Author: hsoi

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.

The KRT-1 Target is now available

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Finally, we can reveal it to the world!

The KRT-1 target.

The KR Training instructor crew spent quite a while hashing this out, designing, revising, arguing, testing. But finally it’s here, available from Law Enforcement Targets.

If you go to LE Target’s website you’ll see tons of targets already in existence. Why in the world create another one?

The main reason? it fits on 18″ target frames, the same frames used for IPSC and IDPA targets. These are the frames we use at KR Training.

With few exceptions, most targets are designed to fit on 24″ frames. There are lots of useful targets, but when you put a 24″ target on an 18″ frame, the uprights won’t last long, nor will your training session (and it doesn’t help towards keeping cost and maintenance issues down either).

We designed a target that could be used for the KR Training curriculum, from defensive pistol training, to competition, command work, group shooting, you name it. It’s rather versatile. It has A and B zones that map to head and chest areas; and the numbered, colored shapes can be used for many drills. It includes two sight in areas with 1″ grid marks.

Of course, we hope this will be useful to shooters around the world, especially those similarly frustrated by using 24″ targets on 18″ stands. 🙂

However they learn, so long as they learn

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

My Sons’ room is a mess.

My Daughter is very good at organizing and cleaning.

She made an offer to her brothers, to clean their room for $50. She dropped it to $40 when Youngest said he didn’t have enough money.

Agreement was made, and she’s cleaning their room. Isn’t taking her long, and she’s getting $40 for it. Pretty decent rate of pay.

Wife is a little unsure about this arrangement, but I’m fine with it. Why? Because they are learning a lot.

Daughter is saving money to buy new cymbals for her drums. The cheapest cymbal pack, plus stands and so on? It’s going to run her at least $400, so she’s got a way to go…. but she just made 10% of it. 🙂   She’s setting goals, she’s working towards them. She’s seeing things she wants in life, and tho the kids know I’m willing to loan them money (with interest, of course… everything is a lesson), she refuses to do that because she’s learned that debt is generally to be avoided, especially for non-essentials in life. She’s being resourceful, looking for ways to earn more money, sooner. She’s not afraid of work. I also gave her more lessons in negotiation, which she didn’t have to use with her brothers, but she was enabled with just in case.

The Boys are learning the value of money and time. The landscaping I want in my yard? Sure I could do it and save a lot of money, but it’ll cost me a lot of time, and what else could I be doing with that time? And so, that’s what the boys are seeing… plus it means they don’t have to do something they find unpleasant. But, they’ll learn the bigger lesson when they realize they farted away their time, and also gave up a nice chunk of their money that they now don’t have for other things. But, it’s their money and their time, and they have to learn how to spend them wisely. Perhaps the $20 (each) was a worthwhile tradeoff, because I’ve seen how they clean their room… this way is certainly faster with a lot less complaining and more peace in the household. 😉

Whether good lessons or bad lessons, they are lessons and there are things to be learned.

Steve Jobs – weightlifting philosopher?

/ hsoi

Numerous seemingly disparate things come together quite harmoniously in my life.

For example, my company, Hsoi Enterprises LLC, blends things like personal defense and computer software. Witness, the DR Performance Practice Deck for iOS.

So when I read this article, “11 Steve Jobs Quotes Applied to Weightlifting“, it brought two things in my life — Apple and weightlifting — together.

The reality is, most of the Steve quotes in the article apply to anything in life, or just to life itself.

The quotes that stood out most to me?

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

and

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Tho every single quote in there applies and is useful to contemplate. Next time I’m under the bar — or under any sort of stress — these are some words of wisdom worth heeding.

Glock, the book

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Paul Barrett wrote a book, Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun. I was offered a preview copy of the book but had to decline — I don’t have the spare cycles to read it, and am rather behind in my own reading list anyways. *sigh*

Nevertheless, it seems an interesting book and now has a new web home.

 

Uncle Bug

/ hsoi

Looks like Unc is curious about bug-out-bags too.

Yes, this is really a bookmark for me so I can come back to it later and see what people commented on his site. 🙂

Updated: Unc’s part 2: what to put in it. Again, not a bookmark.