it happened so fast the software only made the ‘Gun sound” once.

“With a real gun I probably wouldn’t have been able to do that” I said.

“Those trainers are calibrated so they have the same rate of fire as real Glocks. You pulled the trigger three times in 1.3 seconds and put all three shots right in the guys snotlocker. Good marksmanship. Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him. I was so pleased that I wasn’t “That guy” that I just grinned.

One of the things I do from time to time is train. I’m probably one of the better Robotics trainers in the biz, and lately I’ve been training in marking/engraving lasers.

The lasers are actually pretty simple, because at base they’re really just printers. You draw something, assign it a set of laser parameters, and burn. There’s a little more to it, but not much.

Yesterday I trained three very nice people, a fortysomething girl (Who looked twenty to me, I guess I’m just showing my age) a guy my age, and an elderly Asian lady.

It is hardest for me to watch people stumble and not be able to find the things I tell them to click on etc., hard to not take their hand and guide them to the thing I want done, but they have to be able to do so myself. I spend a day doing this training, and it is bloody frustrating, because I basically sit on my hands.

Still, it’s nice to end a day knowing these people will make it on their own because I made them do all the work.

Began my day yesterday in Rockford and worked all day, then drove from there to Valpo to attend the club meeting. So far in the day I had had four coffees and a tea, and a 99 cent hamburger.

And the club meeting ended with one of the Valpo police letting us use their Ti simulator.

Holy fuckamoley, what a system! The officer preps you but you walk into several different active shooter simulations, and using a specially constructed “Gun” engage the individuals. I did a lot better than I thought, I didn’t get killed, and I took the bad guys down in two situations and in a third talked the guy into dropping his weapon. yes, the system is good enough that it allows you to use vocalization to change the outcome of the situation. Damn.

So now I’m running on almost no sleep, with almost no blood sugar, and a massive adrenaline rush. Whooo!!! I’m STILL a little woozy as I type this, though I have finally gotten something to eat. THAT was a blast. Supposely there’s a place to go do this for hours at a time! My head might explode!

Dang.