Behold! The ultimate weapon! The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
Oldest likes Monty Python. He gets it. I recall the first time he saw this clip and he got it on both levels: the absurdity of it in and of itself, and the whole religious/Catholic satire. I was impressed.
I find our bodies to be amazing things. They naturally strive for preservation and efficiency. You exercise and work hard for a long time to make physical gains, then you lay off for just a short while and all that work disappears. Our bodies strive to maintain just the level it needs, which is great, but frustrating when it takes so much time to gain and so little time to lose.
One area I see this is my legs, not just in strength but in endurance. In Kuk Sool we strive for low stances. This can look very nice when performing forms (especially on taller and thus longer legged and torsoed people), but moreso it’s a matter of training legs for strength and endurance. You don’t really fight in a low stance, but it’s a lot easier to duck via bending your knees when your legs are strong enough to allow you to do this.
I think what motivates me more than fighting, self-defense, or any sort of martial activity is growing older. I see people much older than me and even people my age, that just can’t get around. Getting off the couch is an effort. Picking something up off the floor is a strain, and they bend from their back then complain of back problems when they right themselves. They haven’t used their body, so they’ve lost it. I don’t want to be this way as I grow older. So, I do my best to just use my body fully in my daily life. If I need to pick something off the floor, I bend at the knees, either squatting or quasi-lunging to do so, but either way using the full range and ability of my body. If I need to stay down for a long time (e.g. scooping out the cat litter box), then I assume some sort of low horse stance while I do so… again, not being bent over at the back and feeling the lumbar pain as I’m down working for so long. Lifting a heavy object? Use the legs, baby. Things like this. Just ensuring that whatever I do in my daily life I do fully (other implications implied).
Doing such things in everyday life won’t turn my legs into something Tom Platz will fear, but it helps to keep my legs and body usable. As I said, the body likes to maintain just the level it needs, so my hope is if I continue to use my body every day at the level I wish to have when I’m 70 years old, hopefully when I get there I’ll still have it.
Looks like rules 1, 2, and 3 were violated here. Not that I’m necessarily broken up about what appears to be a top criminal learning what karma is all about, but it’s still demonstration how not following the rules leads to big trouble.
It’s also demonstration about how not to unload a semi-automatic firearm. To properly unload a semi-automatic firearm you:
Updated: Looks like rules 1, 2, and 3 weren’t the only thing violated… adding drugs and alcohol to the mix too. TXGunGeek (in my comments), it looks like this falls under your “raving idiot” category. And yes I guess there is a reason to point a gun at your head and pull the trigger… to teach others how to be just as stupid as you.
Updated 2: Fixed my typo there… should be tactilely not tactically. Freudian slip? 😉
My friend Ron stopped feeding one of his sons today.
I think it’s a great idea.
I hadn’t thought about doing this specific thing, but I’m going to add it to my agenda for my own kids. I have been allowing Oldest to make more of his own choices mistakes, which is good. He’s got enough knowledge and experience in his head to be given some free reign and jurisdiction over himself. We still guide him and sometimes we have to make the decision for him, but in the end the consequences (good and bad) are his to receive, and any mistakes are his to deal with.
I have felt that when 16 years old comes around, we won’t buy any of the kids a car. If they want a car, they pay for it. I might go in half with them, we’ll have to see how prices are. But things like gas, insurance, money for whatever fun they want to have… they have to get that on their own. Basically, if you want things in life, you gotta work for it and earn it. It’s how life is (or at least, is supposed to be), so get used to it.
Also once they can start to drive I want them to take at least one class at the local community college to get used to how they are. Again, easing them into the real world.
Anyway, thanx for the idea Ron. Good one.
One thing I love about being home so much (side-benefit of the work-at-home situation) is my wife’s cooking.
Not just eating it and eating it 2-3 times a day, but smelling it.
I’ll be sequestered in my office. I’ll be deeply buried in code or debugging or some other software development joy. Then it hits me. Some smell… it has crept its way through the house. It might be the smell of garlic and onions sautéing. It might be bread baking. It might be the wonderful smell of bacon frying. Whatever it is, it’s always a wonderful smell. It’s always a pleasant surprise when it hits. Sometimes I’ll head down to the kitchen to see what’s cooking, other times I’ll just savor the aromas from afar and wait to see what else floats my way so I can try to figure out what she’s up to.
The printer is in my office. I’ll hear it kick in without my initiation, so I know it’s Mrs. Hsoi printing out a recipe she found. I do my best to avoid looking at the printout. I don’t want to know. I don’t want the surprise to be ruined. Let her cook. Let the clues waft my way. The simple please of deciphering the magic she’s performing in the kitchen.
I am a fortunate man. 🙂
Updated: You know how I know my wife reads my blog? I post this. I go get in the shower. I come out of the shower and smell… bacon. Sweet sweet thick cut smoky fatty bacon. She received the above subtle hint.
My wife is awesome.
The mighty Pantera. Just when metal was dying from the rise of “the Seattle scene,” along comes Pantera to kick the world in the ass.
I remember the first time I saw Pantera live. The Bayou, Washington D.C.. They were opening for Wrathchild America, supporting their Cowboys from Hell album. Since I worked in radio at the time, I was backstage talking with the band. I spoke with Phil about the (then) new Peter Steele project. I spoke with Dime, who then was “Diamond Darrell”… he signed my Pantera hat with “Dime” and explained to me his “name change”. Dime was so nice, so friendly.
Their music is like no other. Power. Groove. Emotion. Soul. Strength.
Walk on home, boy.
Was out all day today, thus the lack of blog entries.
One thing I did today was “beta test” some handgun drills/tests. For an idea of what I’m talking about, check here (and the PDF files linked to on that page); those aren’t what I shot today, but it gives you an idea. It’s handgun shooting drills, timed, to assess knowledge and skills.
I have to admit, when I was told I was going to be beta testing the drills I got nervous. I was going to be watched, judged, my performance evaluated. *gulp* Furthermore, I would be shooting with two other gentlemen whose experience and skills are far more vast than mine, so I was just hit with this feeling of pressure and nerves. But a few seconds after that all washed over me I said to myself: “Don’t worry about it. This isn’t a contest. This isn’t to compare you against them or anyone but yourself. Just shoot the best that you can shoot. Take your time and get hits. Be accurate. Don’t rush and try to shoot fast, even if the other guys can and do shoot faster than you, else you will mess up and shoot poorly. So, just stop being anxious and just shoot your best.” Just had to let the wave of nerves and apprehension wash over me, then be washed off me. 🙂
We went out to shoot. I kept my mind calm and didn’t worry about anything. I’d shoot however I’d shoot, and as long as I didn’t work myself up I’d shoot fine. Just focus on that front sight, good trigger press, and that’s all you can do.
We shot the tests. If I remember correctly, I scored a 97%. Was I surprised? A little. I didn’t think I’d shoot that well. What surprised me was that I held my own with the other guys. Not that this was a competition or a need of an ego stroke, but that I’m my own worst critic. I will be hard on myself in assessing my skills, abilities, and knowledge in anything. These guys have always told me I shoot well, and while I never thought they were blowing smoke up my skirt, I didn’t think I was good enough. They might say “You shot that well”, but I knew what mistakes I made, I knew I could do better. But now to see me shoot and hold my own with these guys, it did show me my skills aren’t as bad as I think they are. These guys gave me a neutral measuring stick, so to speak, that I could measure myself against instead of just always telling myself “no not good enough”. Note: I do believe these gentlemen could still outshoot me in competition, don’t get me wrong.
I also know that I did shoot well on my own accord. I just kept to the fundamentals, e.g. “cleardistinctfrontsight-press-cleardistinctfrontsight”. I did NOT look at the target at all while shooting (it’s a habit I’m working to break); I kept my eyes focused on that front sight. Good trigger presses. Stayed relaxed and calm, focused on nothing but myself and my shooting. I was aware of all of this as I was going through the drills, and that made me most pleased. I was especially pleased in that I did not care about how I was performing. All too often I get caught up in how I’m performing and that causes me to screw up the performance. I just shot and didn’t care what happened, at least until well after the shot was over. So that’s what surprised and pleased me most. It was me performing as I should perform, and it paid off. So I was happy. It wasn’t an ego stroke, but it was certainly a good gain of confidence.
In the end, I realized I’m not as bad as I thought I was. Sure I’m still going to be hard on myself, sure I’m still going to work to improve myself. But it was nice to have something that gave me a bit of a reality check, to put things in some sort of perspective.
In related news, I am very pleased with the modifications done by Springer Precision. The improved trigger certainly helped, but what helped most were the sights. There’s no question in my mind regarding today’s drills/tests that I would not have shot as well as I did if I still had those XS Sights on (that may be (part of) my problem… having those XS sights on as long as I did and my shooting sucking as much as it did, that may have brought my confidence and “belief in myself/skills” down). The bright red fiber optic just draws my eye to the front sight. The rear sight is clear and unobtrusive. The sight picture is just great. I do believe having better tools helped me.
I’ve also been working on my grip, especially my left hand. I’m placing my left palm heel a bit higher on the grip/frame, which gets more of my left palm in contact with the frame and allows my left hand to have as far forward a cant as possible. I’m finding a “sweet spot” for where to place my left hand in terms of how it wraps around my right. And I am working with the Todd Jarrett “grip 20% harder” rule. I believe it’s making a difference in recoil management and thus ability to reacquire my sight picture. Heck, I shot some quasi-Bill drills (6 shot rapid fire strings) today and had no loss of left grip, no need to reset my grip, and good sight picture reacquisition and control.
Bottom line for the day: I got a nice idea where my skills are, and that my practice and work is paying off. So with that, off to practice more.
And the sun was shining. The weather was great. I got about 120 miles of motorcycle riding in. A good day.
I just read via Slashdot about Texas HB 481. It’s a bill that would require pretty much any State agency to preserve their electronic documents in an open document standard format.
I think that’s a good thing.
The main thing is longevity. If these are to be vital documents to last beyond our lifetimes, we need to ensure they can. As a software engineer myself I know how software can come and go, formats can be lost to history, and files can be rendered unreadable.
Now some are saying that this is bad because it’s anti-competitive. I fail to see how that’s true. When you use a proprietary format like an MS Word document, what happens if Microsoft goes away? Yes folks it could happen. What would happen if applications could no longer read MS Word document files? What then? Now, this isn’t to say I’m against proprietary formats, but I understand if I want something to last you need to make it as open and accessible as possible. Microsoft doesn’t make their money from selling document formats, they make it from selling software that reads and writes those formats. So, they are more than welcome to add native support for these open file formats to their products, like anyone else… and that is what competition is all about.
I doubt this bill will see much traction, but it’s a nice effort.
My day job entails working as a software engineer writing Mac software. I just went through an ugly experience dealing with a particular 3rd party API, so it was a welcome experience to deal with a well-written bit of 3rd party code.
Jay Tuley’s CocoaScriptMenu is a terrific piece of reusable software. It does one thing: allows you to add a Scripts menu to your application, and it does it very well. I obtained the code, made a few small modifications to fit it into our build environment, dropped it into my application, and viola… it just works. Furthermore, it has just about every bit of functionality and customization that one could want. I mean, as I was thinking about how to implement this feature on my own I came up with a list of functionality, and CocoaScriptMenu satisfies every single one of them and a little bit more. Plus the licensing terms are reasonable.
Thank you, Jay Tuley, for creating this and releasing it. Good work indeed!
So there’s this thing…. the Bottle Bezel Self-Defense tool. (h/t to James Rummel).
Self-defense bottle caps. Um… OK. It’s certainly novel.
Now, let’s ignore the whole issue of bottled water, and the fact that a gun or a knife trumps a lump of knobby plastic atop your water or soda bottle (both you being attacked by, and that they’d be better tool choices for yourself).
Could this thing be a reasonable self-defense tool?
Actually, maybe it could. Maybe.
I think about dan bong (short stick) techniques, seen in Korean martial arts such as Kuk Sool, Hapkido, and Hwa Rang Do (and their variants). Not that I think this bottle cap actually could work dan bong style, but it’s something I’m familiar with and as soon as I saw the bottle cap and thought a bit about it, dan bong techniques came to mind. One premise of dan bong techniques is directing hits to sensitive/vital areas, pressure point targets, and so on. This article describes some of the points, but lacks visuals. So instead, here I have a visual taken from Kali, and I have seen a similar illustration from a Modern Arnis book I have by Remy Presas. You can click on the picture for more details (it’s discussing the Presas approach), and you can see the basic striking points and angles of attack. Dan bong is similar. While with this bottle cap you may not take a true Kali/Arnis/Eskrima or Korean dan bong type of strikes, thinking about those weaponologies… take strikes with the butt-end of the stick, apply them to these vital target areas. And so yeah, maybe a knobby lump of plastic might do something. I would think the cap would be more effective applied to bony areas, bare skin (clothing pads and would diminish the effects)… striking, grinding it in.
But on that token, I think that’s where the cap has limited application. Someone attacks you middle of winter, they’ll be rather covered up… where are you going to strike them? Or even if it’s in the summer and lots of flesh is exposed, the striking/grinding application of the cap is only going to be effective in certain places. I guess go for the head and hope. Which brings up another point… this is a contact weapon. You’re going to have to be close in to use it, and that’s probably too close for comfort. This is where tools that utilize projectiles are useful.
I also wonder about the structural integrity of the bottle. Many bottles now are being made out of very skimpy and flimsy plastic, so bottles collapse and crush pretty easily. Can those bottles withstand such a use? And would you trust your life to that? Maybe these will screw on top of the steel (reusable) water bottles. Most of the steel ones I’ve seen have a female top with a male cap, and this Bottle Bezel is a female cap for the male disposable bottle tops… so unlikely to work unless you can find a steel one set up the right way. But steel would be better than plastic bottles. Then perhaps you could use other striking techniques with the bottle itself, but even that’s a bit unwieldy.
I’ll say this. While I applaud their efforts to create a “less lethal” self-defense tool, one key part of self-defense is to stop the attack so you can escape. Is this bottle cap going to stop an attack? By look alone? I highly doubt it. I mean, flash a gun or a knife and attackers typically stop… flash a bottle cap? Then by effective application? Well, perhaps, but it seems so limited and difficult to trust.
I don’t know. Maybe. I haven’t actually seen or played with one so I can’t make a complete assessment. But just looking at the logic of it all, I can’t see it. If they really want to market it as a self-defense tool, they ought to show how it can be used. Give us some honest material and ways to view this as anything other than a gimmick or talisman. Maybe they can create their own martial art and call it “H2-Do” (sorry, the pun was there). At this point, it’s not something I’d put my faith in. I have more effective and proven tools, and I’ll stick with those.
Stuff From Hsoi 