Long day. Good day.
Helped with a Basic Pistol 1 class. Took an advanced handgun class.
Shot my 9mm reloads during the class, and got a chance to chronograph the loads.
A few other things too.
All good.
Details later. I need to sleep. 🙂
Month: February 2010
Treat everyone nice
This is why you treat everyone politely; you never know who you’re dealing with.
A man in Berlin is denied access to a club. He gets rude with a bouncer. Then it becomes evident to the rude man just who the bouncer is: kick boxing champion Michael Kuhr. Suddenly the man becomes very polite and compliant.
Of course, the better part is watching the bouncer and how he handles things. Always cool and polite. Takes nothing personal because he knows the man isn’t mad at him, it’s just part of the job.
Funny stuff. 🙂
Tactical Hunting Review
My buddy Charles is starting a new online venture: Tactical Hunting Review.
It’s just starting so the website is simple, but I’ve seen the plans and there’s some great things in store… just takes a little time to develop. The intent? To provide a one-stop location for reviews of guns and gear, for “tactical” purposes, for hunting, for other sport. It can even cover things like training, schools, deer leases, you name it. It strives to provide complete reviews from industry people and people like you and me in the field. Visit the site and check out the sidebar on the main page as that explains all.
There’s also a forum to build community.
Check it out. It’s an interesting effort and I’d like to see it succeed.
Good luck, Charles.
Customer Service improving?
I’ve noticed that lately a lot of people are talking about good customer service experiences.
That we’re surprised to get good customer service? That’s a shame. We shouldn’t be surprised when service is good — it’s supposed to be good. That we’re surprised when service is good is testimony that customer service has generally been a horrible, painful experience.
But I wonder. With the state of the economy, that consumers are cutting back, that businesses don’t want to lose any customers and would still like to gain customers… gosh, amazing how that free market motivates improvement. Customer service is one of those key areas that either make someone loyal for life or swear to never use the product/service again. Of course, when the provider of the goods/services is the government, ever notice that on whole it’s not the best end result? What motivation do they have to improve? it’s not like their revenue will go down… no, if they lose customers they’ll just raise taxes. *sigh*
I can only hope that once times are no longer so lean that customer service won’t go back into the toilet. When times are good, still be good. When times are tough, be better.
PM9 kB!
Over at TFB, there’s a story of a Kahr PM9 kaboom.
Recently I posted videos of Tom Givens extolling the PM9. Is this kB! any slight on the PM9? I don’t think so. In fact, I think it’s a sight that things have improved!
You see, when I was choosing my carry gun the Kahr’s were getting serious consideration. But I had read about all sorts of problems with them, and how when sending back for customer service the service was hit or miss. It was enough to turn me off to the little guns. However reading this latest story? The kB! wasn’t Kahr’s fault, yet they repaired/replaced everything and even took care of all the shipping costs. A fast turnaround to boot.
I wrote that should I get back in the market for a small semi-auto, the Kahr’s were going to get serious consideration again. Reading about this experience only strengthens that.
BTW, the ammo that went boom was from Georgia Arms. I’ve got a couple cans of GA’s “Canned Heat” in .223 and have yet to have a problem. However, this is not the first story of GA ammo having problems.
Austin Plane Crash
I live in Austin, Texas.
Today, someone flew a small plane into a building on the north side of town.
Details are still coming together. But at this point it seems that a man was greatly troubled, many problems with the IRS (amongst other things). He burned down his own house (apparently while wife and daughter were still inside). Then flew a single engine plane into a building that held IRS offices. All in all, a very sad situation in every way for everyone involved.
I do hope everything gets sorted out and things resolved as best they can at this point.
I also hope that knee-jerk reactions don’t happen as result of this. This was a lone incident of “crazy” and folks, you can’t stop crazy. Actually I’d say this is more “sad”, but the point remains that this was an isolated incident. I don’t want to see my city get all tied up in this, calling for increased security measures, or changing FAA rules, or whatever. That’s not going to stop anything and will only serve to further degrade the lives of the citizenry… which in a way, is what this guy was rallying against. You’d only be feeding the beast by doing such things.
I hope cool heads prevail.
AlegrĂa
Cirque du Soleil’s AlegrĂa came to Austin for a 5 night run at the Cedar Park Center.
Last night I took the family to see opening night.
I’ve seen many Cirque shows on TV; Bravo or A&E, I forget which would play the shows and many times run marathons. Wife and I always enjoyed watching them. Of the shows, AlegrĂa was always a favorite. So that it came to town and we could see it live? Awesome.
The kids have never been to any sort of circus, or experienced anything quite like this. We played some promo videos we found online. Daughter of course was excited about it. Youngest wasn’t too sure but did think it’d be neat. Oldest? He made up his mind that he was going to hate it, of course. 🙂  In the weeks since the ticket purchase and leading up to last night, everyone’s respective sentiments towards the show only strengthened. I just encouraged Oldest to go in with an open mind and let it be what it will be; even if he ends up not liking it, he’ll have the experience. I was taken to many events as a child that didn’t appeal to me at the onset and afterwards I knew I’d never do again. However I know my life is a bit richer for the experience. Besides, I’d remind him of all the times he knew he’d hate something and ended up liking it in the end.
And so we went. We decided to have dinner out, and since it was Ash Wednesday seafood was on the menu. I found this little place in Cedar Park called CR Surf & Turf (Yelp listing). Seemed to be decently reviewed and sure enough, the place lived up to the review. It’s a little place, but business was steady and the place was generally 75-90% full the entire time we were there. Service wasn’t horrible, but wasn’t great (e.g. no one ever refilled Wife’s water, or even came by after the food was delivered to ask how things were). Still, the folks were friendly and if you needed anything it was easy enough to ask. The place isn’t too fancy either, but who cares. What’s important is the food and my my my my my…. it was good. We started with a fried calamari. We expected it to be like everyone else does it: little bits of squid, battered and deep fried to a brown, served up in a mound on a plate with cocktail sauce. It was far from that. A light golden batter, meaty cuts of squid, and a fantastic addition of sautĂ©ed onions and other things including some sliced fresh jalapeno (sorry, I can’t remember it all). But my my it was delicious, and so different from the norm. Just fantastic. Everyone had their different plates of food and it was all done very well. The fish was delicious, cooked just right. Even scallops, which are so easy to screw up, were done right. Anything fried (e.g. Oldest had a plate of fried stuff) was a very light batter, crunchy, and didn’t feel heavy. I had grilled asparagus as a side, and it was cooked just right… nothing overdone or underdone. And everything came to our table hot… like freshly cooked hot. Just awesome. I’m telling you folks… this was some really good stuff. If the place wasn’t so far of a drive away I think it’d be a regular place for us. Highly recommended. But anyway…. this isn’t a food blog, but the place was so good I had to give them some credit.
So we get to the Cedar Park Center, find our seats. I always try to get good seats for things and this was no exception. Section 122, row C. It gave us a great view of the entire stage, and comfortable viewing as well (no craning your neck to see everything). One thing I’ll repeat about the Cedar Park Center is the place is tiny and the seats are cramped, but there really aren’t any “bad seats”… even the cheap nosebleeds aren’t going to be terrible. I’d say the only “bad seats” would be the ones directly to the left and right of the stage, since you’d be obscured at times (e.g. the large net at the end for the Aerial High Bar performance).
What can I say about the show other than it was well-executed. I’ve seen the show numerous times on TV, but seeing it live was wonderful. The talent, the skill, the ability of the performers is amazing to watch. The kids were certainly wow’d by a lot of things. Of course, I think for them the best part was watching the clowns. I can’t say I blame them… the clown act was updated a bit and was hilarious, especially the use of some running gags. I know Oldest liked the Fire-Knife Dance too.
Speaking of Oldest… at intermission he comes up to me:
“Dad… I’m going to have to eat my words.” And he gives a slight smile.
Yeah I know, Son. I heard you laughing. I saw you hold your breath during some of those death-defying feats. I saw your attention totally captured. It’s all good. 🙂
Catching up
Work has been good, or at least interesting, the past week. All this new programming stuff that I’m working on has really inspired me and I’ve just been head-down in that. I haven’t read any blogs or news sites in almost a week. I’ve also been a bit lax in replying to some emails. Of course, blogging hasn’t been as heavy as usual either. I know. Bad bad. But work tends to be a higher priority, given web browsing doesn’t pay the bills.
Going to work on getting caught up today.
Videos: the snub, the anti-snub
On December 3-4, 2005 at the American Police Hall of Fame in Titusville, Florida, a one-time event called “The Snubby Summit” was held. It was an event all about the snub nose revolver. The presenters there were a veritable who’s who in the snub world, such as Massad Ayoob, Jim Cirillo, Ed Lovette, Andy Stanford, Michael de Bethencourt, Claude Werner, Tom Givens. Others were there too, like SouthNarc and Paul Gomez.
Sounds like it was a heck of an event. Wish I could have been there.
But in place of being there, I discovered videos from the event are available online!
I’m still working my way through all the videos, but if you watch nothing else you must watch parts 6 and 7 — the Tom Givens segment. Tom comes into a snub conference and talks about how after 30+ years he gave up the snub in favor of a Kahr. While that in and of itself is a compelling talk, it’s all the other things that Tom talks about that are well worth your time to watch.
It doesn’t matter what you carry: a semi-auto, a snub, a pointed stick. Take the 20 minutes and watch Tom’s segments. There’s fantastic insight there.
While you’re at the POSA website, they’ve got lots of other interesting videos as well.
A thought, on Gandhi and guns
A few days ago I wrote a brief entry about the shooter at University of Alabama, Huntsville. While the entry itself wasn’t much, it’s generated quite a comment thread.
In writing one reply I was thinking about how great icons of pacifism, like the Dalai Lama, aren’t against guns. In the “Seattle Times” on May 15, 2001 The Dalai Lama was quoted as saying:
If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.
Even Mahatma Gandhi wasn’t against guns. He understood they had a place. While I was Googling around to find some quotes, I ran across this page. A gentleman named “Peter C” wrote this:
Up until approximately 1978, I described myself as a Gandhi-an pacifist. As we were leaving an emergency doctor appointment with my doddering old half-blind father, I on one arm and my mother on the other at 11 pm that night, a man larger than any of us came bellowing in our direction — “what is this!? A wedding coming down the street!!” He was obviously… something… drunk? Anyway, I had exactly two emotions at that moment. The first was apprehension. The next was a full-fledged and absolute willingness to die in the protection of my parents. I did not care for my own life _or_his_. Right or wrong, up or down, left or right, green or yellow… I was in that moment pledged to kill or be killed. As it turns out, whether he sensed my resolve, or had a moment of clarity I don’t know, but he nearly instantaneously ceased in his bellowing and harrassment [sic] and went on.
Personally, I have reviewed my personal “peace policies” and frankly, I have a much different view today than at that time. The Indians have had done to them as bad as anything Adolph Hitler is credited in doing to those unfortunate enough to occupy his internment camps. For full documentation of British barbarities, I recommend reading Mike Davis’ “Late Victorian Holocausts” for the full telling. Could guns have prevented these barbarities? I do not know. I know that above the meditation place of the Dalai Lama is a gun. Like most things, the solutions are never one thing. Certainly violence is an act that must be considered in its practical context I believe.
But “evil” seems to be a matter of the human heart, and not born of an implement per se. The implements change, but the heart of evil changes little. Change the heart and you change the implements. I pray that we learn to change our hearts by deep meditation and thus the implements that cause suffering will therefore change to implements that create peace. Meanwhile, let’s stop being so idealistic in our focus upon the implements instead of the deeper causes of unnecessary violence.
It’s the last paragraph that is most relevant.
People want to ban guns because they believe in doing so violence will go away. Sometimes they choose their words to say “gun violence” will go away. Sure, I’ll grant that if there are no guns there would be no gun violence. I mean, we don’t have any Star Trek phasers and consequently we don’t have any phaser violence. Trouble is, while “violence” may be eliminated, “violence” is not. No gun? Fine, they’ll use a knife. Look at the UK. Ban knives? They’ll use sticks. Ban sticks, they’ll use their bare hands. What are you going to do then? Cut off our hands? then we’ll use our feet. Are we then going to cut off our feet? Because once we do that yeah… that might actually finally inhibit things. I know it sounds like a ridiculous extreme, but that is the path it takes. You can ban all the objects you want, but it doesn’t change what’s in the heart of a person. If some person is intent on causing pain and suffering, violence and destruction, they are going to do that even if the only thing they can use is their bare hands.
So yes, let’s stop focusing on the implements and instead start focusing on the deeper causes of unnecessary violence.
Stuff From Hsoi 