tgace has a lengthy list about Murphy’s Laws of Combat Operations.
A lot of humor in it, but a lot of truth as well.
Month: October 2009
Tough Decision
Deer hunting seasons starts in a couple weekends. I’m all geared up for my first opening weekend.
Then I learn about an Edged Weapons Defense class that happens the Sunday of opening weekend.
I don’t know what to do.
Sit in a blind, in the cold, maybe in the rain, waiting… hoping….
Go do some cool martial arts stuff taught by Leslie Buck.
Hrm.
I’ll admit, I’m really drawn to taking the class. But opening weekend, the rut… I may not have enough free time otherwise if I skip opening weekend.
I thought about hunting Saturday morning and Saturday evening, then driving home and taking the class on Sunday. Not sure yet.
If only all decisions in life could be so tough. 😉
Hey, ketchup
Playing catch-up this morning on a lot of things. Long days at the range are great, but set me behind on a bunch of things. Plus it seems my replacement keyboard (with a working “T” key) came in to the Apple Store so I need to find a way to schedule a repair that minimizes downtime.
Back later.
On reloads
Given what I observed in DPS2 class, I’d like to make a comment about reloading semi-automatic handguns.
There are many techniques for reloads. Here’s Todd Jarrett demonstrating the most popular:
It’s important to note that Todd Jarrett is one of the top shooters in the world, but notice on the last two techniques (reload with retention, tactical reload). Notice how long they take to do. Consider Todd Jarrett has practiced these heavily, he has minimal chance of flubbing them but is still human and could well flub them.
Now consider yourself. Are you just a private citizen that carries a gun for self-defense? Do you practice at the level Todd Jarrett does? When your life is on the line, do you have the time or desire or motor-skills to deal with fumbling? As well, consider that shit can happen at a moment’s notice and the longer the gun is out of commission well… the longer the gun is out of commission.
The only reload you really need to worry about is the so-called “speed reload.” I was made a believer of that fact at the Combined Skills class. Why is this the only reload to care about? Because it is the fastest reload. It keeps your gun out of action for the least amount of time and gets you back in the fight as quickly as possible. It breaks your concentration as little as possible. Everything about it is less, simpler, the most basic, the essence of reloading. If you did have to do another type of reload it would be what Jarrett called the “slide lock” reload or some may call the “emergency reload” because you’ve run the gun dry. Still, that reload is about the same as the speed reload apart from the need to release the slide.
Watching people in DPS2 you saw all manner of fumbling and fiddle-farting around with magazines. Since cardboard targets don’t return fire or otherwise attack you back, you don’t feel the pressure of needing to get the gun back in the fight as quickly as possible. As we got people to just drop the magazines on the ground and speed reload, it made a huge difference. It’s just a magazine. Let it drop. It can handle it, and if it doesn’t then perhaps you need new quality magazines or a gun that doesn’t only have cheap magazines available for it. Yeah it might get dirt in it, but hopefully your gun is reliable enough to handle some dirt.
Practice like you fight, and hopefully then you will fight like you practice.
I had put time into other reloading techniques, like reload with retention or tactical reload because I could see they were more involved motor skills and thus needed more practice. Sure I practiced speed reloads but it seemed so simple that I didn’t practice it a whole lot. It still is simple, but given my personal goals I see little reason to practice any other reload. So the time I spent practicing those other reloads I’ll just now spend on speed reloads or other more relevant skills. Again note this is due to my personal goal set. Your goals and situational requirements may be different and may require the application of other reload techniques. Train accordingly.
A Long Day at the Range
I spent all of yesterday at KR Training helping with classes.
Three classes were being run: Basic Pistol 1, Defensive Pistol Skills 2, and AT-1A Low Light Shooting.
BP1
I think I enjoy the Basic Pistol classes the most. The teacher in me has always been drawn to beginners. When I taught Kuk Sool, I enjoyed working with white and yellow belts and often was the designated “go-to” man for doing introductory lessons. When I was teaching kids in Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts, it was great to work with kids just learning the basics. If you can help people lay a good foundation, they’ll have something solid to build upon, so beginner stages are very important.
There were a wide range of people in the class, from young college students to an old grandmother… probably in her 70’s or 80’s (she was a hoot). Men and women, various ethnicities (black, white, Asian). I always point this out about the BP1 classes because people like to stereotype gun owners as old white male knuckledragging rednecks, and it’s simply not the case as the composition of these classes demonstrate.
The class ran well, people had fun. We’ll see where they go from here.
DPS2
Defensive Pistol Skills 2 is a recent addition to the course catalog, building upon the skills in DPS1. Skills such as reloads, dealing with malfunctions, moving and shooting, basic use of cover/concealment. Class started a little slowly as we had to bring people onto the same page, but in the end it worked well. There was some discussion on reloads and it’s something I’ll talk about in another posting. All in all, people did alright.
The real fun part of the class is what’s done at the end. There’s a scenario set up (akin to an IDPA/IPSC) that folks got to run through. There was also a course of fire shot for score. The score doesn’t truly amount to anything more than showing you where you lie in your skills and what you may need to work on.
Big things to take from this course: you don’t want to get too close to cover, get the gun in play and keep it in play, slow down and get good hits.
AT-1A
Foo.c came out for this course. I didn’t get to talk with him much since he was in class and I was helping run things. This is always a fun and informative class because shooting in the dark is fun. You get to see how much muzzle flash your ammo makes, you get to play with toys like flashlights and lasers. And for many, this is the first time they have to do some stuff that does not involve shooting but just using their head. I remember the first time I did that scenario and what a sobering experience it was. The bottom line: is it worth dying for?
Other Stuff
As expected, I saw a lot of the same people I see at these events, which is always good.
I also got to meet a couple people.
I got to meet RevolverRob. Nice guy (tho his girlfriend needs a better car *grin*). Rob did pretty well. He was a little slow moving at the start of drills in DPS2 (i.e. you gotta pick up your feet and move, draw faster, shoot faster… this is your life in the line!). But he did soon find his feet and as the day wore on he really picked up and was shooting well: you could see the improvement in how he was addressing the drills and in the holes on the paper. Yeah he kept missing one steel plate as we ran through a scenario in AT-1A, but that’s OK because it served as a teachable moment. If I remember correctly, he was using the Harries technique and it just wasn’t working because it was shadowing his front sight instead of illuminating it. When he repositioned to use a cheek/neck index (what KR prefers), the sights were properly illuminated and the steel plate went ping. Rob, you did well in class and it seems it was a good day for you.
I got to meet Leslie Buck. I knew he had been coming to KRT for firearms training, and so I was hoping to run into him sooner or later. So there I was in the classroom, this man walks in with a Pekiti Tirsia Kali t-shirt on, he introduced himself and I must admit… I got a little giddy inside. 🙂 It was very much my pleasure to meet him. What impressed me so much was his attitude. He was so kind, nice, humble, courteous. The man had no (evident) ego. He came with a mindset to learn. You could see it when he was on the line: warrior mindset, student mindset. He’s not a bad shot either, just needs to send that new XD off to Springer Precision. 😉 I asked about training Kali/Silat with him, and while due to logistics I cannot train with him on a regular basis, I’m more than welcome to come to various seminars and such that he puts on. I’m certainly looking forward to such things as my schedule permits.
I also got to shoot some .38 defensive ammo in low light to check out the flash signatures. Unfortunately we ran out of time and I wasn’t able to run everything I brought, but we ran CorBon DPX 110 grain, Buffalo Bore 158 grain LSWC (20/20c), and Federal Premium Nyclad 125 grain. All 3 certainly had ample muzzle flash, but to our surprise the Buffalo Bore exhibited the least flash of the 3: we expected it to have the most. I would say the Federal had the most flash, the CorBon in the middle. We tried to capture it on film but not a lot made it… it’s just tough to time it. I did want to try Gold Dot 135 grain but didn’t get a chance too. RevolverRob offered up some Remington R38S12 but again no time…. that I would have been very curious to see. My guesses would be the Gold Dot would have very low flash and the Remington would be rather visible since it’s just “Remington Express”.
A good day. Long day. But a good one. Weather was gorgeous. I can’t complain.
Sunday Metal – Brother Cane
Brother Cane was a short-lived band during the early 1990’s. While perhaps not metal in some respects, they were certainly a band with hard rock roots. Bluesly, hard-driving, foot stomping music. Songs were well-written, with their debut album providing a great deal of good music. It’s a shame you can only find their debut album still for sale; great album end-to-end, just wish the others hadn’t disappeared.
I always thought “And Fools Shine On” was hauntingly cool.
More later
Got an interesting day planned. More later.
A “T”, a “T”, my kingdom for a keyboard wiht a working “”.
You don’t realize how often you type the letter “T” until the key stops working.
The “T” key on my laptop is acting strange. There is a noticeable delay between when you press the key and when the “t” actually is processed. I can type over 100 wpm, so this is really irritating. To type this, I have to either slow down or press the delete key a lot because the “T” came through at the wrong time. It even sometimes comes through multiple times.
Now, allow me to retype the above at normal speed with no corrections.
The “T” key on my laptop is acting srange. there is a noticeable delay between when you press he key and when hte “t” actually is processed. I can type over 100 wpm, so this is really irritating. o ypte his, I have to eiher slow down or press he delee key a lo because he “” came hrough a he wrong imte. I teven someimes comes hrough muliple imes.
*sigh*
Going o disassemble he machine and see if i migh jus be a diryt contact or some such. If not, a leas i’s sill under AppleCare (tho only a few more monhts lef in i).
Updaetd: the disassembly guides at iFixIt were helpful, but it didn’ tpan out. Did all he usual hings oo, like PRAM zapping and so on. Blew air under he keys, nohting. Se tup a call wiht AppleCare, went htrough a few phone htings, and now I have a Genius Bar appoinmen se tup. We shall see wha comes of i.
Amazing ho how you can sill read and undersatnd all of htis… a leas, so I hope. 😉
Updated 2: Took the computer to the Genius Bar at the local Apple Store. Confirmed keyboard problem. They don’t have one in stock so it has to be ordered and they’ll call me when it comes in. Meantime, I have an external keyboard hooked up and will get by with that for now.
Well Duh!1!!
Come on Linoge… you should know better.
The Obama administration on Friday said the government ran a $1.42 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2009.
That made it the worst year on record since World War II, according to data from the Treasury and the White House Office of Management and Budget.
But of course, this is all Bush’s fault.
As a result, the country is very near to breaching its so-called debt ceiling, currently set at $12.1 trillion. Lawmakers, however, are expected to vote to raise that ceiling this fall.
Yeah, that’s the way we do things in America. We can’t meet the goals, we can’t work within the limits, so we just redefine them.
*sigh*
Working on a smaller machine
As a software developer I appreciate having good hardware. In fact, I appreciate having lots of good hardware as that best facilitates getting work done in a day.
Over my career I have evolved what I prefer to have for optimal work. I like to have a laptop on which I do “communication” work. So the laptop does email, web browsing, instant messaging, and whatever other administrata or time wasting I wish to do. Having it on a laptop is good because often such tasks require portability. I do set up the machine to also do development work, but it is not meant to be a primary dev machine.
I then like to have a very beefy machine for dev work. For instance, these days something like an 8-core Mac Pro with 10 GB of RAM and multiple internal hard drives works very nice. I also like to have multiple monitors attached to the machine because lots of screen real estate is good. Furthermore, it works better to have multiple monitors instead of one big monitor because there is often different logic that can be done based upon “screen 1” or “screen 2”, especially when doing things like debugging and needing to cope with the menubar and screen redraws.
Finally, I like having extra machines for whatever needs. These are often sandbox machines of various configurations that I can nuke and pave and do what I need to to help test, reproduce bugs, and so on.
So as you can see, I’ve found surrounding myself with a lot of machines is a daily necessity for getting my job done.
What happens when I’m forced to use a little machine for everything?
I’ve been temporarily reassigned to another group in the company that needs some help with their projects. Due to the nature of the products and the fact I like to keep very clean machines (sorry Unsanity; no Input Manager hacks here), plus given the nature of the work may require working in other locations, I requested they provide me with a laptop for dedicated use for this work.
I received one. A recent MacBook Pro.
15″.
Man, that’s small. Well, to me at least. 🙂
Compounding that is Apple changed some things in Snow Leopard to make stuff bigger. For instance, the default font in Xcode is Menlo Regular 11, instead of old Monaco 9 or 10. I played with it some trying to pick other fonts or make things smaller, but I have to say, after I got over the initial shock my eyes do like the Menlo 11 better. But with bigger font means less content on the already smaller scren.
Then when I need to run Xcode for dev work, TextWrangler for notes and other things, Firefox to get into the bug database, and a few other apps… gah. Too many windows on that little screen. Sure I love Exposé and use it all the time, but it’s still a lot for that little screen.
So I started to use Spaces.
I toyed with Spaces before, but I just haven’t had a compelling need for it. I think it’s neat. I’m glad Mac OS X has it. But I haven’t been able to successfully put it into my workflow…. until today.
Turned it on, 4 spaces. Xcode on the main, TextWrangler “below”, Firefox “to the right” and since I prefer to use the keyboard I know the shortcuts to navigate around. Man… everything worked pretty slick. A few things were annoying, such as being on the non-Xcode space and then Xcode’s build window popping open on that space; it makes sense in a way, but it’s not what I want… I want to keep that app’s windows on that space. I wonder if there’s a way to force that.
I don’t know if I’d need to use Spaces on my big dev machine with the 2 monitors and lots of screen space. But on the little machine yeah, what a help it was.
Stuff From Hsoi 