Month: July 2009

Goodbye, Granddaddy

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

Wife’s maternal grandfather just passed away (a couple hours ago). He was 80 years old. Survived by his wife of 50+ years, and his 3 children, and oodles of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

He was a big, tough, strong man, but with a kind and gentle heart. His health just started to deteriorate over the past year, and finally it just went. Until recently he was always active, working with his hands, building things, fixing things, hunting, working fields, whatever. Wife always tells me of many fond memories of time with him while growing up. During our marriage, I always looked forward to seeing Granddaddy (he wasn’t my Granddaddy but I called him that), especially the annual Christmas gathering at their house.

Don’t know how Christmas will be this year, other than different.

He was a wonderful and loved man, he will be missed by many.

How is this not a hate crime?

/ hsoi

Story here. Woman gets a brick thrown through the window of her house. Brick has a note on it: “Keep Eastside Black. Keep Eastside Strong.” And this won’t be charged as a hate crime.

Why not?

Oh that’s right… the lady is white.

Racism only flows in one direction apparently.

Buckshot please

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Here’s a story about a black bear that broke into a home in Boulder, Colorado. Apparently it took 10 rounds to take him down. Why so many? Let’s look at the rounds fired:

  1. First 2 rounds were 12 gauge bird shot.
  2. 3rd round was 12 gauge rubber bullet.
  3. Then 5 .45 ACP rounds
  4. And finally 2 rounds of .223 from the policeman’s rifle.

He shot the .45 rounds into the bear’s head. Seems to disorient the bear a bit, but didn’t have enough oomph to stop the bear. The .223 finally ended it.

Some other things to note:

  • Birdshot is for birds and nothing more. It is not effective at stopping anything more than Tweety. This was a juvenile bear and the birdshot merely disoriented him. It’s evident the homeowner kept the shotgun for self defense, putting birdshot and rubber bullets in there. Folks, less lethal isn’t the way to go. If you’re going to use a shotgun you want buckshot, and probably some slugs in the side-saddle.
  • I’ll continue to keep my AR for home defense, over a shotgun, over a handgun. More power, more versatility, more effective.
  • Sounds like the homeowner did the right thing tho. Got their gun, collected the wife and kids, man of the house put himself between his family and the bear, called the police for backup. Didn’t go looking for trouble, tried to let the bear get out; it’s always good to give a predator an escape route, else they will fight worse because they feel cornered. But when trouble came to him he dealt with it.
  • Cops did eventually show up, but like all things with the cops they are never around when you need them and it takes time for them to show up. It’s good things worked out as well as they did here, but it does show you cannot necessarily count on the police if time is critical.

6.8mm Remington SPC

/ hsoi

Sebastian writes on his 6.8 experience.

More about the 6.8 mm Remington SPC (or 6.8x43mm). Even more.

My buddy Charles that I went on the night hunt with and even one of the guys that ran the night hunt are both into 6.8. I’ve been reading things that suggest 6.8 would make a good replacement for the 5.56x45mm NATO round, because it performs better in short-barrel carbines, has better terminal ballistics, but isn’t quite the load to haul around as the 7.62x51mm NATO rounds — 6.8 is a round somewhere in between attempting to be a purpose-built round that addresses the issues that came along if you trace the evolution of going from 7.62 to 5.56 (from the M14 to the M16, etc.).

Once I get up to speed with reloading, I may have to pick myself up a 6.8 upper and try it out, especially as a hunting round.

4.5 out of 5 stars

/ hsoi

I write Mac utility software for a living. A software bundle the company creates, CheckIt 2 Performance Suite, was just reviewed and received 4.5 out of 5 stars. The particular product I work on, Spring Cleaning, is the flagship software in that bundle.

What stood out to me in this review versus other reviews of the product is the reviewer seemed to look at the entire product and didn’t overlook key features. Many reviewers seem to only focus on the “pretty icons” and the basic tools, as if they just gave the product a 5 minute look over and then wrote a review. This reviewer appeared to fully examine the product and review based upon that:

Spring Cleaning comes with other features that are used to modify and limit how the other features work, allowing you to choose areas or files that you don’t want it to include. Finally, and very importantly, is the ability to schedule any or all of these functions to be performed automatically. For instance, it is probably a good idea to repair disk permissions once a month, and it is a good idea to allow the Unix maintenance routines to run. Using Spring Cleaning, you can easily set these up to automatically run when it works for your schedule.

Talked about things like Exclusions, and most importantly, the Scheduler. That’s one of the biggest strengths of Spring Cleaning, that you can easily set up automated schedules to keep your Mac running in top shape. As Ron Popeil was fond of saying, “Just set it and forget it!”

We understand a lot of functionality here is something an über-geek could do on their own, but not everyone is an über-geek. We strive to bring a lot of power and functionality “for the rest of us” so that anyone can keep their Mac running well.

I was just happy at the excellent review. Now go buy a copy and keep me in a job. 😉

This

/ hsoi

In discussing some ObamaCare stuff with some friends (based on this), one friend made a very good point.

Finally, why, for the love of Bob, why would you want to put your health directly under the control of Congress, which is populated by bastards more parasitic, opportunisitic, and two faced than _any_ insurance company _ever_ was.

Case closed. 🙂

Just because

/ hsoi

Sometimes it’s fun to do little meme things so folks can get to know you better.

So with that….

  1. What time did you get up this morning? Don’t remember, but I’m generally an early riser.
  2. How do you like your steak? Medium
  3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Pixar’s “Up”
  4. What is your favorite TV show? Cartoons, Discovery Channel stuff, Outdoor Channel
  5. If you could live anywhere i the world where would it be? Texas is great, I’d like to stay here, but getting maybe 50-100 acres of land to settle down on would be awesome.
  6. What did you have for breakfast? This morning, nothing. Bad John.
  7. What’s yoru favorite cuisine? Whatever Wife cooks. Asian foods like Korean, Thai, Vietnamese is good too. And Texas BBQ.
  8. What foods do you dislike? Anything that stares back at me. Things that aren’t food but pretend to be.
  9. Favorite place to eat? Home, because Wife is an awesome cook.
  10. Favorite dressing? I make a thing with a little vinegar, soy sauce, and sesame oil, then cracked black pepper. Mmm.
  11. What kind of vehicle do you drive? One that’s paid for, old, but still gets me around. I’d like a 4×4 pickup… Toyota Tacoma maybe.
  12. What are your favorite clothes? T-shirts with the sleeves cut off, shorts or jeans. Just being comfortable.
  13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? New Zealand, Alaska.
  14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? The cup is.
  15. Where would you want to retire? See #5
  16. Favorite time of day? No, not really. Every moment has its place.
  17. Where were you born? In a hospital.
  18. What is your favorite sport to watch? UFC and other such mixed martial arts.
  19. Are you a morning person or a night person? Morning
  20. Do you have any pets? Yes.
  21. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share? If I have it, I tend to blog about it, so just keep reading.
  22. What did you want to be when you were little? A math teacher.
  23. What is your best childhood memory? Only one? Too many to list. But one that just came to mind was me with my paternal grandfather. He was a crotchety old fucker, but I remember one morning while staying at his house he made me breakfast and showed me the right way to make homefries. Plus explaning to me the right way to make fried green tomatoes (you have to slice the thickness just right). I don’t have a lot of memories of my grandfather, but those that I do are neat.
  24. Are you a cat or a dog person? Cat
  25. Are you married? I think so.
  26. Always wear your seat belt? Only when I’m in my car.
  27. Been in a car accident? Yes
  28. Any pet peeves? Yes
  29. Favorite pizza topping? That there are toppings. No cheese pizza! And meat must be included.
  30. Favorite flower? My daughter.
  31. Favorite ice cream? That which I’m eating. Tho H-E-B makes a Creamy Creations flavor called White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle. mmmmmmmmmmmmm.
  32. Favorite fast food restaurant? Sonic, Burger King, Subway, Thundercloud Subs. Mostly anything but McDonald’s.
  33. How many times did you fail your drivers test? None
  34. From whom did you get your last email? Probably some spammer
  35. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Right now? Cabela’s.
  36. Do anything spontaneous lately? Sign on for a deer lease, and bought a snub nose revolver
  37. Like your job? Yes
  38. What was your favorite vacation? 16 years old, family went on a 3-week bus tour of Europe. Running around London on my 16th birthday was cool. Seeing Europe was awesome.
  39. Last person you went out to dinner with? I guess the guys I got the deer lease with, having BBQ out in the nearby town and discussing if we wanted to sign or not (obviously we did).
  40. What are you listening to right now? The sounds of Wife and Kids putting dinner on the table.
  41. What is your favorite color? What is the average airspeed velocity of an unlaiden swallow? Blue.
  42. How many tattoos do you have?  One
  43. Coffee drinker? No.

that’s about the size of it….

And now you know a little more randomness about me.

Monday Morning Politics

/ hsoi

Ben Stein on the American citizenry waking up.

Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.

The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill — a great idea in theory — was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.

Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.

CNN and the 5 healthcare freedoms you’re going to lose under ObamaCare. They are:

  1. Freedom to choose what’s in your plan.
  2. Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs.
  3. Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage.
  4. Freedom to keep your existing plan.
  5. Freedom to choose your doctors

So this is the change they hoped for. God help us all. While I wish folks would have realized this before November 2008 (all the signs were there), I guess waking up now is better late than never.

Oh, and for those of you that go on about health care being a human right, read this from Marko.