The Road to the Blade Show: Day 2

“Sir,” the Georgia State Trooper said standing carefully behind me. “Do you know why I stopped you?”
“Well, Officer, when I saw your lights in my rear view mirror I looked down at my speedometer and saw I was doing 73. Isn’t this a 70 mph zone?”

“Exactly, sir. (We both knew “sir” stood for simpering imbecile retard). I also noticed you using your turn signal, moving out of the way for merging ramp traffic and surrendering the passing lane to faster traffic.”

I wasn’t sure where this conversation was going. I was quite certain he wasn’t about to issue a good driving certificate.

“Your driving is confusing the other drivers. I had to stop and help a driver who drove off into the median strip after you used your turn signals to signal a lane change. You left him totally confused and mesmerized. Since you’re from out of town, I just going to issue you a warning this time, sir. Stop driving with caution!”

That was my introduction to Georgia traffic.

I arrived at the Renaissance Waverly Hotel, HQ for the Blade Show. The show is actually north of Atlanta. The advantage of staying at the hotel is the close proximity to the exhibitors. I don’t have to move my car; I can return to my room anytime, and I don’t need to get up at the crack of dawn to be here early.

The rooms are arranged around the perimeter of the hotel so that each has a walkway in front of the room door that allows you to stand and look down to the first floor. A bank of glass-sided elevators whisks people between floors.

By 8:00 pm the lobby is filled with people, glasses and knives

From the birds-eye view I can look down on people and watch them show off their knives to each other. I see a lot of large fixed blade knives, but I can’t recognize the types from the twelfth floor. Should this occur in any other hotel, I’m sure hotel security would be asking those people to leave or marshalling the troops in anticipation of a knife brawl.

I can sign in tomorrow morning at 9:30. I expect the line will be rather long. I wonder if anyone is going to camp out to be first in line. I don’t think my wife would let me be that guy.

On the Road to Atlanta: Day One

The Blade Show starts Friday, 4 June. I’m somewhere in Kentucky held up for the night. I may or may not have wireless connectivity. A bad storm has passed through the area and I’m lucky to be somewhere that has power.

I’m excited. The Blade Show has national and yes, international publicity and appeal. I’ve been to the Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show which is also an international show, so I’m no stranger to large crowds surrounding little nuggets of famous people.

The Blade Show is a little different. It’s all about knives. Mostly custom knife makers, but the big knife companies will be there.

I’m looking forward to several seminars. Ernie Emerson on dealing with the mindset of surviving battle. Titanium blades are well known in the diving community, especially with divers dealing with magnetic sensitive infernal machines (magnetic mines for those of you not use to the purple prose of yesteryear). But they don’t hold an edge very well. New (?) techniques to introduce carbides to harden and stabilize the edge which are applicable to other steels will be introduced.

There will be cutting, fencing/dueling and forging demos. I want to see it all, but can’t. I’ll report back on things I see and do.

A lot of knife related activities and opportunities to cover in 2.5 days. Now all I have to do is find internet connectivity.

The Edge of Random Violence

Unfortunately what appears to be random violence isn’t. The victim’s perception of random violence is seldom shared by perpetrator. Peyton Quinn in his book “A Bouncer’s Guide to Barroom Brawling...” suggests that unprovoked violence is the result of the victim being too happy. The perpetrator loaded with misfortune, unhappiness, locked into a dead-end with no conceivable way out, finds a target that seems too happy. So the theory goes.

Usually the targets are weaker, less able to defend themselves. The attack comes at some moment controlled by the aggressor, usually when the target is the weakest. With perverse logic, the more helpless the victim the better the target, so who could be a better victim then children? This seems to be the pattern we see reported from China, where depressed, failed business men attack grade school children.

In a dictatorship, were it is unlikely, impossible and inconceivable a private citizen could obtain a handgun, knives and even hammers are used.

What I find surprising is the success of these attacks in land considered the sun-source of martial arts. With the martial art tradition of China, how can one man with a knife, assault several teachers and manage to harm children? Where is Kwai Chang Caine when we need him? Well Mao took care of him. Outlawing traditional martial arts, Mao promoted something called Wushu. No matter what you read about it, any fighting style in which the entire blocking surface of the forearm is replaced with the palm in a rising block is the art of the dilatants.

The latest attack seems different.

http://editicnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/05/19/china.knife.attack/

CNN reports that 5 or 6 men rushed a college dorm in the pre-dawn morning attacking anyone in their way. Armed with knives and meat cleavers, nobody was killed, but several were injured. One student hand his hand chopped off.

The story makes me wonder. Was someone caught red-handed in the cookie jar? Maybe trifling with someone’s daughter or broke some taboo? I suspect the news media for their lack of veracity. How should I evaluate the Chinese government controlled news media?

It is especially troubling to see knives fall into the category of favorite tools of children killers. Every time I read about these incidents I feel knife collectors and admirers take a right hook to the face and get a collective shiner. There’s no beef steak for this shiner either. I wonder how long it will be before somebody gets the idea that maybe knives should not be sold out of hardware and department stores to the general public.