I won TWO Ruger Vaqueros. How cool is that?

[ShootSS]

Went to a rodeo in a neighboring town recently. The first event was mounted shooting where cowboys on horse back have to ride through a maze patterned arrangement of 12 mounted balloons. The time begins when one breaks the clock barrier and he must ride a precise route through the balloons shooting them as he goes by. He has to guide the horse, shoot and burst the balloons, switching guns in the middle of the ride. The fastest time wins. 5 seconds are added to the time for every missed balloon.



The cowboys all use blanks (which have an effective range of about 15 feet), which bursts the balloons from the concussive blast. Most of them use the bright stainless Ruger Vaqueros.



As a fund raiser, the promoter of the mounted shooting event was selling only 100 tickets (for $20 each) for a chance to win TWO bright stainless Ruger Vaquero Colt .45's.



I thought to myself, shoot, If I buy one ticket that is a 1% chance of winning. I could win that easily. It's a whole lot better chance than buying 6 tickets for $5 with an unlimited number of tickets sold. So I walked over to where my wife was sitting and asked her if she had heard the announcer explaining about the fund raiser, and put on my most charming, excited little boy doe-eyed smile (l'm 47 or 48, I can't remember), stuck my hands in my pockets and "gosh darn" swayed in front of her expectantly. She laughed and said, "You know we don't have enough money to do that."



I said, "Yeah, I know," and sat down beside her to watch the festivities. About 5 minutes later, she fished a twenty dollar bill out of her purse and said, "Here, go win your guns."



Talk about the power of positive thinking x 2!!



They were going to draw the winner at the next county commissioners meeting, but did not give a date. About 5-6 weeks later my wife retrieved got a message from our answering machine from the sponsor telling me that I had WON the guns! The message had been left the previous evening.



So I called and said, "Hi, this is so and so, and I'm calling about some guns I hear I won."



He said, "Aw man, we needed you to call back last night. We had to draw another name."



To which I said, "Aw crud!" [Exact quote] To his credit, he did not leave me hanging long, following up with a "Just kidding man. Congratulations! I told the commissioners I was going to have some fun with you."



So how cool is that? A little positive thinking and $20 and I'm the proud owner of two new bright stainless Vaquros with 5 and a half inch barrels. I actually have my own horse, and I'm considering trying my hand at mounted shooting. They have training sessions every week at the promoters arena.

[razr]

That is cool.