Month: March 2010

Vote the bastards out

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

It’s not about “health care reform” or “insurance reform” or any of that. I’m not here to debate that.

I’m here to express my outrage at what it took to get the votes last night.

The lying. The buying of votes. The shutting out of the people despite the promises to the contrary. The lack of doing their jobs — which is, representing the people that put them in office. If the majority of the country doesn’t want this, shouldn’t the Congressional vote reflect that?

If this or any bit of legislation was truly good, it would stand on its own merits. That this cannot stand on its own merit, doesn’t that tell you something?

Furthermore, is there any true concern about the cost of this, both financial and otherwise? Hell, if I tried to run my household or business like this, I’d fail within a year. It’s still amazing to me that we allow our government to run itself this way.

This isn’t a Democrat or Republican thing. They both suck. Dems may have the majority now and the Reps playing the cards they are, but rest assured if the majority was the other way the same disgusting behaviors would occur.

At this point the only solution is to vote the bastards out of office.

But the thing that troubles me more? That many of these scumbags are going to be sent back there. Which means either the citizenry is happy with scum, the citizenry is scum (and merely reflecting itself in who it elects), or the citizenry doesn’t care…. whichever way this goes, it’s a sad commentary.

*sigh*

Edged Weapon Defense I

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

While I may have put regularly scheduled empty-hand training on the backburner for a little while, that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped practicing martial arts. Yesterday I took part in a seminar on Edged Weapon Defense.

Continue reading →

Surviving Gunfights

/ hsoi

A friend sent me a link to this article on surviving gunfights.

Of course the best way to survive a gunfight? Don’t be in one. Use everything that you can from awareness to mindset to avoidance to descalation. Avoid the gunfight.

But Higginbotham’s article isn’t about that. It’s about actually being in one. Higginbotham’s credentials are well-established, so he’s worth listening to.

The notion of “center mass”, yeah… I’m now of the mind that it’s a silly concept. I mean, I see where it comes from, but look at what “center mass” is of a human. Putting your shots in the center of that mass put them somewhere in the abdominal region. That’s not where you want to put things because there’s nothing vital there.

Realize as well that again, all pistol calibers suck. So what do you need to do? Keep shooting until the threat has stopped. But realize, some people may not know they’ve been hit, some people will keep on truckin’ for quite a while after having been shot even if the shot was in the right places. There’s no guarantee.

Head shot? If you can do it, great. But try some Force-on-Force training and see how many head shots you can get off.

Moving? Good thing. It was Tom Givens that convinced me that even the side-step motion is good (I used to consider the side-step silly in a “real” gun fight and more something done in classes and at the range due to range and administrative realities). That is, while drawing, just step to the side. Givens likes to call it a “WTF? moment” because it’s something that the attacker didn’t plan for and it causes them to reset their OODA loop… a “WTF?”, which could be enough to give you advantage. It also gets you off the line. Sure all sorts of things like j-hooking and other sorts of movement are great if you can, but at least just side-step when you do things like draw, reload, and so on. If you can’t practice that at the range, then make sure you do it when you dry fire.

The only thing about the article that bugs me a bit is how Higginbotham downplays all the caliber stuff, then he gets right into the caliber stuff. So which is it? Does it matter or does it not matter? The reality is it doesn’t matter a whole lot and there’s no guarantee. They all suck. Pick what you can shoot well, fast and accurate, that allows you to practice. Modern expanding ammunition helps. Skill trumps equipment.

Still, a good read.

Busy busy

/ hsoi

So many things going on….

Refinancing the mortgage on my house. When we bought the house we received a rate that was good at the time, but of course times have changed. There’s enough of a difference in the rates, so might as well refi. It’s almost done, set to close next week. Never refinanced before, but this was surprisingly non-painful. Just lots of papers to shuffle in a timely manner. Don’t want to count my chickens too soon tho… there can always still be pain yet to come. 😉

Also working on establishing an LLC for myself. This has involved lots of reading and researching to figure out which entity would be best (C Corp, S Corp, LLC). I used to like Nolo Press for such things, but recently their materials are rather thin and cross-promoting. That is, it’s hard to know which book to buy then when you buy it you find out it doesn’t answer all the questions but for another $30 you can buy another one of their books to learn more. Bleah. Friend turned me on to LegalZoom, which seems cool but I’m a little nervous. On the one hand, will the end wording actually suit me or could it risk being too general? Thus if I really need to get things done right I’d have to see a lawyer anyway so why waste the money on LegalZoom in the first place? As well, using LegalZoom creates no relationship, but having a lawyer does. There’s something to that, should things go ugly. But, I’ve got lots of lawyers in my family, so I’m talking with them too. 🙂

And of course, the day job is rather involved. Deadline is quickly approaching, the expectations are … um … ambitious, to be polite about it. But I’m enjoying the little projects I’m working on. I’ve come to accept that in life. That there’s always going to be loads of bullshit around you that you can’t control, so try not to sweat it. Meantime, just find the little gold nuggets in what you can control and influence and relish those things. I will say, being able to discover little obscure nuggets like what the hidden info fields in an FSVolumeInfo structure mean and interpret out to? Kinda cool.

How can I really tell I’ve been busy? My slacking off has fallen. 😉  I can’t blog as much as I want. Facebook just gets the occasional glance. And blog reading… lord, I’m so far behind. But ah well. It’s how it goes sometimes. I’m at least happy it’s time spent productively.

Glock dreams

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Ever wake up and know that you had some sort of crazy dream, it was so vivid, so many details… but yet, within moments of waking up you can’t remember much about the dream except one key aspect?

I had one of those last night.

All I can remember is somehow I got a free Glock. I think it was probably a G22 (.40 S&W, standard size) because I do remember mentioning in the dream wanting a G17 or G19 (9mm, standard or compact) instead.

And I actually liked it. Well, at least I was enjoying shooting it. The fact Glock’s still feel kinda “cheap Tupperware” in my hand didn’t change. But I was happy shooting it.

My guess? Somehow stems back to last weekend, because I got to shoot a stock Gen4 and actually liked it.

Crazy. 🙂

Note: the reason this is surprising to me is because I just don’t like Glocks. I don’t like how they feel in my hand. I don’t like the trigger. I don’t like the sights. I don’t like how they point for me. I just generally don’t like them. I grant their reputation and aftermarket, and that’s a huge plus for Glocks. But I just haven’t liked them. But that Gen4 wasn’t horrible. I did like the “stipple” on the grip, and while the trigger wasn’t ideal it did have good “feel” to it. Sights… they’d be changed immediately. But really… it wasn’t so horrible.

You don’t mess with a Daddy’s daughter

/ hsoi

Man defends his daughter against an abusive ex-boyfriend.

After yelling at Fuches to stop choking his daughter, the 56-year-old man got his gun and fired a shot out the window.

When that didn’t stop Fuches, the man climbed out the window and jumped down the hood of his car, which was parked in the driveway.

According to police, the man approached Fuches, who was still choking the woman, and hit him with the weapon. As the attack continued, the man shot Fuches in the leg.

Police said Fuches then turned on the man, coming at him with a large rock he’d picked up from the ground. The man fired again, this time hitting Fuches in the groin.

Neighbors told 3TV that they heard screaming and a struggle followed by gunshots. That’s when they called 911.

The father, who also called the police, rendered aid to Fuches until paramedics arrived. Fuches’ injuries reportedly were not life threatening; he is expected to recover.

Investigators at the home said the woman suffered injuries consistent with being choked and dragged through gravel. She was treated at the scene, but was not taken to the hospital.

The incident is under investigation.

Fuches is facing assault charges, but at this point, the woman’s father has not been charged with anything. Police said it’s not yet known if charges will be filed against him.

A Good Daddy™ defends his Little Girl at all times. Period.

Trouble is, if you’re going to start using a gun you’ve entered the realm of deadly force. It’s rather unwise to fire warning shots and other such things. If you don’t want to use deadly force, don’t use deadly force. That warning shot? That bullet has to come to rest somewhere, and hitting an innocent person or destroying someone else’s property is just opening up another can of worms you don’t want. And just because you shoot someone in the leg doesn’t mean the person won’t die.

I can’t fault the man for doing what he did, especially because it was in defense of his life and his daughter’s life. Just be aware of how things were done and learn something from it.