Quick update, talking guns with movie stars and crashing my truck into a lake.

So it has been a busy couple of days. I’m trying to wrap up Warbound this month so I’ve been extremely busy. (so yes, I probably have your patch order, and it is sitting here waiting for me to ship, and I’ve probably not read your email yet, sorry. One man operation).

A lot of people read the Opinion on Gun Control post, and when I say a lot, a mean a really freaking largenormous number of people. It went pretty much everywhere. One of the people who read it was Sean Astin, best known for playing Samwise in Lord of the Rings, and Rudy. He now has a radio show.

Like most actors, Sean is a democrat and lives in LA. However, he’s not a knee jerk type, and he’s actually very reasonable and willing to discuss issues in a rational manner. After watching Piers Morgan disgrace himself and journalism on the topic, (thanks a lot England), up to and including having on Alex Jones (who never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like, who just makes my side of the debate look just great) Sean wanted to interview somebody sane about the gun issue, and he’d read my big blog post so he gave me a call.

It was a last minute thing, and I found out I was going on about 45 minutes before. I think we were going to talk for about a half an hour, but it ended up going about an hour and a half. The link is here: http://toadhopnetwork.com/f/Vox

Overall I think I did okay. There is a lot of ground to cover in this debate. I’m on after the law school guy, didn’t hear him, and couldn’t hear the callers either. So no idea what they said.

Coolest part though? I get a Twitter message afterwards from Adam Baldwin who tried to call into the show to talk to me, and he was sorry he missed me. Yes, Browncoats, Adam Baldwin called to talk to me. I win the internets. 🙂

So Thursday was pretty fun, and I got a ton of writing done on Wednesday and Thursday, so I’m having good week. Then Friday I need to go to a big annual meeting for my Military Industrial Complex job (I’m only 20 hours a week now and sort of phasing myself out). It has snowed all night and all morning and the roads are pretty nasty on Yard Moose Mountain, but I’ve driven in the snow since I moved to Utah in ’93. Nothing I can’t handle.

Nope.

So I’m heading down the mountain past our lake when I started to slide on a corner. Sad thing was I wasn’t even going that fast (fast enough though, as will be seen shortly). Okay, no problem, gentle correction, gentle, steer it out, gentle. WHOOSH. And then I’m off the side of the road into the deep snow. My thought was “Well, this is happening.”

Problem is this is on a steep hill, and then I’m riding my Expedition down the mountain like a very large sled, heading right for the lake. That isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds. My thought at that point was “Shit just got real.”

Luckily it stayed straight so I didn’t roll it. I crashed into the bike path at the shore, and luckily got suck there, with my front hanging over the edge of another 4 foot drop into the lake. I was at an angle, and I tried to “gently” see if I could get any traction to back up. Not even a little. It turns out that I got high centered on the edge of the bike path and my rear tires weren’t really touching anything.

So I’m stuck at the bottom of the hill, on the bike path, dangling over the edge of the lake, really really glad I didn’t drop my front end into that and flip over onto my roof. (that would’ve been cold).

Then neighbors stopped when they saw me stuck down there (I live in a very helpful place). But I was so far down, high centered at a weird angle, and there was so much snow that there was no way anybody was going to be able to pull me out in a normal truck. The best part was when the school bus went by and all the little kids rolled down their windows to laugh at me. I just waved. Karma is a bitch kids, and she’s got a long memory. Just wait until you’re driving in this stuff in ten years. 🙂

Morgan County sheriff showed up. Very nice guy, since he resisted the urge to laugh at me. So I got ahold of Winterton Towing in Morgan, and they came with a bigger tow truck and a good winch. Even then there was so much snow it was hard for him to get traction too, but he was really good, and we were able to get enough tension on the chain that I was able to finally rock it back and forth a bit without having to worry about endoing it into the lake. Then I drove down the bike path to get out. 🙂

So that made for a fun morning. Luckily the truck was fine. The plastic shell on the bumper took a bunch of damage, but other than that, no big deal. I wasn’t hurt, and I didn’t have to join the Extemperaneous Polar Bear Club, so I’m calling that a win.

Now, the question is, why, after all these years of driving in the snow, and not even going very fast, did I manage to crash? I have a theory… I believe the Yard Moose of Yard Moose Mountain are plotting against me and sabotaged Yard Moose Mountain Road.  I think they are in leage with the Literati. Why? Because they’re trying to stop YOU from nominating ME for the Hugo. And here is the very important evidence of this conspiracy. READ THIS. http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/how-to-get-correia-nominated-for-a-hugo/

Sure, you’re saying Uh, Correia, it looks like you just screwed up, and now you’re using that as an excuse to try and trick us into becoming voting Worldcon members where we can get more than our membership worth of eBooks, AND nominate MHL for a Hugo and stuff.

Maybe… Or it could be an elaborate plot involving Yard Moose, conspiracies, and Piers Morgan, and only you can stop it by reading that linked post! Or not. Okay, you got me, but I’m still going to bug you guys daily until the end of January, because I love ticking off snobby book reviewers. 🙂

Slipstream, the best gun lube there is
The Drowning Empire, Episode 2: Letter from Moto Subotai

61 thoughts on “Quick update, talking guns with movie stars and crashing my truck into a lake.”

  1. I feel your pain. I skidded down the hill all the way into a telephone pole. Luckily I hit the tension wires, not the pole itself, but they still managed to destroy one headlight. Snow. Ugh.

    Congrats on the celebrity attention!

  2. Way more awesome than my Adam Baldwin on the internet story. A couple years back, he commented on something I wrote for another website, and quoted me and retweeted the piece… and I desperately tried to avoid fanboy worship.

    He did the same thing with Kevin Baker a while back as well.

    He seems to be a really good guy.

      1. I seem to recall a scene where Jayne wanted to go into a robbery loaded for bear, but he was told “No grenades.” So he *obeyed the law* and left the grenades behind. A bit later, circumstances casued him to comment to the lawgiver “We sure could use some grenades right about now. . . . ” And then of course toward the end of the movie, said lawgiver looks to Jayne and says “Tell me you brought them this time!” Sounds like that liberal done got mugged!

        Granted, a grenade isn’t quite a gun, but if we look at it as a high-capacity magazine analog, I find it at least semi-relevant to the current discussion going on in the country. “You don’t need that [weapon type / high-capacity mag]!” — until you do.

  3. Nothing to laugh at there. That’s a scary feeling. Anyone that hasn’t felt the flush of adrenalin just needs a tire to slip a little, much less take a ride down Yard Moose Mountain.

  4. It’s not just Moose. Oh, no. In Alabama, the monsters use woodland creatures for nefarious purposes. A rabbit once committed suicide by car, forcing me to swerve off a lonely country road in a vain attempt to miss him. The right side car tires quickly became covered in mud from the recent rain, so when I overcorrected, I had no traction. Took out a bridge sign and came >< this close to winding up in a central Alabama swamp at midnight. Rabbits are not smart animals and will often go Tharn without encouragement, but I am convinced this was part of a larger conspiracy. I think the suicide was inadvertant, because I didn't hit the rabbit until I overcorrected. More importantly, thanks to that bridge sign, some swamp creature lost out on his planned meal of "College Girl in a Can" and went hungry that night. Larry will back my story – we definitely have swamp creatures in Central Alabama. Natchy Bottom ain't the only spooky place.

    1. Alabama highway 36 from Hartselle to US 231 is a demonic graveyard of suicidal skunks. The evil forces in the woods force these stink bombs out onto the road where they kamikaze the first available car. Do you know what it is like to hit a skunk on a humid Alabama summer night? And we were on our way to play Werewolf the Apocalypse in South Huntsville. After driving by the South Huntsville Waste Water Treatment plant we had no sense of smell left. Good thing our friends lived near the plant. We might have had to play from the front yard.

  5. One time, at a writer meet and greet, one of my favorite authors admitted he read something I wrote in a thread about Cookie Monster. That’s right. An.Author. Read. Something. I. Wrote. Insanely cool.

    In six months you’ll be the one laughing and telling the story about the time you took your truck snowsledding.

  6. I know Morgan County, but I don’t know what lake you’re talking about. Still scary though. Glad you made it.

    I’ll go back and read your comments on gun control…and followed your blog.

  7. I almost rolled a humvee down a few hundred foot hillside when the edge gave way under my wheels. I really didn’t like the view I had of the trees. Ended up with the battalion wrecker having to pull it out. The rest of my fire support team wouldn’t let me drive it after that for some reason….

  8. > The best part was when the school bus went by and all the little kids rolled down their windows to laugh at me. I just waved. Karma is a bitch kids, and she’s got a long memory.

    Glad you’re OK!

  9. Great interview. I’m surprised they don’t have a system so you can hear the callers, I mean it’s just conference mode… Not to professional on their parts. There was one caller who you would have been able to counter all her points as illogical, and emotional. Instead of fact based.

    They even tried to label you as too logical and distant, that whole emotions are more valuable than logic and reason…

    After you got off the phone and the Host is talking to someone else on the show you can practically hear the gears in his head stripping from the cognitive dissonance. You presented a logical argument and he was working really hard to find a way to ignore the argument. After all his emotions are more important than reason…

    1. Ugh… the co-host even complained when the host said “America is the greatest nation in the world”. “We need to move past competition and make the world the greatest world in the world”(paraphrased but that’s the gist). Really participation awards on a global scale?… My eye hurt from rolling so far back.

  10. Glad you’re OK, I just started to listen to the podcast on the way to work today. I had only just gotten to the part where you were giving your credentials, so I have quite a bit to go. Should be a good’un (also, I’m sad that I’ve been saying your last name with a long A in the second to last syllable–good to hear the correct pronunciation from the author’s mouth).

    In MHI-related news, somehow the wife and I just ended up getting an 1892 lever action and a Stoeger Coach Gun, and I realized we are only two revolvers away from being able to compete in cowboy action. It occurred to me that trying to do a Bubba Shackleford’s Professional Monster Killers-themed costume would me my best idea EVER, assuming I got your OK to do so. I’m not sure what it would consist of, maybe just a regular cowboy action outfit with a patch or something, but I thought I’d run that by you and see what you think.

  11. I know why you didn’t go into the lake. Beowulf was visiting, and he didn’t want the Main Monster Hunter Honcho to gatecrash his party!

    😉

  12. The ice is pretty bad here in northern Utah this year. It was horrible in SLC yesterday. I’m not surprised the folks living up in the hills are having a rough time driving in it, even with their trucks.

    Glad to see you’re okay, Larry. And despite the scary situation, your recounting of it made me laugh.

    And hey, you’re on President Baldwin’s radar. How cool is that?

  13. Glad you’re okay and pulled through your “Nudged by a Yeti” moment. Those mountain-critters can be really pesky.

  14. Larry, you need to put your truck snowsledding trip into a book. It might be a good story to have happened to MCB…..

    If you start seeing more moose standing in the road than normal be concerned that they’re peeing on the road to make more ice than normal….

  15. So what part is perfect for Sean Astin? Milo?

    Too short for Owen. Too pale for Trip. Not Holly. Not lanky enough for Earl. Not pretty enough for Grant Jefferson. Too dry for Machado.

    The tatooed man? Mordechai?

    Side fun fact: Samwise was the ONLY ring bearer to ever voluntarily give up the ring.

    Even Bilbo had to be browbeaten, and at the end, Gandalf snatched away the envelope as Bilbo failed a couple of times to leave it on the hearth.

    1. “Side fun fact: Samwise was the ONLY ring bearer to ever voluntarily give up the ring.”
      If you read the appendix and all the unpublished works the consider Bilbo willingly giving it up. He had to be brow beaten but he did give it up himself. Think of it like a friend having to warn you multiple times not to make the same mistakes, they don’t force your decision. They just give you resolve to do something of your own will.
      Gandalf did snatch the envelope from Frodo and throw it in the fire, Gandalf was in a hurry and Frodo though having kept the ring in the envelope was reluctant by then to hand it over.

    2. Keep in mind that Rule #1 for authors schmoozing actors is the “If/When my book gets made into a movies/TV Show, there’s a part in it you would be perfect for.” It’s like telling a gal she is beautiful AND intelligent or saying to a guy “Wow – it’s the PERFECT size for me!”

      That said, yeah, MHI’s armorer seems the most likely, although … might that have been a Grimnoir part?

    3. I would vote Milo, Sean has a good resume of good hearted characters, ant the way he talked about enjoying the design of firearms leads me to believe that he could bring Milo to life.

      I could see Milo delivering that line from LOTR that Sam has when he gets caught by Gandalf eavesdropping. About not hearing anything except a lot of talk about the ring and the end of the world.

  16. Another legal solution to propose: leave gun laws to the states. The states can make mere posession of a round of .22 ammo a capital offense.

    Sean asked about when the technology for “These Weapons” came to be, and you said the 60’s.

    “Assault rifles” date back to at least the 1918 “Browning Automatic Rifle”. Also, the 1911 .45 springs to mind, as well as Thompson’s elegant piece, so loved by ’20’s gangsters.

    All in all, though, you did extremely well, and Sean explodes the myth of the Hollywood imbecilic actor.

  17. Simple solution really. You need to claim the mountain as your sanctum, like Dresden did when he became warden of Demonreach. Out nerd that reference, I dare you.

      1. Can you really spoiler alert something that’s been out for 4 years? I mean one year maybe…

        Also I so want a Genius Loci with anywhere. Maybe say Vegas, hit the black jack tables 🙂

      2. Well, it’s a spoiler if you haven’t read Cold Days… where the extent of his responsibilities is known…

        Side note…
        Dresden/MHI crossover somehow? Maybe Owen takes down a Winter Fey Lord… and Harry’s tasked with hunting the creep down…

      3. Agreed with Spencer about expiration of spoiler alert. And if you haven’t read Cold Days yet I don’t want to know you.

      4. pfloyd23
        I don’t think any crossover could occur in the existing universes of the books. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen. There was one book in which Bob tried explaining to Harry that the existence of the Spiderman comic means that through the vastness of existence and magic Spiderman exists somewhere exactly as he does in the comic. So an alternate universe novella could be possible. Jim and Larry are both great writers and I think it would be fun.

        I wish more writers would team up to write stand alone non cannon stories. Back in the day H.P. Lovecraft would write a chapter or two for his friends books. Other authors used to do the same. The more I write about this the cooler I think it would be. It would be great for the authors too because it would expose each others fan bases to the other author.

        Yes I really want this to happen now… Non cannon stories done with author tag teams!

  18. You could have been killed and my signed copy of your self published book would have been worth ….

    Did I just say that out loud?

    1. Downside of Larry getting offed: No more MHI or Grimnoir books.

      So totally not worth it. A very dear friend of mine has several signed first editions of Heinlein’s books (family friend “Uncle Bob”). The both of us would far rather still have the admiral around.

  19. Yeah Larry, I’ve had a bad experience being a passenger of a truck that lost it on some ice hit a snowbank and flipped on a country road in Oregon. We were upside down but ok, and yet while we were standing there with the cops trying to sort out our situation, a school bus full of kids drove by, laughing at us.

  20. Heck no, Larry. I am NOT reading any Piers, I don’t want to get any stupid on me.

    Glad the only important casualty was a lightly-bruised ego!

  21. Larry, I really hope that Adam Baldwin gets a major role in any movie based on your books. I think he’d make a great Sullivan 🙂

  22. Glad to see all went alright for ya, It sucks havin to be pulled out in general. My lil pickup seen alot of snowbanks n ditches up here smack dab in the northern part of Bring Cash, Canuckistan,but nothin compared to yers.

    Read most of yer blog, and a fan of yer books too. aint too proud of bein canadian, but gotta live somewheres fersure.

    1. How much will it cost for you guys to take him back? Pretty sure we could come up with quite a few million dollars if half the US gives $1 each!

      1. It might be a lot to send him back. After the “deport Piers” petition went up in the UK a “keep him we don’t want him” petition went up and for a while had more signatures.

  23. Don’t you die on me. At least till there are ten Grimnoir-novels and the deserved fanbase.

    I have to say, your “interview” was really saddening. My bet is that nobody of those people read your article. Or they simply tried to forget it. Reasoning? Logic? F that noise.

  24. Larry, I’m not convinced that Piers Morgan and the Yard Moose acted alone. Check with local law enforcement to see if there have been any Man-Bear-Pig sightings in the area. You might have a coalition working against you!

  25. My one winter accident happened on water covered ice on a perfectly flat parking lot at 10-15mph one morning.

    My 4wd made the turn and just kept turning around on it’s axis all the way down (about a 100ft) the lot until the front wheel on the flat stopped the car. 1500$ later I had a new wheel, axle and all the steering bits on the LHS replaced. (It bent the tire out at 45deg. Horrible things happened to everything attached to it.

    No body work damage.

    I had plenty of time to try steering in and out, powering, locking all 4 wheels, using the hand brake… and watch the sidewalk come closer. When you have _no_ traction, it does not matter.

    Glad you are ok.

    1. Yeah, you can tell it’s kind of a shoestring operation. Fortunately, they’ll get better, eventually. I’ve got to admit, if I’m going to keep up with what the facists are doing (Obama is turning into a clone of Benito Mussolini) Astin’s voice is probably going to be the most tolerable.

  26. Been there. At least on a mountain road you don’t have traffic. Driving back to Michigan from New York, in a snowstorm, on the McDonald-Cartier Freeway across Canada (back when border crossing did NOT involve paperwork). I hit a pothole in the right lane. Rear wheels came loose, and I ended up sliding one full turn and most of another, through the heavy traffic in the left lane and into the median. Luckily, the drivers were all experienced, and made a hole. At that point, the only thing to do was put it in gear, and join the pattern as we all came up to road speed (about 25 mph).

  27. It was interesting to hear some of the callers. One lady was talking about how it’s the Police’s job to protect the public, we should hold them accountable to do their job better. She also talked about how in her gated community, when someone’s house alarm goes off then the security guards are there in a matter of seconds, checking to see if everything is ok.

    However, most people can’t afford to live in a gated community with a security guard on site. A lot of these people also rejected the idea that they need to live in fear of criminals, and train with weapons to keep themselves safe. In their mind, they shouldn’t have to do this.

    As you mentioned, most of the ‘gun deaths’ are gangsters shooting each other in major urban areas. So most of these people really won’t need to take these measures. However there are plenty of good people who own and carry guns, who use them to fend off attacks from bad guys. So it doesn’t happen a lot, but its not a made-up problem, either.

    I like Larry’s explanation of the tactical reasons for 17 round pistol mags or 30 round rifle mags. It’s a matter of pure practicality in a life threatening situation, that has nothing to do with politics, national debates, mental health discussions, etc. . .

    At that point, you need to stop the bad man or men, or they will do terrible things to you or anyone that you are with. And anything that puts up an obstacle to owning and carrying a gun is going to reduce the number of good people who can do it, for economic and time reasons. So some of these laws might be putting people in danger.

    We should think about loosening some of the more restrictive laws, because even if it saves just one life, it would be worth it, right?

  28. Ist time poster, short-time reader (blame the Instapundit), and I live in Morgan. (Shop at Ridley’s, bank at Goldenwest, Jess Hopkin’s my dentist and my cousin. We’re a small town.) I’m glad our sheriff office comported themselves well.

    If I’d known we had a right-wing, pulp fiction, Urban Fantasy writer gamer (Tom Clancy meets Jim Butcher?) in the county, I’d’ve checked out MHI sooner.

    I’m writing an RPG setting, and Morgan makes a brief appearance, along with a couple of Easter eggs for people familiar with the town. If you’ve got 500 words of time in ya, you might find it amusing:

    http://wp.me/p2KLAq-1rw

    Be warned: Guns in The Outlaw is a Post-Apocalyptic Techno-Fantasy-Cyberpunk Western, sort of Mad Max meets Lord of the Rings or Firefly meets Shadowrun.

    (Or, if I were to be rude about it, Monster Hunter International meets Mad Max. With more magic and techno-magic.)

    Anyways, “Hi!” from a first-time poster and brand new reader. Happy New Year! 🙂

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