Viva el Presidente!

          As you know, yesterday, Mexican president Vicente Fox came to our fair city.  Doc and I were the designated counter-snipers in the apple orchard where el Presidente spoke to a crowd of adoring (carefully screened and selected) fans.  Before we took off to the location, I got a latte' and bought Doc what he wanted- a green tea.  I was hoping that no one saw me get the tea; I mean, come on... lattes are liberal enough... throw in a green tea and people will think I voted for Dean.  Drinks in hand, we went to our site. 

          Doc and I arrived and set out to check in with the Secret Service agent in charge.  Afterwards, Doc walked back to a pile of bins and retrieved his green tea from behind a box where he had stashed it before meeting the agent.  I guess Doc thought he would be put on their "No-Fly Watch List" if discovered drinking green tea by the Secret Service during a Republican administration.  Green tea in hand, we then tackled the problem of how to get up onto the 38-foot warehouse roof which overlooked the orchards and a podium where Presidente Fox and a few dignitaries (including Washington Governor Chrissy G.) would speak. 

          The warehouse had a smaller building on one side, so we decided to get onto the small roof, then from there use another ladder to get onto the main roof.  We called the local (and remained unnamed) fire department, who came and set up the ladders for us.  We then packed all our stuff onto the roof; rifles, binoculars, lunch boxes... then climbed up for the long sentry duty.  While on the roof, we entertained ourselves by laser ranging the distances to ground squirrels that popped out onto rocks between 78.7 and 542.5 yards away.  We also wiled away some time by throwing hunks of tar down onto the reaction force car (the reaction force is a marked police Tahoe with four fellow SWAT guys; all geared up and ready to attack the forces of Al-Qaida, Communists, or green tea-drinking Dean supporters); they are supposed to stay out of sight and not bring any attention to themselves, which makes them the perfect tar-ball target. 

          Once the caravan arrived, Presidente Fox was supposed to walk over to a guy on a ladder pruning a tree, demonstrating the sort of jobs "guest workers" do in the U.S. of A.  The only problem is that they stuck this poor slob out there about three hours before Senior Fox arrived, and did not tell him when Fox was coming.  Every time a car would crest the hill, the worker would start pruning.  By the time Fox (followed by secret security, media and sycophants) arrived, el Presidente ended up looking at a tree which now only had the trunk and 1/2 a branch.  This was followed by a speech and the usual hand shaking and picture taking.

          After all the important people had left, we started taking down our equipment.  We had most of our stuff, including Doc's $7000.00 sniper rifle on the lower roof when the fire guys arrived to get their ladders.  Two of them climbed up to the lower roof, and walked over to the second ladder.  One of the fire dudes walked right into Doc's rifle and tripped over it, kicking it about three feet over the roof.  I'm sure the only reason the guy did not fly off the roof is 'cause there were still several media outlets there, and Doc is camera shy. 

          Most everything turned out OK;  the commies did not attack, Doc's rifle is fine and el presidente did not see Doc drinking green tea.  That last one is the one that had me worried; a foreign leader seeing highly trained American security forces, sipping green tea, will likely see us as an easy target for invasion; perhaps they already do.

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