My brother's birthday party/picnic

Today was a hot, humid day as usual, but anyway, we had sort of an informal birthday party/picnic for my younger brother, Lucas, who is turning 13 on July 5th. Oh, yeah, it was at Arnette Park. (I can't remember if I spelled that correctly)
The younger kids, including him, went prepared to have a water gun fight, but naturally, that didn't last long. First, the kids started squirting each other, then they started tossing water balloons, and finally, the whole thing simply devolved into all the kids filling up their buckets under the faucet and dumping and flinging the water on each other. Naturally.
This lasted for a very long time, and the puddle around the faucet grew larger and larger until there was a miniature lake in the dirt parking lot.
There were other fun things at the park, including tennis courts, volleyball courts, and Frisbee golf.
I only got to try Frisbee golf, but that turned out to be pretty fun...even though I have a penchant for hitting the goal's chains or part of the post with my Frisbee and not dropping in the goal basket.
As for volleyball, well, perhaps it's just as well I didn't get a chance to play. It's more fun to play (albeit not to watch) when you have more than a couple of people. Four to five people on a team usually works well. It also helps if the people playing are decently good at volleyball. :)
Well, I've got to start getting ready for bed now.

Take care, everyone. Be aware and be ready for anything.
-Max out.

Still looking

I'm still searching for an inexpensive car that's not a piece of junk, and so far we've looked at a '95 Ford Probe GT-S and a '93 Mazda Miata. The first needed new tires and paint, and would have not been that cheap after the cost of the parts. The Miata's A/C blew hot air, the ragtop is worn out and needs to be replaced, the car could use some new paint, and the trunk's keyhole had been smashed through.
Yesterday my parents and I looked at a '93 Probe GT for sale for $500, but decided against getting it, since it had numerous problems including a cracked dash, peeling paint, a missing wing (the side things that hold the wing were there, though), and a missing shift knob, and although, as the owner said, "You get what you pay for," a lot of money would have to be spent on it to fix everything.
My grandpa told me about a Porsche 911 Turbo (this was quite a while ago...maybe around the '80s, but I'm not exactly sure) that was for sale in the newspaper. It was listed at $700.
Everyone thought it was a misprint, but one 17-year-old looking for a first car went and checked it out - and bought it. It wasn't a misprint, and it was in fine condition; the reason it was sold for so cheaply was because the owners had just gone through a divorce, and the former husband said "sell the car and we'll split the money," but his ex-wife didn't care about the money. She just wanted to spite him, so he got only $300 instead of probably more than 10 times that much. While that's extremely rare, a friend at my church got a '96 Audi A4 2.8 Quattro that's in good condition, has a rebuilt motor, etc., for less than $3,000. So I'll just have to keep looking.

My Cold Steel collection

Here is my collection of items from Cold Steel, my favorite knife company. In the picture of me with the "black sword," I am holding my bokken (the "black sword"), which I forgot to take a photo of with the rest of my knives and stuff. It's like the wooden training swords designed to be like Japanese swords, but this one is made of strong polypropylene.
Sometimes, I don't like any company (that makes guns, cars, or anything else) in particular, and I just like a particular model of a company because I like the performance and whatever else.
For instance, I don't care for all Mercedes or BMWs, but I like their AMG and M high-performance models. However, there are certain companies that I like more than others. These include Ferrari, Mercedes (AMGs and others) and many other companies for cars, Sig Sauer and FN for guns, and Cold Steel for knives. Cold Steel also makes other self-defense products, including pepper spray. For self-defense, I recommend that you get their Inferno pepper spray or sjambok (my black whip-like thing). Both are inexpensive, formidable weapons, and don't require you to be trained in order to be extremely effective.
Here are the links for them.
Sjambok: http://www.ltspecpro.com/sjambok.html
Inferno pepper spray: http://www.ltspecpro.com/inpesp.html

If you get mugged, assaulted, etc., remember that I warned you...

More cars in the Harris Teeter parking lot

This is almost two months old, but here are a few more pictures of cars seen next to Harris Teeter in Fayetteville.

100,000

This post is a bit late, but our 12-passenger Ford E-350 van (sometimes referred to as "The Bull" or "Great White") passed the 100,000-mile mark earlier this month.

I didn't get a picture of the odometer with 99,999.9 miles on it, but this is almost as good.

Car show

Last Saturday we dropped by the 3rd annual car/bike/truck show on at Sports USA (on Ft. Bragg or Pope AFB, I forget which). There were funky cars (like the Hyundai Sonata with a BMW grill stuck on the front and doors that opened in very strange ways), a few basically stock cars (like a Mustang GT and a Mazda3 hatchback), some classics, and more.

There was an old Ford truck (from the '40s, maybe) that was in pristine condition, some classics such as a Dodge Demon and a Camaro SS...and quite a few others. There was a normal-looking Chevy SUV (Yukon, maybe, but I don't remember) that had 10 LCD screens in it. (and a PS3 in the trunk)

Here are some photos.