Month: January 2012

Why you don’t mess with old people

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

However, before [the wanted fugitive] could climb the fence, Willis came face-to-face with [the 64-year-old] Granville, who pointed a gun right at his face and said, “Don’t you move mother f*****, I will shoot you! I will shoot you where you stand!”

For a mother who loves John Wayne and has a concealed weapon’s license, that was her moment.

“He says, ‘Please don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot me.’ I says, ‘Don’t you move, you’re moving.’ I said, ‘Don’t you move.’ Then, he put his hands behind his head. I says, ‘You’re moving!” Granville described.

Granville said she didn’t know if Willis had a weapon, so she kept her gun trained on him until deputies arrived.

Just awesome. Full story.

The sad part tho is the reality of why she felt the need to arm herself in the first place.

Granville said she’s been shooting guns her entire life, but it was previous drug deals and a murder on her street that motivated her to arm herself to keep her family safe.

“They’ll shoot you, they’ll break in. They’ll get whatever they want, and I says it’s not going to happen to me because I will shoot them,” Granville said.

But at least she accepts the reality of her situation and is willing to do something about it herself, instead of delegating the responsibility for her  safety to someone else (and then being surprised and angry when reality demonstrates they can’t save her).

2012-01-25 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 5, Bench 4

/ hsoi

Deload week. Nothing to write home about.

“Week 4”

  • Deload – Bench Press (working max: 215#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x85
    • 1x5x110
    • 1x5x130
  • Asst. #1 – Bench Press
    • 5 x 10 x 125
  • Asst. #2 – 1-Arm Dumbbell Rows
    • 5 x 10 x 55
  • GPP – Elliptical
    • Tabata style (20 sec. 150-ish strides per min., 10 sec. 100-ish strides per min)
    • 2 minutes slow (warmup)
    • 1 Tabata set
    • 2 minutes slow (cooldown)
  • DeFranco Agile 8 – just foam rolling

It’s deload week. Nothing exciting to say. Go in, lift, leave.

I think I’ve officially dropped doing Agile 8, but I sure love foam rolling. Makes a difference, especially on my back.

Only other thing I can think to mention is my body is adapting to the GPP work, which is good. I’m not sure I need to adjust the settings on the machine… maybe a slight up in resistence. But I do think the main thing I need at this point is MORE work. So instead of 8 reps, let’s bump it to 9, then 10, and so on. I’ll probably go 9 or 10 next cycle and see how things fare.

Best weapon for home defense? The BOT wins again

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

This is why I love “The Box O’ Truth” website. Old_Painless does a lot of “put up or shut up” to really see how things work, how things will behave, and puts myths to the test. No, it’s not the most scientific of things, but he goes in with an open mind, willing to be surprised and have his stances changed if the evidence presents itself. It’s certainly better than a lot of people who just go on myth, on hearsay, and other Internet chest thumping “I read it on some forum so it must be true”.

The latest article? Educational Zone #143 – What is the best weapon for home defense?

I’ve written before about home defense tools and referred to the BOT for supporting evidence. Old_Painless doesn’t use this article as a way to spout his opinion, but rather to report on numerous FACTS about home defense weapons, specifically choosing between a handgun, a shotgun, or a carbine (rifle).

He talks about each weapon platform, the advantages and disadvantages they have. Plus he busts some common myths. He’s pretty sound throughout most of the article, and you’d do well to read it. I’m not going to reprint it here, go click and read.

I did want to comment on a few points.

* Pistol advantage of them being convenient. This is true and really the main (only?) reason for a handgun (vs. a long gun). He states how this convenience factor is good because you can carry them on your person. Very true. And that you can conceal them out in public. Also true. But that concealment isn’t a big factor in home defense. Strictly speaking, that’s true. But one consideration implied here is that because you can carry them on your person — you should. Even if you’re not licensed to carry them in public, you can carry them on your person in your home (tho check your local laws). Why do this? Because the most useful tool is the one you have when you need it. You cannot know when someone will bust down your door. Not everyone is able to have a gun spaced every 3 feet in their house. For most people, getting to a dedicated home defense gun will take some time, or maybe some planning and money to ensure enough are laid around the house in accessible places. Tho of course, if you have kids, that accessibility may have to be limited and that could also increase cost. All those precious seconds to get to the shotgun could be costly. But if you have the gun on your hip, you have it right here, right now, no time wasted.

A little story. A few days ago I was home alone. Sasha (our Kuvasz) was downstairs barking at something outside. She came up to my office and parked it in a way to say “Dad, there’s something down there”. I said “OK girl, let’s go check it out”. I let her go down the hallway in front of me. Usually she does not stop at the top of the stairs, but this time she stopped — and started barking. This was peculiar behavior. My immediate reaction? I drew my gun to a retention ready position. An instant later, my brain processed that the alarm wasn’t going off so no one should be in the house. Still, I kept my gun drawn and away we investigated. Turned out to be nothing of consequence, but still… I was set into a high degree of condition orange and didn’t have any time wasted going back to fetch my AR-15. Don’t just think of a handgun as a concealment piece. It’s a tool you can carry thus you should carry. A tool is only useful if you have it when you need it.

* Shotguns – ammo. Yes, the Federal FLITECONTROL is the only stuff worthy of consideration. See my investigation of shotgun ammo. Tom Givens prefers the 8 pellet 00 buck. I’ve been using 9 pellet but will probably switch to 8 once I run out of my supply.

If you can, get the low recoil version. If it’s not labeled as such, look at the velocity. The regular loads will be something like 1300-ish fps, and the low recoil is something like 1145 fps.

Oh, and perhaps a controversial stance but, while I personally prefer a pump action, it’s a more complex manual of arms. If you are selecting this weapon for someone who may not be willing to train that much, you might want to consider a semi-auto shotgun. They generally generate less recoil than a pump. Plus, the manual of arms is generally simpler: point and click, and click again, and click again. Sure if they malfunction it’s a bigger mess, but hopefully if you’re entrusting your life to this gun you’ve done the work to ensure it’s reliable and can feed through with a high degree of confidence. If you can get the low-recoil buck to work with it, great, but it may not cycle… so yes, you better do a lot of testing beforehand.

* Shotguns – reloading. After taking Rangemaster’s Defensive Shotgun course, you realize a big part of working a shotgun is reloading. Practice it. A lot. Get dummy rounds.

* “4. Myth – You should use the firearm you are most comfortable with.”

I’ll agree with his general premise here, because while we’re all most comfortable with a little .22, that’s not the most effective stopper thus you ought to get more comfortable with better systems.

But that said, we should accept that not everyone can work a big rifle or shotgun. Some little arthritic elderly woman may only be able to handle a little .22 pistol. If that’s all she can do, just make sure she gets a heck of a lot of practice with it. So sometimes “comfort” matters.

Really tho, that’s more a matter of ability than comfort. Old_Painless’ point is to not use “comfort” as an excuse, because getting seriously injured or killed will be much more uncomfortable.

Anyways, it’s a good article. Presents the facts well. Alas, I’m sure the myths and misinformation will still float around. But please, do your part to be informed and stop the spread of bad information opinion.

Quote for today

/ hsoi

Pro FB players need to change nothing. Zero. Unless one of us have played 12+ years in the NFL and can comment from experience and have coached as a SC coach in the NFL for a decade or more, it’s nothing more than being Al Bundy. I realize that this is way off topic but it drives me nuts when anyone criticizes something that have never, ever done or ever will. Grow fucking balls and realize you don’t have all the answers. And listen to Sabbath. And fuck your wife every night. And make sure she never goes a day without being fully appreciated. Hug your kids every day but don’t be their fucking best friend. Use baby wipes post-dump too.

– Jim Wendler (a post he made on the 5/3/1 Facebook Page)

 

A little grease under the fingernails

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I’ve had the new (to me) truck a week and a half now, and the maintenance work has already begun.

The goal? To replace everything that I can replace. Fix all that I can fix. Update all I can update. Within reason.

It’s a used vehicle. I don’t know how well it was maintained, the condition of the fluids, and so on. I can tell some, but not all. I want to put as much as I can into a known good state. Besides, with 95K miles already on it, if these things haven’t been done they sure need to be done if I want to keep this truck going for another 100-200K miles.

Now first, I must give some credit where it’s due. I owe much to foo.c for getting me going. I didn’t grow up under the hood of a car. Sure, since I turned 16 and got my drivers license I tinkered on what little non-intimidating things I could, and I paid attention to regular maintenance, but I paid someone else to do the work. Anything that required working on the engine I did not do, save replacing an alternator on an old minivan many years ago. Then some many years ago, foo.c showed me how to change my own oil. My reaction — “that’s it?”  I was surprised at how easy it was, and a little ashamed I hadn’t tried it sooner. Since then I’ve only paid for an oil change once, because that one time I didn’t have the time, wasn’t going to have the time, and the change was overdue.

Then I got my motorcycle some years ago, and tinkered heavily on that doing all the regular maintenance plus various modifications including exhaust, intake/carb mods, and even changing the cams. I was well over being afraid or intimidated of such things; in fact, I really liked it.

I’ve done my best to tackle jobs on the family cars, but I just can’t do it all. On the minivan, there’s not much I can do due to how they designed and assembled everything. Something that should be simple, like changing the alternator, is nothing I can tackle on my own due to the horrible location of the thing and the level of pain and tools/equipment involved to get to it. *sigh*  But I’ll do what I can.

Then I got the truck. I admit tho that the notion of maintaining the truck did intimidate me a bit, and once again foo.c helped me get a handle on things. I realize tho that it’s like most source of intimidation, it came from being unaware and ignorant of what’s involved — I just didn’t have any info to go on, what’s involved, how to do the work, etc.. After reviewing things he told me, the Chilton manual, and YouTube videos (gee but the Internet is great), most everything seems like a piece of cake. I’m just going to slowly whittle away at the to-do list trying to tackle one job per day/weekend (whenever I have time).

So far:

  • new wiper blades
  • new battery – existing battery was failing load test during the pre-purchase inspection, so this was bought shortly after I pulled off the dealer’s lot.
  • oil change – used Valvoline DuraBlend, and a Mobil 1 M-206 filter (foo.c tipped me off that while the M-107 is the proper filter, the M-206 fits and is just slightly longer to give more filter media).
  • new air filter — paper, I’ll change it every year.
  • new belts (serpentine and a/c)

From what I can tell so far, I do think the truck was maintained by the prior owners. One funny example? When I took off the front skid plate to replace the a/c belt, there was a crumpled up piece of paper in there. It was a receipt from an oil change at a shop. Not sure how it got there, but there it was… a little bit of confirmed history for the truck. 🙂

That said, it was interesting the serpentine belt looked fairly new, but the a/c belt was old and cracked. I’m not sure why they replaced the one belt and not the other since you have to remove the serpentine to get to the a/c belt anyways. The serpentine didn’t really need changing, but I figured there was no harm in changing it while I was at it.

Next up is stuff like changing the front and rear differential oil and the transfer case oil. Doesn’t look hard, just a matter of doing the work. I’ll be most curious to see the condition of those oils, to see if they were ever changed. Spark plugs will be done, but looking at the engine and placement of the plugs I don’t wanna… tho foo.c tells me only a couple are a bitch to deal with. I’ll probably get foo.c to help me with the brakes… they don’t need it, but I figure why not, replace that fluid and put new pads on everything.

I do think I will pay someone for a couple of things. Transmission fluid and filter I may get someone else to do, or foo.c to help me. I’ll also probably have the coolant drain/flush done by someone else because I just don’t have the ability to safely handle that much fluid.

The best part? Daughter is helping me with everything. For whatever reason she’s taken an interest in learning about it all, how everything works, how to do all of this work. Certainly some things I have to do because she’s just not strong enough, but I’m letting her do all that she can and teaching her what I can. We’re learning together on this and having a lot of fun. I don’t know how long it will last, but I’ll take what I can. 🙂

 

2012-01-22 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 5, Press 4 Deadlift 4

/ hsoi

Time to deload.

“Week 4”

  • Deload – Deadlift (working max: 305#)
    • 2x5x125
    • 2x5x155
    • 2x5x185
  • Deload – Press (working max: 145#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x60
    • 1x5x75
    • 1x5x90
  • Asst. #1 – Press
    • 5 x 10 x 70
  • Asst. #2 – Supinated Close-grip Pulldowns
    • 5 x 10 x 130
  • GPP – Elliptical
    • Tabata style (20 sec. 150-ish strides per min., 10 sec. 100-ish strides per min)
    • 2 minutes slow (warmup)
    • 1 Tabata set
    • 2 minutes slow (cooldown)
  • Grip
    • 3x10xT, 2 sec. hold between reps
    • 3x3x1, 2 sec. hold between reps, 10 sec. hold on the last rep

In previous cycles, I handled deload along the normal schedule. After I got the 2nd edition of Wendler’s 5/3/1 book, that made me take another look at scheduling the “3 days per week” cycle. Yes, it was not a typo, you are supposed to double-up on the deload week to make it last just a week, not a week and a half. So press and deadlift end up getting merged onto the same day during deload week. But I figured as well, that would make quite a long workout with all the assistance work for both days, so I opted to modify and do what assistance I thought mattered most. In this case, I kept in the assistance pressing and the lat pulldowns. I don’t NEED the Good Morning work as much as I need the press work, and the pulldowns let me control impact to my shoulder better than the hanging leg-hip raises. So there we go.

Nothing really to write home about. It’s deload week. Take it easy. I did my work. I did not rest-pause things (again, deload). I did spend a little more time on the elliptical… probably had 4 minutes of cooldown instead. Had earbuds in listening to music and “I like this song, want to hear it to the end, just keep going”. 🙂

Suppressors for hunting? Yes, please!

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Texas Park and Wildlife Department is considering a rule change regarding hunting, specifically with suppressors.

Here’s the text from the agenda:

         The proposed amendment to §65.11, concerning Lawful Means, would allow the use of firearm silencers to hunt alligators, game animals and game birds. Under current rule, the use of sound-suppressing devices to hunt alligators, game animals or game birds is unlawful. The department has determined that there is no resource- or enforcement-related reason to prohibit the use of firearm silencers for the take of alligators, game animals or game birds, and therefore proposes to eliminate the current prohibition. The department notes that if the proposed is adopted, it will not relieve any person of the obligation to otherwise comply with any applicable state, federal, or local law governing the possession or use of firearm silencers. The proposed amendment also alters §65.11(3) to include additional counties to the applicability of the provisions governing the use of crossbows. This change is necessary to ensure consistency with the changes to §65.42 discussed elsewhere in this preamble.

Yes please!

Why? Well, first consider their own wording: “The department has determined there is no resource- or enforcement-related reason to prohibit the use….”  So on the one hand, I like this because they see no sound reason to keep a rule around, so they’re going to discard it. This is how things should work! Simplification. Enhancing freedom. Enabling choice. Plus, it also frees up the department and those bound to enforce the rules from work that serves no gain, thus enabling them to focus on work that matters.

Here’s an article with more reasons for suppressors.

But to me, this hits closer to home.

On this last deer hunting trip, Daughter got her ears rung pretty bad. Yes I know, I should have had hearing protection on her — I do know better, but I often don’t while hunting so I can hear what’s going on around me. Plus, the muzzle is out the blind window and due to the structure of things it usually works out ok. But this past one? Not so much. I regret it and do feel awful for it. But this is the trade-off that we have to deal with: to hear the game, but then to not hear the gunshot. I do have electronic muffs, but while they work great for me on the range, I find in the woods, not so much. Different dynamic.

But if we could have suppressors? What a world of difference it would make!

I can legally own a suppressor here in Texas, but I can’t use it for deer or game hunting. I could use it to take exotic deer, I have gone on hog hunts with suppressed rifles. And so why if we can take those with it, why can’t we take game animals? What’s the difference? Apparently none, and it’s great to see TPWD recognizing that and moving on the item.

So what to do?

Well, right now we wait. TPWD will have their meeting on January 25, 2012. After that we’ll know more about how to proceed. It will be a matter of public comment, and you’ll want to be sure to add your comment in favor of suppressor use.

Don’t “Spend Your Tax Refund With Us”

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

I just got an email from CheaperThanDirt.com with the title “Spend Your Tax Refund With Us”.

While I understand their marketing sentiment, I’m going to request people to NOT spent their tax refund with them. Nothing personal against CTD, but I think that one’s personal finance should be more responsible.

Actually it’s interesting. Just yesterday I saw this article on Cracked.com about “The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor“.

#4. Extra Money Has to Be Spent Right Goddamn Now!

Every poor person I knew got a big check one time a year in the form of their tax return. They made just enough money to file taxes, and made little enough to claim “earned income credit,” which is a tax credit that can dramatically boost your return. For my ex-wife and I, it meant getting around $5,000 at the end of January. And just like many poor people, we’d be broke within days of cashing that check, our living room sporting a new TV. Or we’d replace our old computers and all of our furniture. There’s a reason many poor people blow through that money instead of saving it for future bills.

[…]

When a windfall check is dropped in your lap, you don’t know how to handle it. Instead of thinking, “This will cover our rent and bills for half a year,” you immediately jump to all the things you’ve been meaning to get, but couldn’t afford on your regular income. If you don’t buy it right now, you know that the money will slowly bleed away to everyday life over the course of the next few months, leaving you with nothing to show for it. Don’t misunderstand me here, it’s never a “greed” thing. It’s a panic thing. “We have to spend this before it disappears.”

I totally understand the mentality. Been there, done that.

The truth is, you will have something to show for it. It may not be some big screen TV or a car, but you can still show something for it.

For example, do you have debt? How about paying down that debt, especially if it’s high-interest debt such as credit cards. Of course, it then requires you to have enough discipline to not get back into debt thinking “gee, I have lots of unused credit on my credit card, shopping spree!”. Been there, done that. You just wasted all of your money and are going to be worse off.

If you don’t have debt, how about saving that money? Rainy days happen. Or perhaps better, see about investing that money, putting it to work for you and growing it. If you want to try that but aren’t sure where to start, consider index funds. No, overall not the best investment vehicle, but they can be a good way to start, take a lot of mystery out of things, simple enough, and get your ball rolling.

Or even better… try to see if you can adjust your tax situation and withholding and such so you strive to come out even on your income tax return. Don’t give the .gov a no-interest loan of your money. It is your money, you should hold onto it and make it work for you. If we go back to that investment consideration, perhaps the extra money you get in your paycheck after adjusting it, since you’ll be used to not seeing it anyways, just turn that money right around into investments. Investing that money every paycheck, over time, will add up into bigger and better things for you.

I do understand a desire to “spend your tax refund”, especially because it’s a big fat check and the windfall is nice. But it’s better to hold onto your money instead of forking it over to someone else, and work to develop the discipline and responsibility to save up that money over time yourself, invest it, and work to grow bigger things. You will have something better to show for it.