I’m not dead! I promise. I almost was, but thank heavens, I managed to pull through, LOL. My extended absence is due mostly to the Rangemaster Tactical Conference, which took place March 17-19, 2017 at the Direct Action Resource Center in North Little Rock, Arkansas. As always, Tac-Con was a huge success (IMHO). I really enjoyed myself and learned a lot. For some reason, this year I was stretched a lot thinner than usual with administrative duties and technical dramas. I spent most of the conference running to and fro putting out fires and trying my best to keep the presenters happy (not to mention Tom and Lynn). I didn’t even get to shoot the match this year. 🙁

I also helped Craig Douglas with his famous Experiential Learning Lab this year not once, but twice. As usual, my role-playing duties involved me doing a LOT of loud screaming as Craig’s victims … I mean, his students… negotiated the blind scenario in the shoot house with simunitions. Six hours of continuous screaming meant I had no voice at all by the end of the conference. And it was utterly exhausting. Sunday night I slept a full 15 hours straight. I was a rock.

And speaking of rocks (you’ll get it once you watch the video), here’s the Tac-Con-17 media compilation. It’ll give you a taste of how the weekend went.

I think I mentioned earlier that I came home from Germany with a nasty flu bug of some kind. I had to patch all that up for Tac-Con, and I think I managed to do so with copious amounts of TheraFlu and Nyquil. Plus I was popping Halls cough drops like crack rocks. That got me through Tac Con, but then the following week the bug returned with a vengeance. At first the fever was just mildly annoying, but then one day it shot up to 104. The ever-knowledgeable William Aprill wasted no time in informing me that fevers that high have an 11-14% mortality rate. Thanks, William, for that flowery tidbit!

Apparently, my mom got the Aprill memo, because (bless her heart) she went into full nuclear holocaust first responder mode. She raced over to my house and dragged me to the doctor, where they gave me a gigantic shot in the gluteus maximus to get that fever under control. I spent the next seven days pretty much in bed. And of course that meant I was woefully behind in paper-grading and brief-writing, so you get the drift. Anyway, that’s why I’ve been neglecting the blog. But I’m alive! And almost back to 100% now, thanks to Super-Mom and whatever magic potion I got through that scary-looking horse-needle.

Below is the Teaser for Tac-Con-18. Two years ago, Tac-Con (a March event) sold out in mid-November. This year, it sold out in early October. The 2018 Conference has already sold 60 tickets in 24 hours. If you’re planning to attend Tac-Con next year, better get in where you fit in! Don’t wait to buy tickets later… I guarantee you they’ll sell out even faster this year.

If you’d like to register for Tac-Con-18 or just get more information on this phenomenal event, please visit the Rangemaster website. Hope to see some of you there next year!

tgj