Hmm, since Gary left his first name in the rant, I'm betting it's Mr. Shade.

Why don't we discuss which instructor got bitchslapped by the BCA for running qualifications without live fire. It sure as hell wasn't Joel. Oh, and wait for it...could it have been Gary?

You may have found a rant by one of the few instructors who is disliked even more than Joe. At least Joe has people who will say he's a decent guy.

-Mark

PS-not taking it out on you, Mikie, but some crap with Gary in the last week chapped my ass, so yeah, I'm a bit snarly about him.

Yeah, it's Shade. "What the Klingon says is unimportant; we do not hear him."

(I tweaked stuff, just a little, to give him "nofollow" links. Wouldn't want to give his little blog any visibility, after all; he can market Extreme Shock Antiterrorist FangFace Self-Defense ammo with out my help, after all. And whatever else he's selling.)

And yeah, that's Shade. Sheesh. Gary's got some . . . issues, and he's fun to, well, make a little fun of. That said, while I don't mind folks pointing -- preferably with jeering -- over there, I tweaked some stuff (the "nofollow" thing) so as to not help his blog with Google hits.

That said, more seriously, it was mainly his laser training thingee "quals" (and it's not a secret that he was doing them; he promoted them on his website, after all) that was the cause of that BCA letter of admonishment being issued.

Anybody got a copy around? I know I kept one somewhere; I heard he hit the roof.

I'm guessing that this little . . . stomping of his foot was caused not by anything that's gone on here, but when he looked, again, through the meta-headers at ellegon.com. Up until recently, I think the only person other than I who has ever glanced at them -- much less poured over them -- was Gary, and I left a few treats for him, which he seems to have discovered, and explains -- at great length -- that he isn't bothered by, over and over again.

And again, some more.

For those who are interested, they're here:

"Hi, Carlos, I have this
vision of you sitting in front of your
ocmputer, grinding your veneers, and rattling a
couple of ball bearings in your hand and
muttering about the strawberries as you
obsessively read and reread these metaheaders
over and over again looking for something to
bitch about, Minnesota gun laws, MN gun laws,
gun laws MN, gun laws in Minnesota, firearms
laws MN, firearms laws Minnesota, AACFI, AACFI
certified instructors, BCA, BPR, BeamHit, Bills
Gun Shop, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,
Burnsville Pistol Range, CCW, Carry Permit
Renewal Training for Minnesota and Utah, Fire
arms permit (MN), Firearms permit (MN),
Firearms permit training, Firearms training,
Florida, IFIA, Coconut Charlie, Joel Rosenberg,
Laser Simulator, Laser gun training, MADFI,
MCPPA, MN Permit to Carry, MN carry course, MN
gun permit, MN permit to carry, MPPA,
Minnesota, Minnesota Concealed Carry Training
Courses, Minnesota Florida, Minnesota Permit to
Carry a Handgun, Minnesota Personal Protection
Act, Minnesota Personal Protection Act of 2003,
Minnesota Personal Protection Act of 2005,
Minnesota gun permit, Minnesota permit to
carry, NRA, NRA concealed carry, NRA instructor
permit to carry, New Hampshire, North Dakota,
P2CC, Refuse to be a Victim, Refuse to be a
Victim NRA, Mr. Veneer Landing Inc, Twin Cities
carry course, Utah, Utah Instructor, Utah
permits, barrel, beamhit, bullet, carry course,
carry mn permit, carry permit, carry permit
training, carry permit training(MN), carry
permit training (MN), carry permit training
(Minnesota), carry permit training Minnesota,
carry permit training in Minnesota, carry
permits, carry training Utah, carry training
minnesota, carrying a handgun in Minnesota,
competition, conceal and carry, conceal and
carry permit, conceal carry, conceal-and-carry,
concealed carry classes, concealed handgun,
constitution, deadly force, dry fire, dry
firing, electronic, everything book, everything
you need to know, everything you need to know
about carrying a handgun in Minnesota,
everything you need to know about legally ,
everything you need to know about legally
carrying a handgun in Minnesota, firearm,
firearm studies, firearms, firearms
accessories, firearms research, firearms
training, firing,
forum.twincitiescarry.com,icanhazgunpermit,
icanhazgunpermit.com, firearms and watermelons,
arent you getting tired of reading this stuff
by now, Gary?, firearms and watermelons,
firearmsandwatermelons.com, Carlos Canopy,
Tonya "Tapper" Canopy, Carlos Canape, Sam and
Ella Canape, SamAndEllas Diet Canapes, freedom,
gun, gun accessories, guns, handgun, handgun
carry permit training, handgun forum, handgun
permit, handgun permit training, handguns,
indoor, indoor firing range, laser, liberty,
marksman, marksmanship, military, minnesota
permit to carry class, permit to carry, permit
to carry WI, permit to carry mn, permit to
carry wisconsin, personal protection, pistol,
pistol licence, pistol license, firearms,
liberty, a lot of other good stuff, oh, and Hi,
Gary, how are you doing, you are right, you are
not the Man, I do hope you are having an
entirely pleasant day, pistole, tccarry,
tccarry forum, who wrote the book, police,
practice, practice guns, quiet, range,
revolver, rifle, rifles, rights, self-Defense,
semiautomatic, sharpshooting, shooters,
shooting, shooting aids, shotgun, sight,
skills, small arms, system, systems, target,
the everything book, the man who wrote the
book, training, training aid, truth justice and
the American way, twin cities carry, twin
cities carry class, twin cities carry course,
twincitiescarry.com, use of force, women gun
training (mn)">
Well, there's a typo or two in there, but it was a fun way to spend about two minutes . . .

And now, I gotta go work on the biography of Carlos Canopy, proprietor of, among other things, FirearmsandWatermelons.com, and the family business: Sam&Ella's Canapes, named after his parents, the late Sam and Ella Canape
the name was French; it was changed after that horrible appetizer accident.)



But I digress.

Well, a guy's gotta have a hobby.

True.

. . . I figured I'd draw poor Gary a, well, picture.

If you hit refresh -- F5 for you Windows users -- at ellegon, you'll see a few different cookies, chosen randomly. Some are pretty straightforward, others are, well, perhaps just a touch playful.

LMAO!

I wish I had the imagination to make this stuff up. I'm not sure what I'd do, but . . .

I think the saddest part -- <a href=http://www.needspace.com/weblog/pivot/entry.php?id=69>other than Gary's self-portrait, which is kinda funny</a> -- of the whole thing there is this: That -- and forgetting the lack of commas and the spelling errors that suggest that Gary can't work a free spellchecker -- is not a very nice thing to say to somebody he calls a friend. Friends tell friends to stop embarrassing themselves; they don't egg them on. And Gary does know better; he'll tell you, himself, that he's an award-winning website designer. And he's a real computer pro, too. He has to be. After all: No, I don't make this stuff up.

I'll probably poke fun at Gary some more -- there's some pretty fun stuff in his screed, and more on his website -- -- and he does keep that chip Superglued to his shoulder, after all -- but I think I'll close for the night with just one quote from his "Anonymous Instructor" buddy, who seems to have many of the same peculiar misconceptions that Mango Joe does (and writes like Joe might, if he had somebody to clean it up after him), among them:
Sure, Penaz doesn't know better; he finds it hard to maintain his eyebleeds.

But Gary knows better on that, too; it wasn't a favor to quote his friend on something so, well, preposterous. It doesn't take "countless hours" or even three-digit-minutes to bang out a quick parody using a low-end software tool (Microsoft Publisher -- "for when you want to do a website cheap and quick!"). The first draft of I Can Haz Gun Permit? took me seventeen minutes, from blank screen to publication. Penaz's eyebleeds are pretty much self-parodying, and the only real challenge was making the parody site a bit, well, better -- a few embedded and referenced graphics, rotate a couple of text boxes a few degrees, make the text somewhat better than the penazian. Then all I had to do was throw in a clever phrase ("Failure is not an option: it comes bundled with your Coconut Charlie Carry Permit!") or two -- then hit Publish to Web, and be done with it.

Yeah, I've spent a few minutes, since then, adding a few bells and whistles, but it basically adds up to a lunch hour.

The only real challenge was in trying to figure out what NERF would stand for, and Negligible Energy Reactive Firearm was easy, and then just add the word "Simulator" afterward. That actually took most of an afternoon -- but I was watching a movie at the time, so I don't think that counts.

No, telling him that he's doing right when he's humiliating himself is not what a friend does. And linking to one of Joe's students whose defense of Joe is -- and I'm quoting, here: -- come on, Gary; that's just cruel.

yeah... and I wonder if Microsoft knows!

Maybe it's just me.........no.........I know it's just me, but it sure seems like some of you expend many, many words to smear a guy because he isn't a polished, highly skilled web designer. Or, because he forgets a few commas when he types.

I've tried to keep up with the massive amount of posts regarding Joe Penaz and have yet to see any of the instructors here mention anything about actual "class content" and the quality there-of.

As far as website design, I know Joel's is excellent, but do all the other instructors on this forum have excellently designed websites?

I still don't understand all the slams about a guy that works hard to create a livelihood, whether he sells motor oil, teaches piano or instructs PTC classes.

It's very possible that it's just my imagination, but some here are going way beyond the-call-of-duty to smear and discredit someone because of petty reasons like the ones discussed in this thread.

I asked a friend of mine to read to this thread. He emailed me and said this is all about money. He said he wonders if there would be "all this fuss" if Joe's class sizes were less than 5 students.

Anyways, this is getting pretty disgusting...........trashing out someone with the same 2A beliefs and interests as all of you. I'm starting to think the same way as my friend.

No, it isn't. I think it's pretty good -- DDB did a nice job on the design, and the photo is his; the underlying code for the registration software does everything I need it to do -- but ellegon.com is workmanlike.

I don't think it's about money. I think it's concern that instructors with shoddy and shady practices are turning out shoddily educated permit holders as fast as they can who will cast a bad light on the rest of the permit holders and ultimately result in the repeal of the law or the clamping down of further regulation of instructors and permit holders.

Most of the good instructors I know have a standing invitation to other instructors to sit in on their classes for free and provide feedback. I wish all would do it regularly. CPA's have regular formal peer reviews of their practices by other CPA's. I don't think the instructor community has to go so far as to formalize such an arrangement, but I'd love to see more collaboration in the area of self-examination among instructors.

+1

The unprofessional image is certainly an easy target (and I'm sorry, but there is NO reason to have a crappy site...there are too many monkey-can-use-it tools out there, even for free), but the root of this is the instructional content.

And in the case of Shade, I won't respect someone who pushes such crap as the H1N1 kit. (spit) It puts you in the same league as the pitchmen at the fair.

-Mark

Dean, I've taken 2 classes. My second one was with Joe P. I surely don't view myself as a "shoddily educated permit holder". Far from it. I carry everyday as does my wife.

Please explain how Joe P's classes are shoddy. Comparing Joe's class to my previous instructor...........I'd say Joe does a great job explaining "reluctant participant" and covers legalities with life-like examples. It was clear to me that Joe wants non-felons to be able to defend themselves in this ever-worsening society. He's a member of the NRA and stands for the 2nd Amendment. How is he different from anyone else on this forum?

My first my first instructor had skills regarding knowledge of PTC, but at the same time, he had the affect of a potent sleeping pill. I didn't see anyone nod off in Joe's class.