Month: November 2009

Raging Against Self Defense – A Psychiatrist Examines the Anti-Gun Mentality

/ hsoi

From JPFO, an article by Sarah Thompson, M.D. examining the anti-gun mentality.

This is not some “anti-gunners are morans [sic]” piece. This is a serious, rational examination by a psychiatrist into how people come to hold anti-gun mentalities. From the use of defense mechanisms, like projection and denial, to how rage factors into the equation. Ms. Thompson also provides techniques for improved communication between those for and against guns.

Well-written piece worthy of being read by those on both sides of the issue.

Tourist in my own town

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My Dad and his wife are in town visiting for a few days.

Dad is always on the go. For someone his age he’s so go-go-go that he tires out me, Wife, and Kiddos. 🙂  But it’s good to see him and it also forces us, every time he comes to visit, to think of new things to go see and do. Thus we finally get to do some of those things that you never do unless someone visits.

For instance, lived in this town how many years? And it wasn’t until some months ago at my buddy W’s wedding rehearsal dinner at Shoreline Grill that I got to see the famous Congress Street Bridge bats. My kids have never seen the bats, tho they do get to see some bats here and there because a few must live in our neighborhood as we see some bats flying at evening twilight from time to time. So one plan we made was to go see the bats.

One reason I wanted to post about this was to get more information about the bats out there. A big reason why I hadn’t taken the kids to see the bats was because I couldn’t figure out some of the logistical details like: when do they come out? (about sunset) where can you watch them? (anywhere around the bridge but…) where can you park? (parking lot of the Austin-American Statesman, which then has a little hill at the south-east corner of the bridge where you can sit and watch them, all for free). Just little logistical details like that. I’d search around and not be able to find anything like this. Oh sure I’d find lots that talked about the bats, just not covering logistical details. The best thing I finally discovered was the “bat hotline” at 512-416-5700 x3636. It’s a recording that tells what’s going on with the bats, some information about them, and about what time the bats are flying.

While we were not in peak season (it’s usually during warmer months that there is peak flight), certainly 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats still need to eat! We had lunch at Freebirds World Burrito, played 36 holes of golf at Peter Pan Mini-Golf (I finished both courses, each scoring 50, with a couple holes-in-one, and coming in 1st place; my Dad came in 2nd place; Daughter did pretty well too), then it was about 5:00 PM and with sun setting within the hour we opted to head over to the Austin-American Statesman’s building off the south-east corner of the Congress Ave (now Ann Richards) Bridge. Parking was no problem. A little walk down the hike-and-bike trail and we found the little grassy hill right by the bridge. Lots of other people were there, all waiting for the bats. You could hear them all “chirping” under the bridge. It was pretty cool. I kept remarking how I just spent 3 days waiting on animals to appear, I was getting kinda tired of that. 😉  Eventually a few bats started to appear, zipping right overhead. Then, the stream started. From where we were we could just see an endless stream of bats coming out from under the bridge. I do mean endless. It was wild to watch.

One tip I gave my kids was there were 2 ways you could watch. One, just hold your eyes still, and you’ll watch all the bats zooming by in a blur. Two, move your eyes with the bats and while you may only “see them” for a second or two, the complementary motion of bat and eyeball in the same direction will make the bat look “slower” and thus you’ll get a clearer picture of the bat and not just a blur going by. When I told this to the Kids they all appreciated it, especially Youngest because now he felt like he could really see the bats better. Tip for you parents.

After a while well… that was enough. We headed back to the car and over to Threadgill’s World Headquarters for some dinner.

Good times.

Off to the procesor

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Just dropped off both of my deer at Johnny G’s. Totaled 100 lbs. of raw meat (and bone), consisting of 4 shoulders, 4 hams, 4 backstraps, and various other bits. Not a bad take I would say. Going to get the backstraps whole but cleaned up, the tenders whole but cleaned up, the doe hams will be steaked, the buck hams will be made into roasts, and everything else ground. The ground is going to be pure deer grind, no mixing with beef or pork or any extra fat as Wife wants to have it pure so she can mix and match it as she pleases. Johnny G’s will let it age a few days but who knows… with Thanksgiving they may not even start on it until Friday. I’ve been reading that aging venison at least a few days is good. Can’t wait!

Thing is, we need a freezer now. We bought a new fridge almost 2 years ago and moved the old fridge into the garage. Both are fairly full, especially in the freezer (what still with all the pork from my prior hog hunts). For some years Wife and I have talked about buying a whole calf or a side of beef, but we never pulled the trigger on the idea. The past couple months we’ve been doing some serious talk about it and have found a few places we might buy from (and keep finding more). Now with all this venison coming, push has come to shove and it’s time for the freezer to be bought. Hopefully we can buy one this weekend and there will be all sorts of sales going on. We’ll start filling it with the deer, then finish it off with some beef.

Meat good. 🙂

Oh yes. Need to finally buy a vacuum sealer too.

On Deer Leases and Boredom

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I’ve spoken with some people who don’t know what a deer lease is, so I thought I’d do my best to explain. Note that I’m still a n00b to all of this so I may not have all the details right.

Essentially a deer lease is an agreement between a hunter and a landowner to allow the hunter to hunt on the landowner’s land. Most of the land in Texas is privately owned. Consequently if you want to hunt, most of the opportunities are on private land. Texas does have public hunts, but they are few and far between. So you need to find someone willing to open their land for hunting, and it’s great that many land owners do just that. That’s really about all it is. You give them money, they allow you access to the land. Exactly what you can and cannot do varies from agreement to agreement. Cost varies as well. You just shop around, the joys of the free market.

So how do you hunt on a lease? Well, most of the hunting down here ends up being done by sitting in a stand or a blind, which will have a feeder stationed some distance away (e.g. 100 yards). Then you sit and wait, watching for a deer. Being creatures of habit, they will have their favorite paths and feeding locations, and hopefully over time they’ll discover the feeder as an easy and reliable source of food, make it a part of their routine to visit it, and if you wait and watch long enough you’ll have a deer.

Doesn’t sound very sporting or much like hunting does it?

It all depends how you look at it.

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My First Deer

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I got my first deer. In fact, I got two deer!

But the way I went about it was not what I expected.

As Mick Jagger once sang, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.” That certainly summed up the past week of my life.

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Success!

/ hsoi

Yes!

After 3 days… success!

I know. Posting has been light… I’ve been otherwise occupied, but it’s been all good.

So what was it I was doing? I’ll write as soon as I have time. Need to tend to some stuff because family is coming to visit all week for the Thanksgiving holiday. Consequently, posting will be light all week.

I will post details soon. I promise.

Sunday Metal – Scorpions

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Hello Moscow! We are Scorpions!

A friend of mine back in high school used to love shouting that all the time. Of course, you must do it in Klaus Meine’s thick German accent for maximum effect.

I also remember back in grade school, there was a kid that was always going on about how “Scorps rule.” Then one day they no longer ruled, it was now Iron Maiden.

A benefit of being the Metal Director at my college radio station was all the guest listing and other fun fringe benefits. Scorpions were going on a big arena tour and once again I went with my friend Tori to see the show. Scorpions were headliners, Great White was also playing, and openers were Trixter. Got to see Trixter play (not the biggest fan of theirs, but Steve Brown’s a pretty good guitar player), then we went backstage for the meet and greet. Got to meet all the Trixter guys, and they were pretty down-to-earth and nice guys. Tori was nuts over them, if I remember correctly. In fact, I still have pictures of both of us with the Trixter guys at that concert. Then we got to meet the Scorpions. They exuded road veteran status, big rock stars (not snobby, but certainly distant tho friendly). Tori and I also found it quite funny how drummer Herman Rarebell was hitting on Tori and asking her to come back to their hotel after the show to party. Tori was a bit embarassed and no we didn’t go, but it was funny how a guy who was old enough to be her Dad was hitting on her. But hey, such is being a rock star… in any other context it’d just be creepy, but somehow this was acceptable. Go figure.

We missed most of Great White’s set, but were able to catch a bit of it from the floor in front of the stage (whoo… benefits). Scorpions came on and blew the roof off the house. Just an amazing show. I recall watching Rudolf Schenker running all around the stage, end to end, riser to riser, just an amazing amount of energy. Fantastic show. Again, this is what you get for and from being a veteran.

While Scorpions of course has fantastic faster songs, I always thought they wrote great ballads. That said, I always thought “Wind of Change” was a bit cheesy. I don’t think the song is timeless in and of itself (i.e. lyrics aren’t about some concept that can transcend time), but that’s actually what makes the song timeless. It captured and became somewhat of a theme-song representing a specific moment in the history of the world. For that, it makes it a classic and memorable song. Still, one of my favorite ballads from Scorpions is “Still Loving You”:

Comparing Political Philosophies

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An article by David Bergland comparing (modern) Liberal, (modern) Conservative, and Libertarian viewpoints on various topics.

The article grants it makes general statements, but it strives to provide a fair summary of how each viewpoint views these topics.