Release 4.0: San Jose, March 5 1999

Our biggest and best GWG yet went down at LinuxWorld, ``Linux's coming-out party'' in San Jose, California. About forty of us met at the VA Research Suite, 6:15 Thursday. We hauled off to National Shooting Club but ended up having to relocate to the Targetmaster in Milpitas (site of GWG 0) because the lanes at the first place were full with an hour wait.

The move was accomplished with minimal fuss and a couple hours of loud noises and general merriment ensued. I checked Don Marti out on a rented .45; he was pretty good, but may have been stovepiping a bit (the gun had cycling problems in his hands that I never experienced).

I was also initiated into some mysteries by cypherpunk Eric Hughes, who as it turns out is a serious shotgun aficionado. He taught me the longarm equivalent of a quick-draw, a tricky little move that lets you go from slung-over-shoulder to ready-to-fire faster than one might think possible. He also demonstrated the efficacy of shotgun tactical loads, a special low-dispersion shell used by police. I myself was able to rip three separate ragged holes out of the black zone of a B2 target at twenty feet using these. Cool.

Afterwards, food and talk at Denny's. Much delving into the mysteries of the Crack Monkey, a bizarre dadaist website. Nick Moffitt looked pretty rad in his mad-scientist lab coat, the like of which I might at other times be seen wearing...

Marc Merlin took some pictures. The last one is Eric Hughes (in the hat) and me contemplating the holes made by Eric's magic tactical loads in my target. The actual shot holes are in the black zone and hard to see in this picture; the big ones in the white zone were made by the filler wads in the shells.