Month: October 2010

Sherried Sardine Toast

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

The notion of sardines has always either amused me or turned me off. It’d be amusing when used in cartoons for comedic effect. The notion of eating them? Gross.

Why gross? I don’t know. Concept? As a kid they looked gross to me for whatever kid-influenced reason, so it always just stuck in my head that way.

But the other night… that all changed.

Flipping channels on the TV. Food Network. Good Eats. I dig Alton Brown. He made a Sherried Sardine Toast. Nutritionally it looked good (the show was about how Alton changed his diet and lost 50 lbs, and I’m in a weight-loss mode). And gosh, but something about it just looked appetizing.

So I tried it. It so happened we had 2 tins of brisling sardines on the shelf (Youngest wanted to try some some time ago, but they were bought and never consumed for whatever reason). Made the recipe as best I could (no sherry vinegar, used red wine vinegar instead; no fresh parsley so used dried instead; no lemon zest so a little bit of RealLemon had to do; no sourdough so large potato bread slices).

And gosh, if it wasn’t good.

Sure, a little strong fish-wise, but I liked it. The dressing helped to cut and complement the fish taste, and the avocado really blended nicely with everything.

Yes. I’m going to have it again. Wife didn’t like it as much, a little too fishy for her.

Just the other day I was telling Wife how I was growing less and less fond of fish… my palette wasn’t going for it any more. But now this comes along. I’ll take it. 🙂

Recipe, just in case Food Network’s copy ever disappears:

 

Sherried Sardine Toast
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown, 2009

Prep Time:15 min
Inactive Prep Time:–
Cook Time:5 min
Level: Easy
Serves: 4 servings

Ingredients

2 (3.75-ounce 2-layer) tins brisling sardines in olive oil
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley leaves, divided
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1/4 teaspoon lemon zest, reserve the lemon and cut into 4 wedges
Freshly ground black pepper
4 (1/2-inch) thick slices crusty bread, such as sourdough, country loaf or rye
1 ripe Hass avocado
Coarse sea salt

Directions

Drain the oil from 1 tin of sardines into a small bowl and set aside. Drain the oil from the other tin into another small bowl and whisk in 1 tablespoon of parsley, vinegar, lemon zest, and black pepper, to taste. Add the sardines, stir to combine and set aside for up to 1 hour.

After 45 minutes, put a rack 3-inches from the broiler and heat the oven to the broiler setting on high. Brush each slice of bread on 1 side with the reserved oil. Put the bread, oil side up, onto a cooling rack set inside a half sheet pan and broil 2 to 3 minutes or until golden brown and crisp.

Halve the avocado and remove the pit. Smash the flesh in each half with a fork.

Spread the avocado evenly onto the toasted bread. Top evenly with the sardines. Pour any remaining dressing on top and garnish with the remaining parsley.

Season lightly with sea salt and serve with lemon wedges.

 

 

Jenny’s got a gun

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Jennifer Willis is a freelance writer. And she has a stalker.

She decided, it was time to get a gun. She put her anti-gun sentiments aside. She had an epiphany:

That’s when the old Theodore Roosevelt adage popped into my head — “Speak softly and carry a big stick” — and I finally got it. I can still be the compassionate, diplomatic, interfaith groovy gal I’ve always been; I’ll just be packing heat in case negotiations tank.

Happy for her. I do hope she’ll seek out more training and practice more.

There was one thing in the article that made me cringe: all the “advice for the ladies”:

I read that the .357 Magnum and .38 Special were ideal for women interested in a gun for self-defense because they’re relatively lightweight, aren’t prone to jamming and don’t carry too many bullets. Because who really needs a 20-round magazine when you’re defending against a stalker? “Six or seven bullets will do you just fine,” read one Web comment.

The FAIL is strong with that one.

What is ideal for a woman is what she can shoot well. Packing .357 Magnum self-defense rounds into a snub revolver? How about no. She needs a gun that can fit her hands: if she’s got small hands, if she’s got large hands. It’s a matter of size and shape, not gender. She needs a gun that fits her whole hand… full-sized guns, not subcompacts, since you can get all of both hands onto the grip and thus control the gun better. Lightweight? That might be useful for carry, but it hurts for shooting. The heavier the gun, the larger the gun (esp. since larger guns with longer slides generally have less stout springs), the easier it will be to shoot, generally speaking. If the gun is pleasant to shoot, she’ll be more willing to shoot it more often, which means more practice, which is only a good thing. If the gun bites back when you shoot it, negative reinforcement like that doesn’t serve her desired goals. Who needs a 20-round magazine against a stalker? Maybe you. Are you able to predict what situation you will face? What if the stalker brings a friend? Now instead of 6 or 7, you may need 12 or 14. What if the stalker brings 2 friends? 20 rounds and even an extra full magazine doesn’t seem so out of the question now does it?

I’m not sure where Jenny got her advice, but at least she seems to be serious about her efforts in the gun world. Thunder Ranch is only about 6 hours from Portland and a week there might be a good thing. Could make for a great follow-up article as well. 🙂

Lessons from a home-invasion

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Friendswood, TX home invasion story:

 

Police said a woman was working on a homework project with her 8-year-old and 11-year-old children at their home in the 2900 block of Autumn Creek when a man came through an open window at the back of the house. Three other male suspects wearing black hoodies and masks followed the first suspect in, with at least one displaying a handgun.

Authorities said the suspects tied the family up and began to ransack their home when the husband arrived home. He tried to flee but was grabbed by one of the suspects and was also bound. The family was put in the bathroom and eventually got out after the suspects left the house.

 

 

What I take from this read:

  • Looks like it happened in the middle of the day.
  • Crime of opportunity: they came through an open window, and one in the back of the house (i.e. less likely to be seen from the street).
  • Not sure if any resistance was put up, but the mother was probably more concerned with keeping her children from harm… still, fighting back aids in that effort.
  • Father arrived home and tried to flee (WTF?).
  • They didn’t care about the people, only something to steel.

So… this is why I carry my gun around the house. Some people think I only need my carry gun when I’m out and about. But no, I need it because it’s a handy tool to have, but a handy tool is only handy if it’s on hand when needed. If it’s on my hip, it’s right where I want it to be, when I need it to be. I don’t need to go get it and risk wasting precious time.

It’s also an argument against legal disarmament. That is, there are laws on the books that prevent law-abiding citizens from carrying their guns. For instance, employer doesn’t permit the guns, even in the parking lot. Let’s say the father in this story was a CHL holder and did carry every legal way he could. If he couldn’t have his gun on his person or even in his car due to workplace limitations, that would explain coming home disarmed and walking in on your family being tied up and robbed. Is that what we wish to allow? Is that what the spirit of the law is desiring? That’s not right.

 

Superformance powder – the limited skinny

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

So we know about Hornady’s new Superformance ammo. The gist is not just really accurate for factory ammo, but also achieving 100-200 fps more than other ammo yet staying within SAAMI pressure specs. That’s… just awesome.

I’m totally interested in this ammo. I blogged about it before because I can’t help but be interested in what this powder could do behind a Barnes bullet. Barnes bullets love velocity, especially the TTSX, so could this powder and that bullet be a winning combination?

And so it has been announced that Hodgdon will be releasing a Superformance powder for handloaders. But as I look for data, I can’t find much. I sent an email to Hodgdon asking. Here’s the reply I received (edited only for layout):

 

Here’s the deal.  Hornady uses many, many blends to load all of the cartridges in their Superformance line.  We are introducing one of those blends.  It has very limited application.  It will not work in a 6.8 Remington.  The only cartridges with Superformance powder data are:

22-250
243 Winchester
6mm Remington
243 WSSM
25 WSSM
300 WSM
300 Ruger Compact Magnum

There will not be any further cartridges used with this powder.  At some point, if this powder is successful, we may bring out other blends but that is unknown at this time.

Mike Daly
Customer Satisfaction Manager
The Hodgdon Family of Fine Propellants

 

 

So there you go.

It clarifies that Superformance powders are very specific blends, and each blend/flavor has very specific application. If you want to load for your favorite cartridge, you will need the Superformance powder specific to that cartridge — if it exists; if it doesn’t exist, you’re out of luck.

So… no .223 Rem, no .308 Win, no 6.8 SPC… which are my present centerfire rifle loads. So, no Superformance for me.

One thing that perks in mind tho. I know .243 Win is considered a good “youth deer gun” caliber. Could you pack a Barnes bullet here, perhaps a “weaker” load, yet still get the same performance? That is, if all things are equal you’d get 200 fps more well, if you drop the powder back to get no change in fps but now I’d assume some reduction in recoil, could that further help the “youth load” situation? Just thinking out loud.

I guess we just have to wait to see how the powder does in the market. Meantime, I guess we can always contact Hodgdon and let them know what we’d like to see. I know I’d like to see it for 6.8.

 

Back to the Mac

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Yesterday, Apple held an event to get “Back to the Mac”. You can watch the replay of the keynote here.

My impressions.

First, it’s evident from the growth of the product sales, the revenue, the units shipped… anyone that continues to say Apple is some niche just isn’t paying attention.

iLife ’11? I like it. You can tell this is a mature product suite. It’s not adding major new features but rather refining what it has to a high degree. It’s lots of little touches, little things to help make life easier. For instance, that your Flickr and Facebook albums are just a part of the iPhoto library so you have the same editing interface? Awesome! I’m considering buying iLife just for that, as I know Wife would appreciate it. I got a major kick out of the “trailers” feature in iMovie. They did a great job at making movie editing “for the rest of us”.

Lion. Mission Control makes sense because yes, they had all these things that were disconnected so it’s time to bring them all together. I’m not sure about LaunchPad, how really necessary it is, but I think it’s something I’d have to play with. I can see for less savvy users that it could be just the thing they need.

Of course, the big thing for me to watch is the App Store. This is a possible game-changer for Mac developers. You can read the store review guidelines here, but it’s behind an ADC login so I’m not sure how publicly I can discuss it. What I will say are the impressions and questions that came to mind when I was watching the keynote:

  • Apple controls the end-to-end experience, so I assume this means you can’t use your own registration/license scheme, nor your own installer (and probably have to create your install in a particular way). That makes sense, but it’s a bit of a pain for developers since now we’ll have two means by which our apps could be installed, two code paths, two different builds, two different things to have to support and test… it’s just more work on our end, but it stands to reason for the mechanism.
  • I figure this will benefit small developers, but how about big boys? For instance, will Microsoft sell Office? Will Adobe sell Photoshop?
  • Will we start to see competing app stores? It’s well-possible for them to exist, but then what sort of additional headache and nightmare will it be for developers?  Could we see the end of traditional sales channels?
  • What about non-applications? Like plug-ins?
  • The concern is, Apple’s store will become THE face of how you buy Mac software, thus if you don’t comply with them, you’re out of luck and will suffer. I’m concerned about Apple’s content restrictions, technical restrictions (e.g. non-app sales?), and so on.

But really, all we saw of Lion were some basic things. I’ll be more curious to hear about things at the developer-level, which I reckon will come with WWDC 2011.

Finally… there’s one more thing.

The new MacBook Air’s.

Impressive. That’s all I can say. Sure they are not uber-powerful (slower processor) and decked out (e.g. only 2 GB RAM) when compared to the traditional MacBook and MacBook Pro, but my word what they do offer. The small size, the light weight. You do get an amazing amount of stuff in a very small package. If I travelled often on business, lots of coach class flights, and had to get lots of work done on the road? I could see picking up one of the 11″ models to help me handle email and work on the road.

And at that price point and form factor? Gosh… if I had a few thou lying around, I’d pick up 3, one for each of my kids. Don’t have the money, but it was just that compelling. Granted, your basic MacBook gives you more for less money, but the Air is so cutting edge that yes… it tantalizes me. 🙂

The main point tho is to see Apple well.. getting back to Mac. Mac has always been Apple’s bread and butter, but for the past few years it’s been about iPod/iPhone/iPad, which I totally don’t blame them for. For me personally, I make my living making Mac OS X software, not iOS software, so at times I felt ignored. It wasn’t true, Apple has been continuing to update the OS and Mac, but it just hasn’t been the forefront… I skipped the past couple WWDC’s because they were all iOS focused. But the irony is my life is now shifting away from Mac, just as Apple is shifting back to it. It’s like fashion from the 80’s… retro is cool again, and so is Mac. 🙂

Long hair and shooting

/ hsoi

Over at Girls ❤ Guns, an article about hairstyles for the shooting range. (h/t to Caleb)

Now, speaking as a man with long hair, I’d step back and generalize this not as an article for ladies, but an article for people with long hair. I mean, if you’re a women with short hair, the article really doesn’t apply to you. That said, social constraints are such that women get different options for styling long hair than men do, so of course the article has a few options that could be considered “for the ladies” (sorry, but I look stupid with my hair in a bun).

The main point: if you have long hair, it should be tied and pulled back, out of the way. However you do it, the point is to keep your hair from interfering. One implication in this is the hair-style should be secure, because hair falling out while you’ve got a gun in your hands isn’t good. If you’re in an intensive training class, you don’t need a hair-style failure thus distraction to have to fix it. As well, if you’re a newbie, your gut reaction may be to brush the hair out of the way… and how does that gun in your hand move while you’re brushing hair away! Could be dangerous. If your hair-style fails while you have a gun in your hand, ignore the hair, finish the drill, safely put the gun away (unload and bench it, holster it, whatever is appropriate), THEN fix your hair. This is a side-reason why a ball-cap is good to wear, because in a pinch it can keep hair up and out of the way (e.g. loose fliers restrained under the cap, long hair pulled through the hole in the back as a makeshift ponytail).

Me? I prefer to have my hair in a braid. Pony tails are OK, but a braid is more secure. Furthermore, when the wind blows, a pony tail can blow the tail hairs up into your face, whereas the braid stays down and out of the way. Here’s a picture on how I wear my hair. I’m the guy, second from the right, in the blue/gray shirt and blue cap… and braided hair:

This article has more pictures.

That said, it’s good to train with your hair down once in a while. Why? Well, if you always wear your hair up or only ever shoot in situations where you can control your hair (e.g. you’re only a recreational shooter at the range and will never use a gun to defend your life at home or on the street), then it doesn’t really matter. But if you could be in a situation where your hair is down and you’d have to shoot (e.g. you like to wear your hair down, you carry a gun for self-defense), you should practice with your hair down. It doesn’t have to be live fire (yes, that could be dangerous), but certainly you can and should dry fire. For instance, I found that if my hair is down and I haven’t been to the barber for a trim in a while, my hair can get in the way of drawing and/or presenting my gun from the holster. It’s good to know these things.

One reason I left BSA

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There are a lot of reasons I left Boy Scouts of America. I support the general nature of what they do, building character, building leadership. The Scout Oath and Law are some pretty good guidelines to live your life by. There are a lot of good skills that are taught.

But then, there’s shit like this.

When he first met with organizers, [Jon] Langbert told them he was gay, and that his son was interested in joining. There were no problems then, he said.

So, he participated in as many activities with Carter and the pack as he could. Langbert said when Cub Scout Pack 70 was low on money, he hit the streets and raised more than $13,000 last year.

That is what Scouting needs more than anything else: parents dedicated and willing to help and contribute. I should know. I spent many years as a Cub Scout Pack Den Leader, and I know what really makes a Pack go and a program successful is parents willing to step up and help out. Scouting needs more parents like Jon Langbert.

But instead….

“I just found out a few days ago that some of the dads are not happy about having a gay guy running the popcorn fundraiser,” Langbert said.

Once the parents complained, Langbert was told he could no longer hold a leadership position in the Boy Scouts of America. They even took his leadership shirt away.

So it was fine when “the gay guy” was raising $13,000 for the Pack (which is an amazing amount of money for a Pack to have), but it’s not fine that he’s gay. OK then… you guys willing to give up the $13,000 he raised? I didn’t think so. My guess is the Pack leadership didn’t have a problem, but some parents did. So what furthermore burns my butt is the leaders not standing up for both Langbert AND their original decision.

Officials with the Boy Scouts of America said their policy does not permit leaders to be gay or atheist.

“Sexuality of any level does not have a place in the Boy Scouts of America,” said Pat Currie, spokesman with the Boy Scouts of America. “What we are all about is teaching kids lifetime values and trying to develop characters and make them better citizens … We are not about sexual orientation.”

Bullshit.

BSA is very much about sexual orientation! The fact you don’t want fags in your midst tells me you do care about sexual orientation and only wish to permit heterosexuality. The lifetime value you’re teaching here is intolerance and exclusion of people you don’t like.

Langbert said he wants the Boy Scouts to change their policy. He said his pack is meeting Monday at the University Park Elementary School, and hopes the school will reevaluate its connection with the Boy Scouts.

[…]

The Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the Boy Scouts of American does not have to allow gay individuals into its organization. Langbert said he is researching legal action.

Yes, the whole meeting at a school thing is a sticky situation. But honestly Langbert, legal action? give it up. BSA is a private organization and the courts have already upheld that they can do this. And frankly, that’s the way it should be. If we could force any private organization to behave in the way someone else wanted them to behave well, that’d be an ugly day for America and freedom.

If you really want to put your energy into something, put it into other organizations. There are other “youth groups” like this out there. Trouble is, they are few, far between, and often kinda suck. But this is where a dedicated parent like Jon Langbert can help to promote and improve those organizations.

This is part of why BSA is dying. The world is becoming a more tolerant and accepting place, but BSA isn’t. That is their perrogative, and I do respect them for standing up for what they believe in. But like all dinosaurs, if you fail to adapt, you will go extinct.

When it comes to gays and lesbians, I really don’t care. You live your life, I’ll live mine. With 6 billion people in this world, there are going to be some people who do things I don’t care for, and there are going to be some people who don’t like what I do. So long as we don’t tread on each other, so what? You have your right to life, liberty, and pursuit of your happiness, just like I do.

Freedom is something we must give to others if we wish it for ourselves.

Doggie School – Day Two

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Sasha had her second dog training class today.

Every day I realize more and more that this is not about training the dog, it’s about training the humans… and the dog kinda gets something along the way. 🙂

We started out reviewing what we did last week, which was basic walking and sitting. Issuing commands, issuing corrections. Being consistent. That’s really the key is consistency. Getting the set down to something simple and everyone sticking with it. For instance, you don’t really need sit, stay, quiet, etc. because implied in sit is to stay and be quiet. But it was evident to Abel that we’ve been working with Sasha — he saw a world of difference compared to last week.

We worked in a slightly different location on the grounds, taking Sasha into new places, new noises, new things, new distractions. She was certainly nervous, but we were able to manage it and she did OK. It’s interesting that she does not eat when she’s nervous enough. Both the trainer and a friend who came with his dog to watch us commented that was odd. But that’s how she is. Once she calms down, she’ll take the treats again.

Then we started to work on “place”. Moving her onto the place, getting her to understand the place. Wife struggled with it a bit because while Wife was working on it, Sasha didn’t get fully onto the stand, Wife moved her leg onto it, the stand creaked, Sasha jumped, and Wife didn’t react immediately to correct things. Plus, Wife isn’t as big or strong as me, so Sasha quickly realized that a physical strength fight against Wife is one she could win. So, there was some struggle there, but they were able to overcome it. I think it was good for Wife too, as it’s helping her gain more confidence in her ability to handle Sasha.

Our homework is to continue working on walking, sit, consistency and simplification of commands (gotta watch what comes out of our mouths, e.g. “sit” not “Sasha sit”, “No” not “Sasha No” or “NoSit”). But now we’re going to add working on the “place”. No command yet, just getting her used to the physical thing.

We needed to get home, but before I go to bed tonight I need to buy her a “place”. I have guidelines… just need to figure out what’s going to work for her. Plus… where in the world are we going to put the thing?? That’s really the big question. 🙂

All in all, she’s improving. There is a LOT of work still ahead. I admit, I’m tired. It’s very mentally and emotionally consuming and thus draining. But we’ll hang in there, for I believe the investment is worth it.

Droid impressions

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I’ve been an Apple guy all my life. I like Apple products because Apple puts an emphasis on making things “just work”. Oh sure, nothing is perfect, but they score higher on the success chart than anyone else. Human-computer interaction is a primary thought, not an afterthought, and it shows in the design of both their OS and their hardware. Apple leads, everyone else follows.

While I love my iPhone, I can’t help but be curious about Android. This past Sunday at a dinner, a gentleman sitting next to me had a Motorola Droid X phone. I asked him about it, he let me play with it.

Gosh, but I’m impressed.

I liked that you could put a storage card in there, to facilitate transfers between your phone and other devices. Not sure how smooth and seemless it is, but gosh that’s nice.

Decent camera with a flash. Seems like a simple request, but my iPhone 3GS’s camera isn’t that great.

Overall response of the system and network was peppy. Never felt like anything was dragging.

I loved the huge screen size. Of course, that meant a larger device and it’s certainly pushing the limits of a “pocket device”. But I think what I also dug was the use of that limited space. For instance, menus weren’t constantly along the bottom of the screen but only came up on-demand by pressing one of the 4 buttons on the front of the device. I like that because precious screen space is now filled with content, not menu. It doesn’t always matter of course, but I just like the concept of being able to use limited resources to the fullest.

I liked that the main screens aren’t just flipping through pages of app icons, but instead you can have some vital things running so you can quickly access information you care about, like sports scores or today’s calendar of appointments, or whatever.

I only got to play with the device for a short while, so my impressions are shallow. There were some things I didn’t think it did as well as the iPhone, but it’s subtle little human-computer interaction details, too difficult to articulate in the limited space I have here. Still, I left with an overall positive impression and certainly am curious to explore it more.