Guns. Fornication. Survivalist skills. Drug legalization. I’m a jack-booted liberal. Not in the sense of fascist enforcement of Leftist policies, but in the sense that I have a combination of traditionally right-wing (jack-boots) and left-wing (liberal) values.

I’m the Range Safety Officer at the shooting competition who suddenly feels out of place when law-enforcement competitors talk about arresting political demonstrators and drug offenders. I’m the participant in the anti-sexism discussion group who clams up when the topic shifts from gender issues to the stereotypical liberal hatred of guns. I have a bug-out bag in my car. In addition to food, medical, and survival supplies, it contains condoms and lube.

My name is Joshua Bardwell. I live in Georgia. I currently share a home in Acworth with my girlfriend, two of our friends, and their daughter, two cats, and a dog.

There are seldom fewer than two loaded guns in my home. I used to clean them at the dining room table, before I decided all that lead and chemicals at the table probably wasn’t a good idea, and moved to the garage. I once had a blood lead level of 39, which is one below the maximum recommended level for an adult. I stopped shooting at indoor ranges so much, and it went back down to normal pretty quickly. I have a concealed carry permit, and sometimes carry a pistol. No, I will not tell you whether I am carrying one at any given moment, because that would ruin the whole point of carrying concealed.

I’ve eaten most of the plants that grow wild in my back yard.  I am supremely irritated that people use herbicides to kill perfectly good edible plants (“weeds”). This is my second year gardening. I’m using self-watering planters that I constructed myself in the style of an EarthBox. It’s stupid that I get so attached to my plants. When some of them inevitably die or get ravaged by animals, I sometimes feel sad enough that it makes me want to stop planting altogether.

After failing to hunt squirrels several trips in a row, I once slept on a wool blanket in the woods. Before dawn, I put on a ghillie suit and took position with a rifle on a hill overlooking a hickory grove that I had previously scouted. I lay as still as I could for three hours. I did not see a single fucking squirrel. You might call this a ridiculous amount of effort to put into squirrel hunting. I call it the lengths to which I’m willing to go in order to figure out a new skill. I have yet to even take a shot at a squirrel.

I design and install wireless networks for a living. I have worked for the same company since 1998. I like my job okay, but my real dedication is to the company and my co-workers. If the company shifted focus tomorrow and I had to learn a totally new field in order to continue to contribute to it, I probably would. Actually, that has already happened at least once so far.

I have been to Burning Man and many other Burning Man regional events. I like burns and burn culture so much that in 2007, I helped organize Alchemy: The Georgia Burn. I have served on the Alchemy board of directors since 2008, and I have been the Ranger team lead since 2007. My service to the Alchemy community is one of the things about which I feel most passionate and proud.