Month: February 2009

Rare act of sportsmanship?

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Via Xavier, I read about this “rare act of sportsmanship“. Yeah… you’ll want some tissue.

The story itself was wonderful. But is this a rare act of sportsmanship? I don’t think so. I think it’s just an act of sportsmanship (and in this case, a very awesome act of sportsmanship). What might make it rare is that we don’t hear about such things all the time. Look at the news. What do we hear about? It’s all negative, ugly, hateful, shitty things that are going on in the world. You hear it over and over, you start to think it’s the way things are. The thing is, it’s only a small slice of what’s going on in a day. Most of what goes on in a day are good things. And they’re little things, but they add up.

For example, yesterday at my black belt testing I’m walking from the parking lot to the building. I see also coming to the door at the same time are a couple people carrying a large tub of something (probably equipment) and they’re rather burdened down, no way they’ll navigate the door themselves. So I hustle up and hold the door open for them. Then as I’m holding the door, I offer to let other people in as well, but they stop and insist instead that they hold the door for me and I go first. Sure it’s a small thing — certainly not some newsworthy event — but it’s those small things, those small acts of kindness that matter. 

Just because you hear it on the news over and over doesn’t mean the world is a horrible ugly place. The media makes their money off being ugly, perhaps relegating 30 seconds at the end of a broadcast to some “feel good” story… and so your balance and outlook gets skewed. The world is mostly filled with good people doing good things in a day. Turn off the fucking TV, and get out and look at the world around you. Stop letting TV and other media shape your worldview: go shape your own based on getting out and immersing yourself in a life of your own. Force yourself to have a more positive filter and outlook on life. You might just discover good things aren’t so rare.

The engineering of the Remington 700 VTR’s barrel

/ hsoi

This post about the Remington 700 VTR’s triangular barrel was an interesting read. I’ve been interested in that rifle, mostly because of the barrel — was it just a marketing gimmick or was there legit engineering behind it. Looks legit. I’d love to try out this rifle sometime.

Updated (June ’09): I was at Cabela’s and they had VTR’s without the muzzle brake. A little research turns up that this is a special run made exclusively for Cabela’s. Take it for whatever it’s worth.

Sunday Metal – Motörhead

/ hsoi

The details are fuzzy, but the image in my memory is clear. I’m a young kid up way past my bedtime. Watching TV. Music videos. This video comes on and the music is loud and fast. There’s this ugly dude singing upwards into a microphone. Something about an iron fist. I didn’t know what to make of it, I didn’t know who it was, but it left an impact on me.

I liked it.

It was some years before I knew that was Motörhead. Without question, one of the icons of rock. While the music may be fast, hard, and loud, at the heart it’s just a lot of blues and soul both musically and lyrically. It’s not some “technical virtuoso heavy metal”; when the band hits the stage Lemmy says “We are Motörhead, and we play rock and roll!”. And rock and roll they do, with everything louder than everyone else.

Testing – Post Mortem

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

So the blog’s been quiet because I’ve been away from the computer. As I noted before, I spent most of today down in Houston taking the first (of many) tests towards my 2nd degree black belt. So, here’s the post mortem on the day’s events.

I drove down by myself (many people carpool) because I wanted to get a gauge on the drive. I’m hoping in May and August to ride my motorcycle down there (about 150 miles one-way), so I wanted to get a handle on location, issues, and how long it took traveling at a reasonable speed (e.g. on my bike I like to take it slow and easy… enjoy the ride, not be in a rush). I’m looking forward to the ride. Couldn’t ride today because the weather was threatening some ugly rain and while if I’m caught in the rain on my bike that’s one thing, I’m not going to knowingly ride into an unsafe situation.

When I first walked into the facility, it felt weird. The vast majority of people there are brown-black belts working towards their 1st degree black belt, so they are all unfamiliar faces… a vast sea of them. But I saw the other black belts there and some of those faces are familiar (apart from the other folks from my school that were also testing). It’s somewhat like a family reunion and kinda cool that way, to see your distant relatives again and to meet some new ones, so to speak.  You go through a lot with these people, and shared experiences can bring people together.

The testing itself was very curriculum oriented today. My test was run by Kwahn Jahng Nim Alex Suh (7th degree) and he ran through our entire curriculum at a very intense pace. The test wasn’t necessarily that physically taxing (due in part to a lot of people and limited space, so you’re crowded), but it was mentally taxing and you really had to stay on your toes and move fast. I actually liked that because it’s different; sure the physical stuff is good, but it’s nice to get a good brain workout now and again… it shows if you really know your stuff and can call it up on demand, because someone on the street coming to stomp your head in isn’t going to pause to let you remember how to defend yourself.

I was worried about my performance due to my ankle. Well, the ankle held up, but in part because I just didn’t let it get abused. I didn’t do a lot of the jump spin inside crescent kicks because those kill the ankle (the impact from landing, the torque from the twist/spin). But I did come out of there with a matched set of blood blisters on the pad of each big toe.

So how did I I feel I did? I did ok. It’s not where I want to be… I usually perform better than this, but I know why I wasn’t on top of my game: other pressures and stress in life, some inner-turmoil about my future in Kuk Sool Won (which has been resolved but caused me to not train as much as I should have the past few months). Here’s what I need to work on:

  • Simple memorization of curriculum. The stuff at the beginning, the stuff at the end, they get lots of focus. The stuff in the middle often gets ignored and so without regular practice it fades. I forgot and fumbled on a few techniques today (I prefer to forget and fumble nothing), so I need to just get things back in my head and under my fingers.
  • I need to practice sword with my proper sword. The wood practice sword is ok but it’s not as heavy as my nice steel sword. I used steel today and my arm and shoulder muscles tired faster than I liked.
  • I ought to do staff spinning and work at least once a week. I need to justify it to myself that the more I do things that improve my wrist strength, that’ll help my handgun shooting too (that Todd Jarrett “grip 20% harder” thing). 😉
  • Gotta bring up my overall muscular endurance. I think my reduction in training the past few months coupled with the new smaller dojang (i.e. I can’t really stretch out and get my low long stances.. .I’ve got long legs and when space is tight I just can’t get long and low) led to this. 
  • It’d be great to be able to do Baek Pahl Ki Hyung 108 times in a row, each time performed better than the previous. A long-term goal perhaps.

Some good things:

  • My relaxation was good. I wasn’t too tense and things flowed ok. 
  • Breathing was well managed too. Relaxation and breath control go a long ways towards your endurance.
  • My ankle held up
  • I can perform under pressure
  • I’m almost done with my curriculum, which I’d love to complete a.s.a.p.. Then I can spend the next year-plus doing nothing but refining it. I look forward to that.

The relaxation and breath control stuff is big for me. It’s about efficiency. If you’re tense and using more muscles than needed you’re going to wear yourself out faster. You’ll use up your energy supply, you’ll need more oxygen, and just be overall harder on your system. The more relaxed, the deeper your breath (i.e. abdomen, and very deeply), the better you fare. I’m getting quite good at managing this.

Some random things:

  • Skunks seem to be today’s roadkill of choice. The air was so pleasant on both the drive down and drive back.
  • 8-ish hours travelling for 2 hours of testing (and an hour or so for promotions and demos). I do sometimes wonder if the drive is the bigger test. 🙂
  • In the promotions today, we actually had a promotion to 6th degree, sorta. He was actually promoted back in October but wasn’t able to make it out at that time. He made it out this weekend, so received his official promotion and such. That was nice.
  • The reason he was in town was because this weekend a big seminar is being held at HQ for all school owners and Master-ranks and such. It was really cool to see many of the high-ranking masters from around the nation at the testing. Don’t get to see or visit with these people that often.

All in all, not a bad day. During my drive down I decided that this test, being my first of the cycle, is going to be my baseline. It’s going to set the tone of my training and how my testing will go from here. I will only go up. And I’ve got homework to do to get me there. 🙂

The rules

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

This is what you get when you’re on a mailing list populated by people that are both computer geeks and gun nuts:

<so-and-so> wrote:

> sudo

Outstanding. I respect a man who wields awesome power responsibly.

1. All root shells are always loaded.
2. Never run as root on a system that you are not authorized to destroy.
3. Be aware of your PATH.

I’m not the original author of this, but for their privacy I’m not posting their name.

Testing

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Tomorrow I head to Houston for the day. I’ll be participating in my first test towards my 2nd degree black belt.

In Kuk Sool, testing for black belt ranks is a lengthy process. It is comprised of multiple tests, each test taken once every 3 months. I will probably undergo 6-8 tests before promotion, but promotion isn’t based soley upon number of tests taken as there are other factors (e.g. instructor recommendation/approval). But I went ahead and marked my calender for the next 2 years as there’s no reason not to.

My biggest hope for tomorrow is my ankle making it through. My left ankle has been injured a couple times and doesn’t always cooperate. I’ve been on a diet of Aleve all week to ensure the inflammation is minimized. Depending how my ankle feels it can hamper my ability to kick, both kicking with that foot (and the impact it receives) but moreso using that foot as the planted foot and rotating (e.g. 360º spin kicks). Things that torque the ankle aggravate it the most (yes, I have an expensive brace that I’ll be wearing, but it only does so much good). What makes it worse is the association rents out a volleyball facility for such mass testing, and so the floor is some sort of urethane-coated wood, which doesn’t always play well with bare feet. Granted I don’t want to be slipping everywhere but I also don’t need loads of friction keeping my foot planted and dragging while I try to move. If my ankle can make it through tomorrow, I’ll be alright.

More later….

How to succeed at working from home

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

As a software engineer, I’m fortunate that my job lends to telecommuting. I’ve been doing so in a formal capacity for almost 9 years and dealing with telecommuting in some manner or other for my entire professional career.

Often when people hear I telecommute I get two responses: 1. Wow that’s so cool, I wish I could do that, 2. But I couldn’t do that because of distractions. Do you want to know what I’ve found to be the keys to successful work at home?

Continue reading →

The screams just echo…

/ hsoi

I’m sure you’ve heard the recent news story about the chimpanzee attack.

If you haven’t heard the 911 call, listen to it.

It’s sobering. It’s frightening. And some may think it’s harsh to use such a sad event to make a point, but David Codrea makes a good one.

On Black History Month

/ hsoi

I was sent the following video:

It appears to be from Morgan Freeman’s appearance on “60 Minutes” in late 2005. Here’s a transcript should the video disappear:

Mike Wallace: Black History Month you find…

Morgan Freeman: …ridiculous.

Mike Wallace: Why?

Morgan Freeman: You’re going to relegate my history to a month?

Mike Wallace: Oh come on…

Morgan Freeman: Well, what do you do with yours? Which month is White History Month?

Mike Wallace: (flustered, stammers)

Morgan Freeman: Well… well… come on… tell me.

Mike Wallace: I’m Jewish.

Morgan Freeman: OK! Which month is Jewish History Month?

Mike Wallace: There isn’t one.

Morgan Freeman: Oh! Oh. Why not? Do you want one?

Mike Wallace: No. No.

Morgan Freeman: No, I… I don’t either. I don’t want a Black History Month. Black History is American History.

Mike Wallace: How are we going to get rid of racism?

Morgan Freeman: Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you “a white man”, and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me “a black man.” I know you as Mike Wallace, you know me as Morgan Freeman.

And when I went looking for the date of the video, I found the accompanying article from CBS. The video clipped off at the end, but according to the CBS article the quote continues: “I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You wouldn’t say, ‘Well, I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.’ You know what I’m sayin’?”

 

I’ve long felt this is the answer. If you want to stop people caring about race then you need to stop caring about race. Period.

So long as we continue to divide, then well, we’ll be divided. If I’m forced to check a box on a form that says I’m Asian or White or whatever I it is that I am (mutt?), that’s dividing me. If we must hire or promote a certain number of people from some particular group because of some arbitrary quality about that group, then we have to care and divide and delineate and discriminate along that arbitrary quality; that implies that others from other groups may lose out because they don’t have that arbitrary quality when in fact they may possess more of the relevant quality. Is that right? How does such division unify? Maybe it’s that “new math”….

Does this mean we should flat out ignore race? No. We are what we are. My skin is darker than my wife’s skin, and our children have various shades in between. My eyes have more slant, my wife’s more oval. My wife is what she is, I am what I am. Morgan Freeman is what he is. Mike Wallace is what he is. We should not ignore race because it does comprise part of what we are, and it’s impossible to deny what we are. But we need to stop caring about it so much. 

 

On a related note, in watching that video YouTube gave a related suggestion of this video: