Month: May 2009

Sunday Metal – Megadeth

/ hsoi

Dave Mustaine gets kicked out of Metallica, goes on to form his own band in which he is the primary creative force. Witness the birth of Megadeth.

I have to admit I am not the biggest Megadeth fan. I don’t love them, I don’t hate them, just don’t care one way or the other. Megadeth has never really moved me one way or the other. I have some of their albums, but I don’t listen to them much and when I do I tend to just skip around to the few songs I like. I respect the band. I respect the musicianship. Some songs are really cool (e.g. Holy Wars, Skin O My Teeth, Peace Sells), but I just never got into the band and even today I’m still not that moved to get into them. But without question, Megadeth holds an important role in the world of metal, and Dave Mustaine is a very interesting guy. 

Kuk Sool Won Seminar 2009

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

The annual Kuk Sool Won seminar rolled through my school tonight.

Topic: dan bong.

Dan bong is one of my favorite weapons, so I was looking forward to this seminar. I can’t cover everything, because there’s just no way to type it all up. But I did want to give an overview of the event and what I took from it.

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Action Shooting in Austin

/ hsoi

As I mentioned previously, I’ve been wanting to get into action and competition shooting. The only bummer about it is there’s no means for this close to Austin. Anything is at least a good 1-2 hour drive outside of town. That’s not too bad tho, as it’ll make for a nice motorcycle ride.

However, as of a few hours ago this is going to change.

The Austin Rifle Club just voted to begin construction on five “action shooting” bays for IPSC, IDPA, SASS, NRA AP, Training courses, organized practice, and other such uses. All this was was the vote, there’s still much work to be done. But with the vote at least it can move forward. This is great news!

I have been wanting to join ARC for some time but haven’t been able to due to scheduling conflicts. You must take a range safety course which is offered only once per month and I just haven’t been able to make any of those monthly meetings. 😦  But this gives me more motivation to work it into my schedule!

Updated: Here’s the official word from ARC. Looks like it’ll be happening soon. I’m going to have to work the enrollment meeting into my schedule.

Reduced fire practice

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Having previously written about dry fire, it was a gem to come across this blog entry about “live but reduced fire” practice. That is, practicing with a reduced load, such as a .22 or Airsoft. (h/t to Tam)

We’re all living in a time where it’s hard to find ammo, and when we find it we tend to want to save it because 1. it cost us a lot to get the ammo, 2. we don’t know when we’ll find more and if we do if we’ll be able to afford it!  So shooting a .22 is very appealing right now. Heck, it plays a small part in my decision to do Steel Challenge style shooting as my first formal competition.

What got me about Michael Bane’s blog post tho was the undertone that what helps your skills isn’t going to the range and throwing a lot of lead downrange. What helps your skills is all the work you do off the range, such as dry fire. Dry fire is going to take you furthest in building your shooting skills. What dry fire lacks is the boom and the recoil. This is where Michael’s suggestion of “subcaliber practice” becomes useful, because even shooting a .22 you get some noise and recoil, which can help you build a stronger foundation and reduce the effects of greater noise and recoil for “standard caliber practice.”

A very interesting read, no doubt.

Makes me want to go buy a few (hundred) more bricks of .22. 🙂

Be the change you want to see in the world

/ hsoi

Mahatma Gandhi said “Be the change you want to see in the world.” A wonderful and noble thought.

Reading this from Roberta X reminded me of a thought I had a few weeks ago.

Driving around town with Family, Wife noticed a car with a bumper sticker that had the Gandhi quote on it. I do think it’s a beautiful thought, but I started to wonder how many people actually do that.

For instance, I wish to see people being more responsible for themselves, so I work to be more responsible for myself. I work to teach my children and other children in my care (e.g. my work as a Cub Scout Den Leader) about being responsible for themselves. I want to see people that work hard to be rewarded for their efforts, so I work hard, climb the ladder, save my money, and teach my children the same. I don’t want to see people go hungry, so I use my hard-earned money to buy food for my church’s food pantry.

Then I see people that want to spread the wealth. But then I ask them to spread some of their wealth directly to me, and they never seem to pull out their wallets. If the change (and hope) you wish to see in the world is to spread the wealth, then shouldn’t you be that change and start by spreading your wealth?

I see people that want others to pay for their health care or their groceries or their gas or whatever. But again they never seem to want to pay for mine when I ask them to.

I see people demanding mandated volunteer service (ignore the fact that makes no sense, or that it’s akin to slave labor), but I never see those same people volunteering.

Oh I see. You want *ME* to do that, but the gander just wants to sit back and reap the benefits. I see. Sow nothing, reap something. I see. Don’t consider the sustainability of that course of action, since you just want your big screen TV now. I guess someone didn’t have The Little Red Hen read to them as a child. Maybe that’s why some of us get a wee upset at such propositions of hope and change.

If you want to see change in the world, it starts with you. You need to change yourself and be that change. If you can’t be that change, maybe it’s not such a great change. If you can be that change, I can at least say I’ll have more respect for you.