Month: January 2012

Finally, I’m a Texan

/ hsoi / 12 Comments

I bought my first truck.

Wife says this finally makes me a Texan (she’s a native, I’m a transplant). My father-in-law says no, it doesn’t make me a Texan, it makes me a redneck Texan. 🙂

I purchased my now-former car brand new 17 years ago. I credit it lasting so long to the fact I don’t have to drive it as a daily commuter, but it did see enough miles in a year. I wanted to drive it until it couldn’t drive any more. A few years ago the engine starting having problems. I did a few things to help it limp along, but evidently it was on the way out. It’s now at a point where the repairs cost more than I’m willing to spend, so it came time to look for a replacement.

I spent a lot of time (many months, on and off) trying to decide what I needed. Most of my driving is people-hauling, be it me going somewhere or me taking Kiddos somewhere. Thus I wanted something that could comfortably seat everyone and not be horrible on my wallet (MPG). But the way my life is going, all-wheel/4WD drive would be mighty useful. And most of all, some way to haul things that were dirty. For example, after hunting, being able to haul a deer or hog out of a muddy pasture. So all signs were pointing to a truck. Because of the “people hauling” aspect I started to look at smaller trucks, like Toyota Tacoma’s or Nissan Frontier’s (I like the Tacoma styling, but the Frontier seems to have the edge in terms of performance and abilities so I leaned towards it). But in the end, they were just too small. I’m tired of being a big guy stuck in a small car. Plus with the Kiddos growing, smaller solutions no longer work. I tried getting into an extended cab but no go; crew cab was the only option. Plus I figured for the future, a full-sized truck could give me options like renting a travel trailer for a fun weekend getaway.

So truck it is.

It needed to be reliable, able to last a long time (with good maintenance of course), haul people, handle my other life needs (e.g. hunting). I started by looking at new trucks but the cost just turned me off. Sure that Ford EcoBoost engine seems mighty awesome, but the cost of a new Ford F-150 with a crew cab and 4×4? Just way out of my budget. It’s hard for me to justify such an expense, and I refuse to go into debt for this. I hate buying used because  you never can truly know the history and what you’re getting. But I figured if I priced it low enough and did enough research and investigation, I could get something that hopefully would be “good enough” and last “long enough” to at least make all the money factors work out.

In the end I settled on a 2006 Chevy Silverado 1500 Crew Cab, 4×4, 5.3L V8 I found at an independent dealer (and I’ve been looking for some months). foo.c has owned and worked on Chevy’s much of his life and said, based upon the listing, the truck looked like a creampuff and could be alright. I checked the CarFax, I got a pre-purchase inspection through Auto P.I.. The truck didn’t check out perfectly: some cosmetics, a tiny leak in a transmission line, A/C belt should be replaced before summer gets here, battery load test was weak, front left tire was losing air (I believe I found a nail in the tread), and the normal wear and tear on a truck of that age and miles. The “things that mattered” all checked out well, inspector said it looked like the truck had been well-maintained over the years. None of the problems bothered me too much, and I took them into account when making my offer. They accepted. I have no idea who got the better end of the deal, the dealer or myself, but based upon all that I saw, the edmunds.com True Market Value®, and other factors, I do think I got a good deal. Plus, I think I’ve got a vehicle that suits my needs. If not, I chalk it up to being my first truck and I’ll learn from the experience.

I’ve already replaced the battery and windshield wipers. I think I’ll get the front 2 tires replaced later this week (rotate the old rear to the front, put the new on the rear). I’ve got a deal with foo.c and will be heading up to his place one Saturday soon and together we’ll replace all the fluids, filters, plugs and wires, if we can handle the leak and A/C belt then great, and whatever else we can. I picked up both the Haynes and Chilton manuals.

Oh and yes… the kids are  excited about the truck — we had to go to dinner at Sonic the evening I brought it home. 🙂

And the first time I chomped down on the gas, the throttle opened, and tons of gasoline was injected into that engine to hurtle me down the road? I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself as I realized I now had my very own Chevy EarthFucker™ 🙂 Now I just need to do like a buddy of mine and get a “Hybrid” badge. Heh heh. 🙂

Gee… now I can’t wait to go hunting.

I think my father-in-law is right. I’ve become a redneck Texan. My mother is shaking her head and sighing. 🙂

Dangers of working from home – and how to fix it

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

A short and sweet article about the “dangers” of working from home and how to fix them. (h/t to… I forget *blush*)

Speaking as someone that’s worked from home for 11+ years, I’ve gained some perspective into the matter. I’d like to add my own input to the author’s 5 points:

1. You don’t feel you are working

The author’s point here is how work life and personal life can blend. True that. To an extent, this is a good thing. You can have a greater flexibility in life, within the constraints the job allows you. For instance, I spent many years working with folks in California, 2 hours behind me. I’m a morning person. These two things together didn’t always allow our schedules to mesh because as I’m winding up my day they’d just be digging into theirs. But I didn’t let THEIR constraints control my life. Instead, I just had to make some accommodations, such as accepting that sometimes I’ll have a meeting that’s very late in the day for me. I also made a point to check my work email in the evenings.

But that said, you really do have to work at keeping work work and personal personal. You cannot let your life become one giant smear of workandpersonallifetogether. It takes discipline and learning to draw lines AND sticking to them. Plus, you have to ensure people at work come to respect those lines. As well, the folks at home also have to respect those lines.

Which brings us to…

2. Your family members won’t understand that you are working

This is simple (but not easy). Draw lines and enforce them. Make sure the lines and rules are clear to everyone, and stick to them. For example, if my door is shut, you don’t come in. If you need me, you knock. Do not expect an answer if I’m in a meeting or perhaps deeply ensconced in a debug session. You must respect it, unless it’s an emergency. Yes, kids will have to be punished if they violate the rules. Spouses too.

But that said, remember that part of the joy of working at home with the family around is that you can be around them. I’ve found that if I’m not truly deeply into something, just flow with the interruptions sometimes. Sometimes the kiddo just wants to show you what they did. It takes 30 seconds of my time (which I probably would have wasted on Facebook or something else), kiddo is happy, I am happy, it’s a win. Don’t shun your family. Just work to manage things. And yes, it will take time, failure, revision, and experimentation to find what works for you.

3. You are slacking off, because your boss is not watching

It’s very easy to slack because you’ll be surrounded by all your favorite things. You have to develop the self-discipline to keep working, because if you don’t, you’re out of a job. Bosses will eventually detect your level of productivity.

Take a little time to blow off steam, break up the day, all that stuff. But you still have to produce. In fact, it’s generally better to work to produce more, because really… you will have fewer distractions than being in the office. You can focus better. You won’t have everyone dropping by your cube. You don’t have a commute. You can be more productive.

And oh, get dressed every day. Just because no one has to look at your or smell you, you should still carry on as if people did. It will affect your psyche.

4. You alienate yourself from work community

This is true. You must work to overcome it. The author goes into the office now and again, but my office is thousands of miles away, so that’s not possible. You must make the extra effort to communicate with folks. IM is good, or maybe set up an IRC channel. Have ways to chat with people. Do pick up the phone now and again, because to hear voices is very warming and personalizing. If you can video chat, even better. Don’t be afraid to start the day with some quick pings to people to just say “hi”. You do have to have some sort of social setup with everyone, else well… you will be overlooked, you will be forgotten, and folks just won’t know much about you. Not always good for the long haul.

5. You work too much

Yup. This goes back to #1. You just have to draw lines and stick to them. Be flexible, but be firm. Don’t check work email in your non-work times. Don’t check messages. Work is work and should be put into that box and kept there. If you do not, everything will smear and work will take over your life. You can’t let it.

It isn’t easy to start working at home. It requires commitment and self-discipline. But I think the benefits are huge, both to myself and to whomever I’m working for. It’s a situation that’s worked well for over a decade for me, and I really can’t see any other way to work.

Working at home isn’t possible for every job. If your job can be done from home, consider it. But as well, know yourself. You just may need the constraints and environment “going to the office” puts on you. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s better to know yourself, know your limits, and know your capabilities.

Fenix E05

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Following up on my Every Day Carry for Kids, I decided upon a flashlight for them.

The Fenix E05.

As you can see, the flashlight is very small, not much larger than the AAA battery that powers it.

But let’s back up. It’s important to understand that there are hundreds of models of flashlights on the market. So why pick one over the other? Well for me, right now it’s about context applicability. What’s going to be the best and right flashlight for the need and situation? In this case, the need is for an EDC flashlight that my kids can use. If you go back to my original post on the topic, some considerations include being small, being inexpensive, but also being useful. Looking at all the flashlights out there, the E05 fit MY desired needs the best.

So again you can see, it’s small. It’s intended as a keychain flashlight and certainly fits that bill.

It’s relatively inexpensive. It cost me $20, but since I received some Amazon gift cards for Christmas, it didn’t cost me anything. 🙂  Still, $20 is reasonable in my book for what I’m getting. Sure you can buy really small cheap LED lights for even less money, but I haven’t seen the performance be on par with this. And performance is kinda what matters most.

So on the performance front, some simple stats:

  • 27 max lumens
  • About a 3 hour runtime (I’ve read you can get up to 5 with lithium batteries)
  • Claims a 24 meter throw distance
  • Waterproof and impact resistant, tho of course within reason.

27 lumens out of such a tiny package. Wow! Take a look:

Not the best picture, but hopefully representative. The big feature of this particular light is the lens. It works to cast more of a floodlight than a spotlight. That certainly held true. While of course there’s a more intense beam in the middle, even that is fairly wide. Then beyond that a great deal of light is cast. It really lights up an area. You can see a LOT. That hallway is 7 yards from where I stood to the end wall. I even threw the light around some longer portions of the house and while the beam didn’t make it seem like daylight, it was sure enough to see what’s going on, both in terms of the reach of the light and the spread.

In tight quarters, I didn’t find the light to be difficult to read with either. No intense beam reflecting back into my eyes. Of course, if you hold the light really close to the page, sure it hurts your eyes, but whereas some other lights with more focused beams I can’t even hold the paper away from my eyes and avoid the reflection, here you can easily find a comfortable distance. Another bonus of the construction is the flat base, so you can stand the light upright like a candle to light up a room. There is only the 1 light setting (simple on or off), and it’s activated by twisting the lens/head of the light.

So this performance is the big reason I chose this light over others. For example, I had thought about the Fenix E01. I didn’t think the performance was as good, not bright enough, not wide enough. The battery life of the E01 is far superior, but that’s the trade-off. I figured that my kids could easily change a AAA battery if needed, and even with only “3 hours” of runtime, that should be more than ample for anything they’d need the light for. I think the LD15 would be better in a lot of respects, but it’s also a $40 light. SureFire doesn’t really have any lights that fit this form factor. Streamlight has the MicroStream, but it didn’t quite work for me (from what I could read online).

Maybe I’ve just spoiled my kids on good flashlights, or maybe I just want them to be able to have useful light. A little dinky squeeze light on a keychain that barely casts enough light to find the key hole? What’s the point? I want to be sure my kids can SEE something — especially danger (be it a person, or just that hole in the ground they wouldn’t want to trip on) — well in advance. That means both distance and width of beam, as well as brightness, to see as much as possible. There are always tradeoffs, but I think the Fenix E05 balances things out pretty well.

I take my box home — but always bring it back.

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

I understand why they say “don’t take the box home”, but it bugs me.

Let’s back up.

We’ve been doing the CSA veggie box from Johnson’s Backyard Garden for some time now. We love it. In fact, we love it so much we bought a 1-year long subscription; not just because it meant a discount for us, but because it helped them get up-front money to develop their new 146-acre property. We like JBG, we like supporting them. We want to see them grow and succeed.

A few months ago I commented on an inefficiency in the process. The box is delivered to a drop-off point. We pick it up there. We see everyone bringing cloth bags to take their veggies home. I find this inefficient. From box, to bag, to home storage. If I take the box home, it’s just from box to home storage.

It’s not just number of containers. It takes time to move everything around. So now I’m moving more, and spending more time doing it.

Then there’s the bag. Proper thing is of course to use a cloth reusable bag. But then those get dirty, news stories about them being bacteria breeding grounds. So you now have to wash the bag. That’s going to require more time. Also water, detergent, and that’s just going to create more environmental impact, now isn’t it?

So from my perspective, it makes far more sense to just take the box home.

But by the same token, for this to work, I have to bring the box back. And that I do. I missed one week, but I just brought back 2 boxes the next week. We always bring our boxes back.

Why? They’re expensive! They are thick, sturdy, wax-coated boxes. It’s obvious they are not cheap, it’s obvious they reuse them. I read they use them 10 times or so, and I think I read they cost $2/box. That is expensive and that cost will add up over lots of boxes.

Last week or two, a sticker showed up on the boxes demanding we do not take the boxes home but instead use a bag and follow the above inefficient process. My guess? Lots of people take the boxes, then throw the boxes away. This of course will affect JBG’s bottom line.

They could raise prices, of course. If it’s $2/box, just jack up the cost of every box by $2. But that has a greater impact as well, because the manufacture of all those boxes will have a large environmental impact. Really, reusing the boxes until they can’t be reused is the best option.

So from JBG’s perspective, the best thing THEY can do is tell everyone to not take the boxes home. I understand where they’re coming from. They will have to accept some level of loss, but I reckon the level they’re experiencing is greater than they desire.

That said, I still will take my box home. I will always return it. If I fail for some reason, I’ll reimburse them. Scout’s honor — I’m saying so right here in public and you can hold me to it. The worst I’ll have to endure is the condescending looks I get from other people when I come to pick up my box… but that’s another topic for another time (or you can just go watch the South Park “Smug” episode).

To JBG I say: I hope it’s evident I support you guys. I have voted with my wallet and continue to do so. Know that I am doing what I can to not adversely affect your bottom line, because I know in the end it only comes back to hurt me. I don’t care if the other people picking up their boxes give me condescending looks, because they don’t understand nor obviously care to. I’m trying to do what’s most efficient and right for me, for you, for the environment, however you want to look at it. If there’s something I’m overlooking — and I’m sure I am somewhere — please let me know.

2012-01-13 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 5, Press 3

/ hsoi

Not the greatest, but a PR nonetheless.

“Week 3”

  • “5/3/1” – Press (working max: 145#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x60
    • 1x5x75
    • 1x3x90
    • 1x5x110 (work)
    • 1x3x125
    • 1x4x140 (PR)
  • Asst. #1 – Press
    • 4 x 10 x 70
    • 1 x 11/6/4 x 70 (rest-pause set)
  • Asst. #2 – Supinated Close-grip Pulldowns
    • 4 x 10 x 130
    • 1 x 8/4/3 x WT (rest-pause set)
  • GPP – Elliptical
    • Tabata style (20 sec. 150-ish strides per min., 10 sec. 100-ish strides per min)
    • 2 min. slow (warmup)
    • 1 tabata set
    • 2 min. slow (cooldown)
  • DeFranco Agile 8 – just foam rolling

Today was alright. Not my best, but alright.

My left shoulder still hurts. I woke up at 2:30 AM. Could my lowered calorie intake be in play? My rest times between sets were lower. Could be any number of things. I don’t know. I don’t write this as an excuse, just a record of what was up right now so 6 months from now I can look back and perhaps analyze better.

I wanted to get 5 reps on that PR set, but only got 4 and that 4th saw me leaning back and pushing like hell. Not what I wanted, but it’s still a PR.

One thing I’m wondering about. I’ve noticed with everything that as the weights get heavier, my body is being forced to lift a certain way. For example, if you deadlift an empty bar, you can probably have horrible form and move the bar all over the place. But when you deadlift 300#, the bar is going to have a tendency to do what it wants to do with gravity and other forces of nature instead of you being able to move it all over the place. The heavy weights are forcing a particular way to do things. As I’m pressing these heavier weights, my body is changing how it wants to lift. For instance, with say 95# I can just push it around and no problems. But put that 130+ on there and my body starts to feel it differently. I want to tense up and if I don’t things are harder. I want to push differently in terms of things like the Valsalva maneuver. So perhaps as well, I’m going through a bit of transition now that the weights are actually getting heavier and I just need to roll with it. Since it only happens on the heaviest of weights, I can’t get a lot of “under the bar” time with it, but I need to pay attention and work on it as it comes. We’ll see. Just an observation and thought.

Assistance pressing was fine, but I lowered the rests to maybe 90 seconds at most between sets. I don’t know why, but today I just didn’t want to rest much… get in, press, get out. *shrug* I did NOT do chins between these sets. My left shoulder still isn’t happy and I didn’t feel like making it worse. Even during the pulldowns it wasn’t happy. I worked to keep tension in my shoulder so I wasn’t “pulling it out of socket” at the top of the movement (the “hang”), but that also kept tension in my arms, and so with all this tension it worked me a bit harder and the pulldowns were a little tougher today. No matter. I’d rather not be abusing my shoulder.

Elliptical remains good. Incline of “10”, resistance of “12”, about 100-spm slow and 150-ish fast. Last time I was resting too much on my arms/forearms, today I made an effort not to have so much rest/support. Still had my hands on the little “heart monitor grip” area, a little downward tension, but no resting. I’ll keep at this for a little bit, then jack it up. This is a good spot to start adaptation; it works me.

On the food note… I wonder. I’ve shed a few pounds, been cutting back on caloric intake, all good. But the past couple evenings I’ve been eating a lot of “trail mix” stuff. Nuts, dried fruit, little chocolate-covered things. Not huge, but under normal circumstances I wouldn’t eat it. I wonder if my body was saying “dude, you’re about to do some big lifting, you need some fuel built up”. Dunno. I’m going to be good during the PR week here, but if I need a little, take it. Then once I hit deload week, I’ll scale back again.

Tune Up Your Gun Handling

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Karl Rehn’s latest article, “Tune Up Your Gun Handling” is now available at the USCCA website and also their print magazine.

It’s a great article showing various gun safety violations. I’m sure you’ve seen them, and you may have committed them yourself. It’s an opportunity to learn about them, then take a step back, swallow pride, and let’s all work to improve our gun handling.

What you do with a gun when you’re NOT shooting it is more important than what you do when you shoot.

Why am I making this so hard?

/ hsoi

I went to the local indoor range today to do a little more investigation with the M&P.

Last time I had determined everything was hitting low, but it was difficult to get a good feel for things because my eyes were hating it. So today I went and started at 25 yards. Bench rest. Speer Gold Dot 124 grain +P. Let’s see how my chosen carry ammo performs. The intent is to figure out what size/height sights I need to get my point of impact to be the same as my point of aim at 25 yards. Dawson Precision has this nice diagram and equation to help figure it out. Just what sights should I order….

On the whole I’d say things came in about 4.5″ low. My eyes still hated it, but groups were in the 3-4″ range and likely could be better under better conditions with a better shooter.

Due to that, I opted to try again at 10 yards. It should give me a reasonable similar number when I do the sight height math, and help me control the eyes factor.  Here things were about 2″ low and mabye 1.5″ groups.

Doing the math, things came out about the same, but nothing really meshed with products Dawson sells.

And then it hit me.

This is all hinged upon the rear sight height remaining the same.

That will not be the case. I will be changing the rear sight too.

*sigh*

So none of this matters. All this work for nothing. I could have just ordered a set of sights and been done with or. Or rather, at least get the rear sight I knew I wanted, then start to adapt the front sight from there. This is the sound of me banging my head into the desk for being stupid. *sigh*

Oh well.

I want a Dawson Charger rear sight. So looking at all the ones they have, this is the model. Plain (well, serrated) black; no tritium, no dots, no fiber, no nothing. 0.125″ width notch. They say to pair with a specific front sight, but I can’t find that (maybe some old stock number?). But at least it needs to be a 0.180″ high sight. I do want a fiber there, so I’m using this model. Red fiber, 0.180″ tall, 0.100″ wide.

I’m going to phone Dawson to put in the order, so I can ensure I get the right stuff.

I’ll get these, get them installed, then try yet again to see how the POA vs. POI is, and if I THEN need to get a new front, then I will.

I’ve been dry firing this gun every day and am very anxious and eager to get it dialed in and on my hip in regular rotation. I put another 50 rounds of Gold Dot through it today, and then another 50 of the 124 grain American Eagle. Boy… that AE fluctuates a lot. I’d have some rounds that would jar me, others that felt like a mouse fart. The way the vents were blowing air behind me, every time I’d shoot an AE round there’d be this cloud of smoke in my field of vision… ugly stuff. I should have shot some of my reloads for comparison.