Month: November 2012

Be Happier

/ hsoi

Going through email this morning, I got sent the following article about 9 Daily Habits That Will Make You Happier.

Seems a little self-helpy, but there’s some solid things in here. The one that stood out to me?

5. Assume people have good intentions.

Since you can’t read minds, you don’t really know the “why” behind the “what” that people do. Imputing evil motives to other people’s weird behaviors adds extra misery to life, while assuming good intentions leaves you open to reconciliation.

Recently I’ve been dealing with some difficult people going through some difficult times, and I know if they tried this it would have saved them much grief.

I try to do this, but I can step back and see I don’t try enough. I will work on that about myself. I know it will not only save me a lot of grief, but it helps the relationship too.

Tips for teachers

/ hsoi

While the article is titled “Being a Woman is Not a Disability“, and while the article is presented in the context of powerlifting, what the article is really about is teaching.

Teaching boils down to a lot of the same concepts, whether you’re teaching arithmetic, how to bench press, how to shoot a gun, how to bake a cake. And addressing needs of a student rarely comes down to the student’s gender, race, ethnicity, religious preference, sexual orientation, age, etc.. Oh sure, sometimes those things do matter, but all too often teachers/coaches/educators apply the wrong context and thus the wrong solution. For example, many times when teaching beginning shooters, women do get treated differently. But I’ve found issues with new shooters aren’t because of gender, but because of something like smaller/weaker hands. Yes one can make the generalization that women have smaller and weaker hands than men, but I’ve seen some large strong women and some small weak men. It wasn’t their gender that mattered, it was their hand size and strength. Thus what’s important to address is their hand size and strength, not their gender.

Successful teaching does follow the same guidelines regardless of the topic being taught. Amy Wattles’ article does a fine job of presenting these guidelines:

  • The introduction is the most important part of a lesson<
  • After the delivery of your instruction, check for understanding.
  • Next, it is time to demonstrate the skill to be acquired.
  • Provide students with constructive feedback throughout the lesson.

Read her article for full details, including a good list of additional tips for teaching success.

One thing I’ll add? Know your audience.

If you know your audience, you can better shape the presentation of your message. Let’s say you want to teach how to bake a cake. How might your presentation differ if your students were a group of adults vs. a class of kindergarteners vs. veteran chefs? Your material and message would be the same, but how you present that message, how you work to convey your information, that’s going to and should differ from audience to audience. Suppose you didn’t change. Suppose you wrote it all out for a group of veteran chefs and your audience is a group of 5-year-olds? Do you think your presentation is going to succeed? Do you think you’ll successfully convey your message? Unlikely.

Some might say that they don’t know what their audience will be comprised of. If that’s the case, then you still know that fact and should proceed accordingly. But you may also be able to glean at least a little something. For example, when a new class of Basic Pistol 1 students show up at KR Training, we generally don’t know what to expect. We will have people of both gender, wide range of ages, many ethnicities, socio-economic status, background (e.g. maybe they were brought here due to a bad crime victim experience and are very sensitive)… it’s all over the map. We really can’t know much and thus have to be reserved in our presentation. But we can know they are all here to learn how to shoot a gun, and most are coming because of an interest in personal defense, so we can play off that tidbit of audience awareness.

Teaching is rewarding, even more so when you’re successful at it. Knowing how to teach helps you succeed.

2012-11-14 training log – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 15, bench press 1

/ hsoi

Oh yes, today was a good day.

“Week 1”

  • 5 reps – Bench Press (working max: 240#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x95
    • 1x5x120
    • 1x3x145
    • 1x5x160 (work)
    • 1x5x180
    • 1x8x205 (PR – tie)
  • Asst. #1 – Bench Press
    • 1 x 8 x 185
    • 1 x 8 x 160
    • 1 x 8 x 140
    • 1 x 8 x 135
    • 1 x 12 x 95
  • Asst. #2 – Chin-ups Scooby Step 4B
    • 5 x 1 x BW — hold for as long as I can, then slow descend
  • Pump superset
    • Flat Bench DB Flies
    • JM Press
    • Hammer Cheat Curls
    • 3 sets, 8-15 reps, enough weight to make it hard; on 3rd set immediately drop weight and keep going to failure
  • Foam Rolling

Today was good.

First, I’m trying a switch back to 3x week. I’ll elaborate on that another time.

Second, I was happy to meet a previous rep PR @ 205. Would have been nicer to beat it, but at least meeting it is good for me given the past couple months.

I am liking the pyramid down setup with assistance work. Hurts so good.

Chins… this is going to kick my ass. 🙂 I basically did 1 chinup to get up there, then held as long as I could. Once I started to descend from exhaustion, I just slowly lowered myself each time.

And the pump set? I’m not really keeping track of that, but I will say I really dug JM Presses. First time ever doing them, but I think they’re going to become a happy favorite for triceps work.

Really a good session.

2012-11-12 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 15, Squat 1

/ hsoi

Oh, this new program hurts…. in a good way.

“Week 1”

  • 5 reps – Squat (working max: 280#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x115
    • 1x5x140
    • 1x3x170
    • 1x5x185 (work)
    • 1x5x215
    • 1x6x240
  • Asst. #1 – Squat
    • 1 x 5 x 225
    • 1 x 10 x 185
    • 1 x 6 x 185
    • 1 x 10 x 135
    • 1 x 8 x 135
  • Asst. #2A – Chin-ups Scooby Step 4A
    • 1 x 3/5 x BW
    • 1 x 1/7 x BW
    • 1 x 0/8 x BW
  • Asst. #2B – Pulldown Abs
    • 3 x 15 x 120
  • Foam Rolling

Wow… always a good sign when you get to the cusp of throwing up. 🙂

On the squat front, I hate that my numbers are down, but I know my form is so much better. I’m going deeper, and it really pays off. Working on squeezing the hell out of the bar the whole time, everything tight, thinking about the set as a bunch of singles not just “5 reps”. Pushing my head back into the bar. It’s getting better. So I’ll take weight regression for better form.

And then the assistance squatting? Yeah, I like this. Keep the weight heavy, crank as many reps as I can aiming for that 8-15 range, work hard, etc.. It hurts, and I liked it.

The chin-up thing. Gah… that killed me. Was MUCH harder than I thought it was going to be. You can see I only did 3 sets instead of the 5 because geez… I was out of gas. The last reps of that last set I was basically dropping down with almost no control. So 3 sets was enough for now. That really takes it out of you! And I only had so much gas left in me for pulldown abs, but I did jack up the reps there.

I like this.

But I also realized something.

I’m not sure I’m going to hit my goals.

Gym owner asked me today that because I benched 225 last time, what was my goal? I said 230 (thank you, Jim Wendler). But I knew what he was asking, and my overall goal is totalling 1000# before the end of 2013. When I got home I did some quick math and realized that if I stay on my current course, I may not make it. I had still be going under numbers from before the attempted weight loss, where I did some big resets and lost a bunch of weight and strength. Looking at my actual numbers now coupled with my 2x week plan, I may not make it. So I need to do some re-thinking. Apart from this I actually had some thoughts about going back to a 3x or even 4x week program, and now this makes me wonder if I should pick up on that. I don’t know… this just hit me so it’s all fresh in my head and I need to think about it. I also did a lot of reading this past weekend because EliteFTS had a big sale on their eBooks and I picked up a bunch that I’ve been waiting on (I knew they’d have a sale sooner). Lots of Dave Tate readings and geez if I don’t feel a little inspired to improve on some things.

We’ll see… always thinking.

Looking for a new flashlight — do you have any input?

/ hsoi / 13 Comments

For many years I’ve carried a SureFire E2L Outdoorsman. It’s part of my every-day-carry, and in fact I use it almost every day. It’s because of that daily utility that I chose that particular model of flashlight.

However, over the past year I’ve started to have a change of heart. Many new flashlights have come to market, and over the years of carrying I’ve started to find myself wanting… a little more, a little different. And probably too much time hanging out with TXGunGeek, who is also a big flashlight geek.

What’s my beef with my E2L?

  • High-beam output. While my E2L’s high beam is pretty good, there’s better out there now. I’ve found myself in enough situations where I wished for more light.
  • Beam quality. I don’t know how to describe it, but the high beam feels… fuzzy. Maybe it’s my (aging) eyes, but compared to some other flashlights I have, there’s something about the light quality that just doesn’t provide me with the best picture. It’s certainly good enough for most things, but if I can have a little better, since again, my eyes are getting older and anything I can do to help out is A Good Thing™.
  • High first, low second. There’s no question I want dual-output because much of my every-day light needs require a low-beam. Originally I wanted the low-beam to come on first since I figured most of my needs were mundane and didn’t need to blind myself. Now I want the high beam to come on first, because I find myself in more situations where I need a lot of light right now and don’t need to waste time clicking through beam modes. I decided if I needed low beam mode, it would likely not be a “need it immediately” need and I could do something like press the flashlight into my stomach or leg to suppress throwing light, click through to low, then there we go. Besides, when you need a lot of light right now, you need it now and need to be able to just slam the light on and get the light. Yeah I tried many times to just get used to “half click, release, full click” to get as quick as I could over the low mode and locked into the high mode or doing 2 full clicks, but it’s just too error prone, too time consuming, and too loud.

So it’s not much, but it’s enough to motivate me to look for alternatives.

But on that token, some things I would prefer to not give up:

  • Clip. The clip is very useful, especially since I can hang it off the brim of my hat for hands-free use. That means the clip needs to attach near the head and point back towards the tailcap (like the E2L has). So many flashlights have the clip attach at the tail and run towards the head, which can be good for keeping the flashlight in your pocket, but isn’t very usable during use.
  • Dual mode. I need high and low beam. Strobe? Oh please… no.
  • Size. I like the E2L’s size. First, because it means 2 batteries instead of 1 thus more runtime. Second, the diameter feels good in my hands in terms of being able to hold a grip and not lose the flashlight in my hand.

And then there’s one thing I flat out do not want: strobe. This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco. I do not need nor want strobe. I do not want to waste time clicking through a mode that I don’t need, that all too often will accidentally fire because I’m trying to click through to the mode past it. If someone can tell me how strobe is actually useful, please comment. In the dark, it just screws up YOUR vision too, and again it’s too many modes to click through to get it. Enough Low Light shooting classes and strobe never comes up as useful.  But, I will admit I recently found a use for it. While taking Kiddos around the neighborhood this past Halloween for trick-or-treating, I carried a Streamlight Super Tac-X because low beam is good for close-up work (e.g. picking up dropped candy); the high beam is bright, crisp, clean, lots of throw, lots of spread, really lights things up which can be useful when walking around in the dark and well-behind a group of kids that might need some illumination in front of them (throw!). And then… yes… strobe was useful when we would cross the street. I would aim it down at the pavement and let it blink, and saw more than enough cars react to the flashing strobe (vs. other times when I’ve used a plain beam) and slow down. So yeah, THAT was useful. But for my EDC flashlight? No strobe.

There’s no question the awesomeness of Fenix Lights, especially that they have such great output, quality, and runtime on ubiquitous AA batteries, all at such a low price. The Fenix lights I presently have are great.  Because of them, SureFire and Streamlight have had to pick up their game. So lots of new and interesting stuff out there. I focused on these 3 companies. I did look at some others, but they either were no longer in business or their lights could all be eliminated from consideration because they had features I didn’t want (e.g. Blackhawk, NovaTac, Pelican).

Streamlight didn’t have anything that would fit my bill. Mostly lost out on the clip front. In fact, on the clip front alone I pretty much eliminated most every flashlight out there. *sigh* The two I found were:

Fenix LD22 (S2)

SureFire E2D LED Defender

The Fenix has a lot of win all around. Many different modes/levels of light output. Cree LED’s. A tailcap switch, but also a side button; so yes, that means there is a strobe mode but at least it’s not part of the tailcap. There’s a clip, but I’m mixed on the fact it’s removable. Sure that’s cool from a sales standpoint, because they can sell it to more people. And I kinda like that if the clip snagged on something it would just break away instead of bend (how many times have I bent my Spyderco Delica clips because of a snag?). But… that also means it can break away, which may not be what I want. I’m unsure about the clip. I think tho the bigger concern is while it’s cool it remembers the last output setting and uses that next time you turn it on, that means if the last thing I did was read a map but RIGHT NOW I need a lot of light, I won’t get it. The Fenix looks good in so many regards, but I’m not sure it will win the “tactical need” test. But it’s only like $60, so I might pick one up anyways because I could see a lot of use for this in other contexts, like camping or hunting.

The SureFire E2D. Funny how things happen. My only beef with this? The fact it looks aggressive. Of course, that’s the point of the “Defender” models, and I’m honestly not bothered by it myself. But as I wrote in my old “why I like the E2L” article I specifically avoided that light for its looks. At the time I was active in Boy Scouts and a lot of parents there did not “get it” and would freak out at the thought, and I just didn’t need the grief. As well, I flew and didn’t want to have some TSA goon take my $150 flashlight. But these days? I don’t fly. I don’t do BSA, and operate my life in a different context. Besides, I’ll still have my E2L in storage and can always pull it out and use it if context changes.

So yes, presently I’m leaning towards the E2D. I even emailed Comp-Tac to see if their flashlight holster for the E2L works for the E2D.

What’s your input?

13-Nov-2012 Update: Comp-Tac replied:

From what I can tell the e2d and e2l have the same bezel diameter. However, the e2d has that crenellated bezel, which adds to the length a small amount.
I would feel comfortable in saying that it would work.

So I figure if I go with the E2D, I’ll get it, try it, and hope for the best. If I do have to buy a new pouch, I reckon the existing one would work well enough until the new pouch arrived.

 

What we (programmers) want

/ hsoi

I’ve poked at computers for decades… yes, I’m dating and aging myself.

And programming always appealed to me. I guess it’s been my craft, my calling. I’ve had opportunities to move into management, but I refuse because I know what I’m good at and what I love (and that I don’t like being a paper-pusher). For example, right now I’m working on one of the more challenging programming tasks I’ve dealt with in a very long time. It’s very complex, very complicated, very frustrating. But because it’s such a huge challenge (and will be a HUGE win when I pull it off), I’m happy to let it engulf me. Part of my poor sleep this past week has been due to Daylight Saving Time throwing me off, but also because the moment I wake up my brain churns on this problem because well… it’s just what I find exciting. Geek that I am.

Over my years, over my jobs, my bosses, my companies, the projects and groups… I’ve learned what I want and don’t want. Geeks do tick differently, and we aren’t satisfied by the same things a lot of other officer workers are. It’s welcome when the company and bosses get it, and frustrating when those that “run you” don’t get it. I don’t expect people to bend to my way of being, but I can say if you can understand folks better, you tend to get further.

This article by Michael O’Church about “What Programmers Want” is insightful and pretty spot-on about us.

If you have to manage geeks or interact with them, take the time to read it and gain some insight into us.

Or if you just want to understand us geeks a little better, it’s worth your time too.

2012-11-08 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 14, Press 3

/ hsoi

Tying a PR isn’t as good as setting a PR, but at least I’m stopping the regression.

“Week 3”

  • 5/3/1 – Press (working max: 160#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x65
    • 1x5x80
    • 1x3x95
    • 1x5x120 (work)
    • 1x3x140
    • 1x3x155 (PR-tie)
  • Asst. #1 – Press
    • 5 x 10/10/10/8/10 x 80/80/80/80/65
  • Asst. #1 – Wide, pronated grip lat pulldowns
    • 5 x 10/10/10/10/12 x 110/110/110/110/90
  • Upright rows superset with tricep pressdowns superset with barbell curls
    • 3 sets, 12-15 reps per set, then on the last set drop down weight and keep cranking to failure

I was hoping to get 4 reps and set a true PR, but it just didn’t happen. On rep 2 I started to lose my balance… and recovery from that kinda sucked things out of me. I went for 4… it just wouldn’t go up. Racked, rested for 15 seconds, tried again, no go. Oh well. At least I feel like I’ve stopped regressing. 🙂

One thing that was different — I was squeezing the hell out of the bar. I know I’m supposed to do this, but I just forget things… so many things to remember to do. But boy, that sure does make everything else tighten up, and the weight felt different… better, more like my musculature was supporting the weight and not my skeletal structure. Felt cool. That might have sapped a bit out of me too, and I’m fine with that. Any time I can improve my technique I’m happier.

I also started to blend into my workout changes… really focusing on the eccentric, being sure to get high reps and being exhausted by the time I got to the end… working to “rep out” but still relatively heavy weights. Then I did a superset of stuff at the end, not exactly counting reps… I did to ensure I got into the range but didn’t bother recording as long as I hit the range I was happy. Just work it, pump it…. felt good.

Looking forward to starting the next cycle and seeing where these changes take me.

Also happy to be walking again as a part of my program. Feels good.