Concealed Carry Permits - Kansas Finds Yet Another Way To Suck

If I'm allowed to carry a concealed handgun in the state I live, I plan on doing so.  We'll skip the existential debate surrounding guns and such, because I won't go there.  This post is intended to be another in the series that never ends on why Kansas sucks; the concealed carry permit application process.  Since most of my readers have likely never applied for a concealed carry permit (CCW), I'll compare and contrast with the two other states in which I've held permits, Virginia and Pennsylvania.  All three are 'shall issue' states, which means they will issue anyone a carry permit, unless a legitimate reason exists to not do so.  In other words, the applicant need not justify the need for a permit (i.e. owns a jewelry store and carries large sums of cash) to receive one.

We'll begin with qualifications; what sort of bona fides does an applicant require to apply for a permit?  (We'll assume our applicant has a clean criminal record and no other disqualifying attributes.)

PA:  Nada
VA:  Essentially, if you've ever taken a handgun course, been in law enforcement, or shot competitively, you're good.
A fairly low bar; I submitted my scores from previous matches I've shot. 

KS:  Applicants must complete a 9 hour CCW class that reviews gun safety and self-defense laws, followed by a handgun proficiency test (that literally everyone passes; the instructors made sure of that) and a written exam (with the same level of difficulty as the shooting qual).
Everyone must take the class.  Doesn't matter if you're a former Navy SEAL, who practices defense law now.  You're taking the class.

I've held a CCW permit for 20+ years and always taken an active interest in understanding the relevant laws.  Plus, I shot competitively for a dozen years and even taught new shooter classes.  As you can imagine, the class was beyond painful for me.  I was a good boy though, and didn't call the instructor out on any of his bullshit, just sitting there and trying not to cringe.  I did laugh at the shooting qual, not because it was beyond remedial, but because of the range officer's reaction.  RO's were there for safety and to provide advice to the shooters, which they did by 'reading' targets (a way of identifying common mistakes based upon where the shots hit).  I used the same tactic when teaching new shooters.  The one in my area gets to my target, in which all the holes are neatly clustered in what would be the A zone if we were using a USPSA target (even though I'd not shot a gun in 9 years).  He had this befuddled look on his face and reluctantly admitted 'I'm not sure how much help I can give you'.  I chuckled and revealed my background.  Hell, just the gun I was shooting likely had more rounds through it than all the other students had shot, in their lives.

Back to the process...

PA and VA:  Take your paperwork (application and supporting documents) and a check to your local courthouse.  Submit, get fingerprinted, and receive your permit in the mail in 7-10 days.

KS:
Have passport photos taken.
Attach two of those to your application, then take all your shit (certificate from the mandatory class) to the local sheriff, along with two checks (one for the AG, the other to National Inbreeding Foundation, the fuck if I can remember). While they've got you bent over for the fees, they'll also fingerprint you.

In some period of time, you'll receive something in the mail that says you're approved.  You'll take that to your local drivers licence center, where they take your picture (what the hell happened to the photos I already submitted???), and mail your permit in another 7-10 days.  Quick and efficient!

Let's discuss fees.
VA and PA are both $35
Kansas continues to demonstrate how it excels in all aspects of sucking donkey dicks.  You'll be writing checks for $132.50.  No, that's not a typo.

To add one final dimension of suck to Kansas, their permit's only valid for four years, where VA and PA are good four five.  Fuck, for $132, Kansas' permit should be valid for a decade and include valet service!

I have to admit to being a bad boy, in class, when the instructor went through the required steps.  It was a completely involuntary uttering of 'you've got to be kidding, right?'

Let's wrap up with a quick recap.
PA and VA:
One stop at your local sheriff / circuit court
Cost $35
Your permit is valid for 5 years.

Kansas:
Four stops, including 9 hours lost in a class I didn't need. 
$132.50
Valid for 4 years.

And I know what you're thinking; 'He's just looking for things to bitch about, now.  Kansas can't suck that badly.'  You're wrong.  While it was with neither glee nor joy that I relocated here, I actually had the mindset that the only thing I'd be giving up was topography and the richness of Richmond itself, and having 2 hour access to the beach, mountains, and DC.  I figured 'how bad could it be?'  The fact is that Kansas has repeatedly beaten me about the head and neck, seemingly yelling 'you made such a mistake moving here; what the fuck were you thinking???'  Seriously, even removing the flatness and bad roads from the equation, every damned aspect of living here is worse than anywhere I've lived before.  I've racked my brain, attempting to identify one point of life, one little thing that's better here than the East Coast.  But there just aren't any.  Restaurants, grocery stores, things to do, cost of living, dating, ease of life, weather...they all suck here.  Perhaps my new hobby should become binge drinking.

Happy living, readers!

Do You Know Yourself? Really?

The words on the screen stung a bit.  They were from a woman with whom I thought I saw what could be an amazing relationship.  Our third date had been even more fun than the previous two and it was clear our desire would take over on number four and we'd become intimate.  I'd told her I wanted us to be exclusive.  Regular readers know I'm a fan of monogamy, plus I really liked this woman.  But there were the words.

I don't want an exclusive sexual relationship with you.

After a bit of back and forth, I got to the heart of the matter.  She wanted a sexual relationship with me but wanted to explore new possibilities, being fresh out of her marriage (dating separated people...never a good idea).  She wanted to sleep around a bit.

I responded by asking "you know we're talking about you, right?  The woman who, on our second date, wouldn't invite me up to her apartment in order to continue the heavy make out session that had begun in my car because 'I barely know you'.  The same woman, who on our third date, required some serious arm twisting before she finally relented to having me up; for the same reason, I might add.  (and not to have sex) And you think you can casually fuck random guys?"

While we were a couple, we would often joke about that, and she would always finish with 'I could totally be a slut.'  Sure you could, sweetheart.

My point in sharing this story is that her lack of understanding of who she was and what she was capable of could have torpedoed something great between the two of us.  (instead, it was her abysmal self-esteem that served as the projectile, but that's another story)

The experience that spurred this entry though, occurred recently, and was deja vu all over again with a similar encounter a few years ago.  While both women fell into the same demographic, two data points do not make a trend.  But the data points are the same.  The women were full blown submissives, who hadn't been with a man in at least a year.  Having spotted their concealed desires, I brought each 'out of their shell' and was met with a sentiment of 'I want you to take me asap' and called 'master' by both.  Then, to borrow a line from Top Gun, they each realized their sex drive wrote a check their body couldn't cash.  In other words, both flaked.  The first got halfway to the wine bar, at which we were meeting, and realized she couldn't go through with fucking a complete stranger.  She was apologetic, I was supportive.  There was some chemistry, but we never reconnected.  The second one ghosted me before we could meet.  I sent her a note a week or so after, asking why she ghosted me, to which she responded to the effect of 'those things you said to me before we even met were screwed up'.  Oh, you mean the things that you were self-stimulating to as I said them?  As noted, both women couldn't overcome their own inhibitions, even though they clearly thought they could.

The moral of these stories is understanding the person in the mirror is vital, when you're attempting to find a mate or chart your course.  Without knowing yourself, you can never hope to truly know someone else.

Happy dating, readers.

The Insightful Bachelor Joins The Klan

Sunday morning in the flat lands and I'm waking up alone again.  This is noteworthy because I had two women eager and willing for me to do very bad things to them, this weekend, and I bailed on both.  Each brought her own brand of lunacy to the table, and since they dropped in at the same time, I thought I'd share.  

The first woman was a previous float in my parade of loons.  We had traded notes a few months back, but not met.  She was the first woman who had 'scheduled' a sexting session.  Seriously, she told me that we would sext that evening and at the appointed time, began sending x-rated pictures and videos.  Perhaps I'm different from most guys, but I need a bit of warming up before such a stream of material excites me.  In any case, before I wander too far into the details, I blew her off because she was an oddball.  She was oddly self-absorbed and shared way too many details of her dysfunctional past with me.  Because she fancied herself as a writer, those details came in the form of epic length emails.  Ask her what time it was and she'd share interminable thoughts on time itself, as well as how it impacted her previous struggles with mental illness.  

This woman reappeared and wanted me to afford her another opportunity to date.  Having suffered her bullshit before, I told her I needed a fuck toy and she would come over Saturday (last) night to provide that service.  She readily agreed and the epic notes returned.  Fuck, I forgot what a whack job she was.  It was actually something relatively minor that caused her to be kicked to the curb again.  In the midst of the painfully long emails, she made the comment 'your such a good guy', or something to that effect.  I won't date a woman if her profile has that error and this woman constantly pats herself on the back for being an extraordinary writer.  Yet, she still can't get 'your' and 'you're' straight.  Granted, I would have finally skipped the encounter anyway, to escape the constant garbage coming from her mouth, not to mention, she had the strong aroma of a stalker, but the end result was the same.

The other woman, in some ways, was even more fucked up than the first one.  Like the first, she was smart, educated, and had something to say.  It didn't hurt she was gorgeous as well.  I'll also mention she was black; be very clear I have no feelings, one way or another, about dating a black woman; I'm mentioning it because it'll be important later.  Sandi was an interesting girl, in that she worked like crazy to maintain her tough, outer shell.  She also seemed to enjoy keeping me on my toes.  For those reasons, I took some of her demands with a grain of salt.  But she made demands that, in my mind, had her straddling the fence between high maintenance and manipulative.  For example, when we planned to talk on the phone for the first time, she got angry I wouldn't share my number as soon as the plans were made, even though we wouldn't be speaking for several hours.  

There were other things that rang some bells, such as her way of engaging her fwb's.  I'll stop for a moment and state that one of the other things I appreciated about Sandi was her sex drive and level of perversity similar to mine.  Back to her fwb's, she would fuck them, but refused to kiss them.  This, she told me, was in order to compartmentalize feelings versus sexual pleasure.  I found this to be rather odd, because I've kissed every one of my fwb's and they've eagerly reciprocated.  She also made it clear she was no one's sub; in fact, she told me I would be her's.  Also, she enjoyed having a man go down on her, but hadn't experienced that in years, due to the vulnerability involved in receiving oral.

We had planned to get together last night, but talked every evening this past week, almost always enjoying some phone dirtiness before hanging up.  Sometimes, the phone sex was the main event.  She slowly opened up to me and began to realize that I really wasn't just interested in fucking her.  That trust allowed her to share her deepest, darkest sexual fantasy with me.  I've done some very naughty, dirty things sexually, but what she shared shocked even me.  I was to secure a Klan robe / hood and put her in her place, treat her like a possession, rough her up / choke her, and degrade her without mercy.  I sort of said 'youwantmetodowhatnow?'  I find the Klan to be the worst of those with whom I share the planet and to have a strong, black woman want to bring them into the bedroom absolutely floored me.  It would have been difficult for me to put on a set of Klan robes.  That being said, within certain boundaries (i.e. no other species, football teams, scat, etc.) I'll do what it takes to take my partner to new levels of sexual pleasure.  So, that was the role play for that night's phone fun.  

But the demands / manipulation continued to where we'd talk in circles for an hour about the same topic, only to land back where we started; what was objectionable 30 minutes ago was suddenly a perfect idea.  The straw that broke it for me was she told me she wanted to hear me tell her I loved her.  (I'll remind readers I'd not met this woman)  Naturally, I told her that wouldn't happen for a bit, because, well, I'm emotionally healthy.  This hurt her feelings quite a bit.  She backpedaled to explain it was a sexual fantasy, although I knew she was full of shit.  Our last exchange of the night involved her demand for a certain dirty picture (btw, she's only the second woman I've encountered who likes dick pics).  I teased her and asked if she thought she deserved the picture.  'So much for making me happy.'  That was it; no dirty sex is worth the borderline tantrums and manipulation.  So, I woke up yesterday morning and called off our date.  

I've resisted the temptation to 'diagnose' this woman, although it's clear there are some serious intimacy issues present.  I'm just happy to have not had her over, because she also smelled of 'stalker'.

Those are the most recent women I've interacted with, beyond a note or two.  There have been a number of women who seem unable to hold a conversation, but that's a constant background noise.    

In closing, I will mention that finding KKK robes and hoods is pretty much impossible.  Neither Amazon nor eBay list them, and if those two don't offer something, it's likely not available to buy.  There's my tidbit of knowledge for the week.

Happy dating, readers.         

A Trip To The DMV - Kansas Finds More Ways To Suck

The DMV is never fun, regardless of where you live.  However, this week, Kansas took the experience to a new and painful level for me.  In this state, you must traverse a multi-stage process for titling / registering your vehicles, when you move from another state.  First, you must present the vehicle and title to the Kansas Highway Patrol for them to validate the VIN's match, then do the DMV purgatory.  I took both of my cars for the VIN check, a few weeks ago; each requiring over an hour of waiting and messing about with apathetic civil servants.  I didn't find time to complete the process until this past week.

Wednesday morning, I set out for the drivers license facility (different than the DMV) and managed to knock that out in about an hour.  Not bad for the typical government parade of sloths.  What made me chuckle is the temporary DL I received, which looks like a bar receipt; on thermal paper and everything.  This thing has to last 30-45 days; imagine trying to keep a receipt from Target that long (in your wallet).  Both PA and VA (the two other states in which I've lived) had facilities in which you walked out with a real license. 

Bar receipt in hand, I trekked to the DMV to finish the process.  After waiting the proper 25 minutes, I was called to window 12, where I presented my completed paperwork.  The drone behind the counter told me I must have handed her the wrong title, because the inspection sheet noted a KTM motorcycle.  I don't own a motorcycle which meant the damned inspection station screwed up.  Back in the car, I trudged to the KHP facility, where I was told to sign in and take a seat.   I responded 'I don't plan on being here long enough to need a seat.  You need to remedy this mixup and have me on my way.'  The woman manning the counter looked at me and, I swear on my grandmother's grave, said 'remedy?'  I stared at her and said 'fix'.  'Oh, okay; wait a minute.'  A few minutes later, I made the return trip back to the DMV.  I approached another counter, this time, and presented my now correct paperwork. 

'Do you have your VA registration?'
'Uh, no...it wasn't on the list of documents I was to provide, based upon your website.'
'Well, I need it to determine timing for your taxes.' 
It's obvious I had the registration for the vehicle I was driving, but the reg for my other car was, shocker, in my other car.

Thus, I found myself making another trek, still nowhere near completing my task.  After grabbing some lunch, kicking a few kittens, and otherwise releasing my frustrations, I returned to the DMV.  This time, I had everything I needed and was able to complete the full transaction.  Although, the final act was to pay KS property tax on my cars, which was 20% higher than what I paid in VA.  I pretty much said to the drone behind the counter 'you've got to be kidding! You charge more than a real state and still have shit roads and services.  How the hell do you charge this much?'  Not surprising I received no response on that one. 

In any case, I'm now legal in the state of...I can't even say it. 

How was your week?

Quarterly Dating Profile of the Week

Typically, I post profiles I can make fun of, but that's not the case here.  I read this opening recently and it just struck me as funny.  Usually, we reach out to those with whom we share common interests / experiences.  That's not likely here.  'You too???'

My self-summary
I spent most of my 20s traveling to Antarctica researching polar plankton. Now, I enjoy documentaries (the more depressing the better!),...

Religion and Dating in Kansas

Having been here for seven months (holy fucking shit, that realization just made me a bit nauseous!), I should have already encountered someone I wanted to date more than a few times, or at least developed one or two 'special friends', with whom I could spend quality time.  However, I've only gone on multiple dates with one person.  It goes without saying that dating sucks, but seriously, this has been an incredible dry spell.  This lack of companionship can essentially be attributed to one factor, religion.

I've already shared my views on religion and faith here.  With the exception I noted in that entry, I'd previously not encountered much friction on the topic of religion in the context of dating.  That is until I moved here...to the Bible Belt.  You see, the majority of people I've come across here are practicing Christians and most women want the same quality in their partner.  Beyond it narrowing the dating pool quite a bit, no foul, right?  Wrong.

You see, many of these so called devout Christians take quite a bit of license with the 'no sex before marriage' rule.  That's the one good thing about OKCupid; it's easy to see by how a woman answers the sex questions what's important to her.  It's fairly common to find a woman who responds she'll sleep with a guy on their first date, but God is very important to her.

My position is if you're going to be a Christian, be a Christian.  If you consider the Bible to be the word of God, follow it.  You're either in or you're out.  'I like these rules, but not those, so I'll ignore them' serves only to highlight your hypocrisy.   His word is either sacrosanct or it's not, and if it's not, then stop calling yourself a person of faith.

To those I've questioned on the topic, the typical response has been 'I have a special relationship with God'.  So, you and your sky daddy sat down and he said 'fuck all the guys you want, I got your back'?  You'll forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical about that one.

It all boils down to this:  This is your god, the one you worship, and profess to follow.  If you can't be faithful to Him, then how can I expect you will be to some schmuck you're dating?

The cherry on the top is these women (and I'm sure men, but I don't date them), will be the first to judge you for not being a Christian.  They look down their noses at you as though you're some sort of ignorant, evil creature.  Hypocrisy elevated to a very high standard.

And this has nothing to do with slut shaming.  Those who read my blog know I wholeheartedly celebrate sluts.  A woman can fuck her way through the NFC east, for all I care, and I'd have not one unkind word to say about her.  However, if she's espousing to worship her sky daddy while doing it, she's a waste of oxygen.

For example, the girl who owned nothing would scream with delight as I pounded her ass, and called her a whore, but still gave me shit for not believing in God.

In another case, I'd been chatting with a woman (here in the Flat Lands) who seemed to be a good fit; smart, funny, cute, blah, blah.  We'd discussed sex and she became rather excited about becoming my dirty girl, even being owned by me.  We planned to meet for dinner, then she would come to my house, the next night, to get laid, no pretense of anything else.  Fast forward to dinner and the food arrives.  Before she tears into her steak, she bows her head.  Holy shit, this chick is saying grace!  The chick I had just met, who wanted me to fuck her like a slut the following night, was saying grace!

My rant toward these people:  You fuckers are the worst kind of hypocrites and numb skulls.  You make the rest of us suffer through you wearing your supposed faith on your sleeve, looking down your nose at those who don't share your beliefs, yet you don't live it yourself.  Exactly what do you plan to say to St. Peter at the pearly gates, when he points out more men had gone down on you than on the Titanic?

No one should be shocked that I absolutely won't date a Christian.  If she truly believes, I'm not waiting until marriage or a 'serious' relationship before we get naughty (and potentially discover she's horrible in the sack).  If she does fuck, she's a hypocrite.

And that's life in Kansas...how's your love life?

Dating In Kansas

In a word, it sucks.  But don't just take my word for it.  Empirical data exists!

I rest my case...