Month: October 2011

Love you, Dad

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

My Dad and his wife just left.

They came down to Austin to visit us for a few days… spoil the grandkids time.

It’s always stressful before they arrive, because the man might be 70 years old but he doesn’t know how to slow down. Always moving, always shaking, always something going on. I will say, he’s mellowed a bit in his old age, but that’s just my Dad… happiest when he’s working, being productive, doing good things. And that does include running around and spoiling his grandkids. 🙂 But we’re such homebodies… always going out, dining out, running around… we tire before he does.

But then… as soon as the visit started, the visit is over.

As we parted earlier this afternoon I waved goodbye, told him I loved him… and it really hurt to say goodbye this time. I don’t know why this time more than others, but even thinking about it now as I write this, I’m a little choked up. I miss my Dad. I wish I could see him more often.

But no time to dwell on the parting, instead, dwell on the fun we had. From the mini-golf, to spending yesterday in San Antonio seeing The Alamo and The Riverwalk… it was a wonderful time and visit, even if we were both a little overly glued to our mobile devices.

Thank you for everything, Dad. I love you.

Wacom Bamboo Create… and we’ll see what he creates

/ hsoi

Whereas Daughter is very self-motivated, Oldest is a lot more laid back and enjoys life as it comes. Sometimes I wish he’d have a little more “pressing desire” for things, but he is who he is.

One thing that he’s always been is creative. The medium might change, be it crayons and paper, LEGO, or these days, Spore (and all the creation you can do with it). But he’s always creating stuff. So fine… if that’s what you enjoy doing, can we please find some way to channel all that creativity into something productive? The world needs graphic designers, storyboard artists, moviemakers, video game designers, whatever….

I’ve actually pressed him on these things in the past, but I guess it took him to get all obsessed with Spore to have the breakthrough. I mentioned a Wacom tablet in the past, but it was met with a lukewarm reception. Recently I brought it up again, and he thought that would be so cool.

So I just bought a Wacom Bamboo Create. Well, it’s ordered… whenever Amazon gets it here.

Looks like it’ll be a good model for him to get going with, enough features to be meaningfully useful, but it’s not ridiculously expensive. I like that it comes with software like Sketchbook Express, Photoshop Elements, Corel Painter Essentials… sure it’s all basic stuff, but it’s more than ample for him to get going, learn the ropes, and so on. When he gets to the point when those tools are limiting him, then we can go on to the full pro tools. As well, I want to get him Poser and Anime Studio, because I think those will play well into the sorts of things he’ll like to do.

So we’ll see what happens. One step at a time… and geez yes, if the boy gets good enough at it, he’ll be able to get paid for what he loves to do. Hard to beat that. 🙂

2011-10-26 workout

/ hsoi

Short, but good.

“Week 2”

  • 3 reps – Deadlift (working max: 285#)
    • 1x5x115
    • 1x5x145
    • 1x3x175
    • 1x3x200 (work)
    • 1x3x230
    • 1x8x260
  • Asst. #1 – Good Morning
    • 3 x 10 x 65
  • Asst. #2 – Hanging Knee Raises
    • 3x8xBW
  • Metcon – jump rope
    • None

I had to cut today short. My Dad is in town visiting, so we’ve been running around a lot and I was pooped last night. Woke up later than usual this morning, and have to meet Dad for brunch today so… had to just get to the gym and get out. I didn’t want to do the “I ain’t doing jack shit” variant, but just did a few time-savers.

Deadlift was good. I won’t say 1x8x260 is a PR; 1x5x265 is my current “most I’ve moved”. But certainly I can say I’m stronger and well on my way to next deadlift session, moving 275 and I will set a nice PR with that I know. As mentioned before, I had some grip problems with my left hand, so I’ve been working to ensure my grip on everything I do remains a “closed fist” grip, no slipping into “hooks”. That helped a bunch (no wedding ring on either while I deadlifted), but when I got to rep 5 of the 260 I felt things slipping. As soon as the weight touched floor I switched to mixed grip (left hand, underhand) and kept pulling. This is the first time I ever used mixed grip and well… I probably shouldn’t have just dove into it. Nothing really bad happened, but just going “cold” like that could have been a problem, a little risky. It certainly helped, but part of the reason I only pulled 3 more was my brain was overloaded with lots of feelings and thoughts about the mixed grip, like “wow, that does make a HUGE difference!” “this is cool!” “hrm, that does put a lot of stress on the bicep, I can see why people get tears” and things like that. So the brain was just going too much so I opted to stop. I think next deadlift session I’ll do everything mixed just to get more experience with it. Likely my routine will be overhand with good closed fists (no hooks) but go mixed on the PR set. Apart from that, the deadlifts felt great, strong.

Good mornings and the knee raises I opted to only do 3 sets of each, and to superset them. This was in the interest of time. GM’s felt alright, 65 was good, probably go to 75 next time and work to a weight that actually works me BUT still ensures I work to stretch the hams… that’s more important right now, to get the proper range of motion. I’d rather slowly work up. Knee raises are quite happy; I pretty much accomplished the 3×8 across with little swing and just full body involvement and getting the knees up there the whole time. Quite awesome; getting stronger. I did notice my left grip starting to falter on the last couple reps of set 3 tho.

As for why the left problems… could be a matter of pure weakness there. But I’ve also wondered… I donate blood fairly regularly, and always have them poke my left arm. Could that be a factor? e.g. nerves poked? arm not up to snuff? I doubt it’s an issue, but I do wonder because I know the arm feels a little weaker for a few days afterwards. *shrug*

I need a better title for these things

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

I spend about 2 weekends a month at KR Training and like to write up something about the experience. What I saw from students, lessons we can learn, maybe some things to share with those students towards furthering their study and improvement. Whatever ends up striking me as relevant from the class(s). But for whatever reason I can’t think of a good way to title the postings… it’s not really an after-action-report (AAR) tho I guess it is. Oh well, I’ll figure out a good title eventually. 🙂

This past Saturday was Basic Pistol 2 and Defensive Pistol Skills 1. Both classes sold out, weather was awesome, things were looking good. More than half the folks in BP2 were women, and many of them repeats. Looks like a lot of these ladies are going through the program together, which is awesome. I hope to see the same groups back for future classes like Defensive Pistol Skills 1 or Beyond the Basics: Pistol. What was very cool to me was seeing 20% of the DPS1 class was women. For whatever reason, I just don’t see many women taking higher levels of training, which is a shame. Our culture and society puts a lot of emphasis on woman empowerment, on women’s self-defense. Many women desire to have a handgun for personal defense, and they’ll come to get basic training, but that basic training is just that — basic. The realities of gunfighting, of actually using a gun to defend your life, I’m not sure why more women don’t pursue that level of training. So to slowly see more women doing so is wonderful to me. You ladies need to preach the word. 🙂   As for other demographics, men and women, young and old, various ethnic backgrounds, various social strata… folks, you just can’t pigeonhole what a “gun owner” is, no matter how much your prejudice wants to.

For the students of both BP2 and DPS1, I have the same bit of advice: practice putting the gun on target. We may have referred to it as the press-out, the present, presenting the gun, presentation, going from step 3 to step 4 of the draw, it’s known by numerous names. But it’s all the same. It’s going from that (high-compressed) ready position with the gun pointed at the target, finger off the trigger, your eyes looking at the target (that string connecting your eyeball to the target), then on the “go” you simultaneously press the gun out towards the target (and up into your eye-target line) and press the trigger in with the shot breaking when you reach extension. Eyes don’t break the eye-target line, but focus will shift from the target to the front sight as the front sight comes into view.

THAT skill is the one skill that students from both classes should focus on. Sure there were other things to focus as well, and I’ll talk about a few of those below, but if there was only one thing to practice, it would be this.

This skill is used in so many areas of pistol handling, it’s so vital to do and to get right — you use it more than you’re aware. As well, doing this will help with some of those other areas, like trigger control. Practice this skill in dry fire. When the gun goes *click* the front sight shouldn’t move — it shouldn’t dip down. If it dips, you’re smashing the dickens out of the trigger, don’t do that. Lighter press. Remember, when first working on this skill work to get it right, work to get it correct. Take your time, let it be slow. Speed will come.

Dry fire is your friend. It will help you more than blasting away at the range. Use dry fire to develop your skills. Use time at the range to confirm them.

As for some other things…

Defensive Pistol Skills is about that — skills needed to help you defend your life with a pistol. That implies that somehow your life is in the line, that you are in danger. You have to put your training in such perspective, that your life matters and you need to move — now!  Things move fast, you must move faster. This isn’t a casual day at the range. Granted, DPS1 is the first exposure to a lot of people so I don’t expect you to walk in with that mentality, but I hope you walk out with that mentality and keep it when you practice these skills and when you come back for future classes like DPS2 and DPS3. You will fight like you train, so train like you’re fighting.

About speed. Don’t worry about it right now. Yes, we will put you under pressure to make a point, because within a 3 hour class we want you to get information and introduction to the skills — it’s up to you to go home and practice those things to retain and get better at them. But don’t try to go at those fast, pressured speeds in your practice. Slow down. Memorization, Precision, Smoothness. For instance, we teach that 4-step draw with each step being discrete. Then we have you go fast and those 4 steps suddenly become this smear from holster to extension… the steps disappeared. Don’t do that. Keep the draw with 4 discrete steps; they will eventually smooth into one motion, but all 4 steps are identifiable and there. So, work on things like the draw, keep all 4 steps in there, be correct, and speed will come.

Finally… hardware. Seeing a growing number of XD’s, especially the XD(M). There were 3 H&K’s in the DPS1 class, which was unusual. I know at least one of those H&K owners considered shopping for a new gun — that long double-action trigger is just way too much trouble to shoot well. Too many fiddly bits (if it’s got a decocker, just say no). If you find yourself at the gun range only wanting to shoot such guns after first manually cocking the hammer? Then you know it’s no fun to shoot it in DA mode, so why bother with the gun at all? We also had 2 students with Kahr’s, which I thought was awesome. First, they ran well. Second, they were the guns these people chose to carry, and they chose to learn with them. Too many people desire to have X gun for carry, but they grant all the issues about X gun and won’t use it in class instead opting for some big easier to shoot gun. Well folks, when the fur flies, it’s going to be pretty hard to perform… if X gun is so undesirable to use when there’s no pressure, how desirable will that gun be under pressure? If you’re going to fight with X, you better know how to fight with X. So train with it. These folks chose the Kahr for carry, and they chose to train with the gun they’ll fight with. Good for them.

 

on Occupying….

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

I’ve generally refrained from commenting on the whole “occupy” movement because… what’s there to comment on?

Oh sure, there’s been a lot of little stuff that’s generally made me groan. For instance, double-standards like a city government being hostile to groups like the Tea Party, but then catering to Occupy. Seeing Occupiers blind to their own hypocrisy. I love how they’ve been demanding free food, like people owe it to them, but many of them believe they are owed. Then there are people bringing them free food… but what about people who could actually use free food? There’s lots of hungry and homeless out there; where is the compassion for them? The ones that holler for more government control, that corporations are evil, that lean towards Socialism… then when Bank of America behaves badly they all pull their money out and take it elsewhere… you know, like any good free market capitalist would do. They turn to the government to solve their problems, but at the same time say the government is causing the problems. They think it’s wrong for corporations to make political contributions, but then switch their business to corporations that make political contributions… but it’s ok, because they’re “left” contributions. So, evil’s alright, if it’s the evil I agree with. To constantly mix messages and make themselves come off like a bunch of fruitcakes… you know, like they did to the Tea Partiers. Pot, kettle, black.

I could go on.

*sigh*

So… let’s shove all that annoyingness aside.

As I sit back and observe what’s going on, it’s all very simple.

They’re angry.

Just like the Tea Party folks.

Oh sure, there are differences in the nuances of their anger, but really, their anger is pretty much the same. They are two groups that are seeing how the world is going and do not like the direction of it. The Tea Party folk see the government side of it, the Occupiers see the Big Corporate Money side of it… but they’re just 2 heads of the same hydra.

Yeoman, over at The Hall of Manly Excellence, wrote a love letter, which pretty much sums it up for me.

Our government, the most powerful corporation in the history of humanity, is no longer in the business of preventing groups of people from enforcing their wills upon one another. We have traded our liberty for wish fulfillment backed up by the government monopoly on violence. From their various lists of demands it would appear that the Occupiers want to remove the advantages given to some groups while increasing the advantages provided to other groups. If any Occupiers read this, I hope you’ll decide instead that our government needs to get out of the political favoritism business altogether and get back to the business of defending individual liberty. Pretty please with organic trail mix on top.

Go read the whole thing.

The sad part is, I’m not sure anything is going to change. The Almighty Obama was to be The ChOsen One to bring Hope and Change… but come on people, he’s a politician like any other. New boss, worse than the old boss, but still the same sort of boss. He didn’t bring and good change, he dashed a lot of hopes, and demonstrated that he’s as much a scumbag as most every other politician out there.

Pay attention, folks, because your favorite politician is likely perpetuating the very evil you’re rallying against. Do your homework.

But what bothers me more? Y’all are going to vote for them again.

And so, nothing will change.

The difficult part is, our current system doesn’t allow for a better alternative. We can’t vote for “none of the above”. We can’t cast votes of no-confidence. If all we have to choose from is a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich, it’s a guarantee we’ll get one of them and things will continue to suck.

I think the biggest change I’d like to see? Direct responsibility. If I screw up in life, be it in my personal life, my family life, my job, my company, whatever… I am responsible. Bad decisions hold direct and painful consequences for me, so I’m highly motivated to make good decisions. I’d like to see public officials held directly responsible for their actions. Be it a Congressman, a Senator, a President, a police officer, whatever. Maybe we’ll see less knee-jerk legislation. Maybe we’ll see them actually read things. Maybe we’ll see a lot less bullshit going on, if they know a screw-up means their ass in a sling.

I can dream…

Another episode of “What can we learn from this”

/ hsoi

A grandfather accidentally negligently shoots his grandson. (h/t Unc)

A man unloading a rifle from his SUV accidentally shot his grandson in the head today in the parking lot at Cabela’s sporting goods store in Kansas City, Kan.

[…]

Police spokesman Capt. Ronald Kaminski said the man was bringing an antique .22-caliber rifle to the store to get it appraised. As he was unloading it the gun discharged. The bullet went through the vehicle and struck the boy, who was standing outside.

The boy is in the hospital but expected to survive.

Let us learn from this so we do not repeat the mistakes.

  • Why was the gun’s state (i.e. loaded/unloaded) not verified when it was taken out of storage? I am making the assumption that the state was not checked at that time, but I figure it’s a reasonable one because it’s unlikely he desired to haul around a loaded gun since he was bringing it in for appraisal.
  • On the same token, why was the gun’s state not verified when it was originally put into storage? Unless, gremlins got into the gun safe (or closet or wherever it was stored)?
  • Why was the gun’s state not verified when it was taken out of the car? Now I will say, you shouldn’t check the state in the parking lot because where is a safe direction? But a greater point is, every time you pick up a firearm, verify it’s state to ensure it’s in the state you expect it to be.
  • How was it the gun was able to fire? It may be possible the gun itself is mechanically faulty, but more likely something came in contact with the trigger and the trigger was pressed. It could have been his hand/finger when he took the rifle out of the car. It could have been as he was pulling the rifle out the trigger snagged on something in the car. Was the rifle in a case? Was there anything covering/protecting the trigger to prevent undesirable things from coming in contact with the trigger?
  • Note that it was “a little .22″… but the bullet still penetrated the vehicle. You know… steel and other materials. .22’s are still worthy of respect.

Those NRA Safety Rules exist for a reason. All 3 appear to have been violated.

2011-10-24 workout – the accidental personal record

/ hsoi

Ah… nothing like setting personal records.

Well, except perhaps a world record, but that ain’t happening right now. 😉

“Week 2”

  • 3 reps – Press (working max: 130#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x55
    • 1x5x65
    • 1x3x80
    • 1x3x90 (work)
    • 1x3x105
    • 1x6x125 (PR)
  • Asst. #1 – Press
    • 5 x 10 x 60
  • Asst. #2 – Pulldowns
    • 5 x 10 x 115
  • Metcon – jump rope
    • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

1x6x125 on the Press is a PR in every way: never done that much weight for any number of reps. Last cycle’s week 3 was 1x7x115, so this is a nice bump! It’s good to get stronger. As Rip says, “Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general.”

But you know what? I just realized something. I messed up.

I was only supposed to do 1 x >3 x 120 today. 125 is next workout. Heh. Maybe I’ll do 130. Why the heck not? 🙂 Sure there are physical limits to strength, but there are mental limits too… now if I can just break through these same mental limits when it comes to squatting.

Anyways, worked well, felt good, glad to have really blown the PR out of the water and will set another one next Press workout.

Assistance pressing was good, only had some pausing during the last few reps of the last set, so I’ll stick with 60# (1 min. rest between sets) and go to 65 during deload week.

Same with the supine grip pulldowns: only slight pause between last reps of last set, so I’ll go to 120 during deload week.

Oh on that note… I took a slightly different grip on pressing. I’ve noticed my shoulders feeling a bit odd, and I think it’s because my grip was too narrow, and so the moment I started pressing out of the hole my arms would twist and my elbows would be pointing “outward” instead of forward. Granted, eventually they do rotate, but it was a little early and causing some pain. My grip now is about the same width as my pulldown grip width, with the outside edge of my thumbs about even with the outside edge of my shoulders… that “just wider than shoulder width” grip. Felt a lot better today, pressed up and the rotation was a bit more natural later on in the movement.

On rope, I forgot to work on the running in place stuff (bad John), but I did pick up the pace and tried to almost as fast as I could… wasn’t all out, but close… just wanted to have enough in reserve to ensure I made it through. I’m sure I can pick up the pace even more, so long as I keep my coordination and don’t sacrifice rope speed for lots of fumbling about. The interesting thing? I felt a lot less tired. I did make a concerted effort to deeply breathe throughout the set, and all that extra O2 may have done the trick.

Anyways, good workout. Starts the day off on a happy note.

Efficiency

/ hsoi / 9 Comments

Every Friday we pick up our veggie box from Johnson’s Backyard Garden. Yes, still going strong, still enjoying it. But that’s a topic for another post.

Maybe it’s the engineer in me….

The veggies come in a thick, sturdy, wax-coated box. Makes good sense, and given their durability (and cost to produce), JBG likes to keep the boxes to reuse them. No problems there. We pick up our box, take it home, and bring the empty box back next week. Works fine.

We see many of the other people who come to pick up their veggies bringing bags (reusable cloth type). They stay at the pick-up place, move all the veggies from the box to their bag, then take the bag home (leaving the box). I guess that works but…

Box –> Fridge

Box –> Bag –> Fridge

The extra step doesn’t make sense to me. Doesn’t seem very efficient. More work. More time.

Sometimes I think too much about stuff…. 🙂

2011-10-21 workout

/ hsoi

A little good, a little bad. It’s squat day.

“Week 1”

  • 5 reps – Squat (working max: 240#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x95
    • 1x5x120
    • 1x5x145
    • 1x5x160 (work)
    • 1x5x180
    • 1x6x205
  • Asst. #1 – Squat
    • 5 x 10 x 95
  • Asst. #2 – Leg Curls
    • 5 x 10 x 60
  • Metcon – jump rope
    • 1 Tabata set – all single hop

A little good, a little bad.

Physically, the workout was acceptable. Squats felt heavy, the work set was alright. On the 5th rep I was thinking “no way, I can’t stop at 5….” and barely managed to get 6 out and felt that if I even tried 7 I’d barely get out of the hole and dump the bar. But compared to prior work sets getting 1x7x200 and 1x5x210, 1x5x205 feels right in the groove, no increase. *sigh* The assistance squats are better, continuing to use that as a time to focus on form and really tire myself out. I’m getting better at not having to think about cues like “chest up” and “hip drive”, and more working to keep my head “straight” (not chin pointed to the ceiling, nor the floor behind me, just spine in straight alignment) and my eyes up and focused on a single spot all the way through, which means yes I’m looking up when I’m in the hole… keeping “shoulders tight” too. And the leg curls, 60# with 1 min rest after that level of squatting work, works me just fine.

So physically I felt alright.

Mentally I still struggle with squatting. Starting Wednesday after that great bench press workout I knew I had to attack the squat. I kept telling myself that, but I also admit there’s always that seed of doubt creeping in and I have to fight to keep it out… but it’s still there. And it’s there always… that little gremlin. I put the 205 on my back, “damn that’s heavy” with a sprinkle of “can I do this?” *sigh* then as I work along “will I get to 5?” Then I get to 5 and I find myself thinking “holy shit, I barely did this… I need to do more, fuck no I’m not stopping here”. And then I struggle for 6, and mentally think there’s no way I’ll hit 7 and stop. Years of mental blockade to have to chip through here. Sure I’ve started because I am squatting, I’m facing it, I’m not going away from it, but for some damn reason I keep limiting myself this way. Years of mental conditioning are hard to escape I guess…. thanx Mom. 😉 I just don’t know how to totally break through it, but I’ll get there, just can’t give up.

Ah well. Onwards.