Author: hsoi

Buying veggies

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Wife’s been wanting to try one of those vegetable delivery things.

I groaned.

But the more I thought about it, the more it appealed to me.

First concern for me was cost. If this is going to cost more than just buying the same stuff at the H.E.B., I’m not interested. I’m still not 100% sure of the cost breakdown since produce costs vary so widely on a daily basis. But, estimates put it at “close enough”.

Second, I didn’t want to get some potluck of veggies that then don’t get consumed. For instance, Wife hates fennel, and if the box is 35% fennel, that does us no good and is a waste all around.

I found this place called the Johnson’s Backyard Garden. It looked alright. I like that it’s truly local. I like that the produce is picked and delivered on the same day. I mean, you can’t beat food that’s allowed to stay “in the ground” or “on the vine” until the last minute. Whereas your big grocery stores have to have the food removed from the ground well in advance of ripeness, then all sorts of things are done to help get it to market, and it’s just not the same.

Now, I’m not really caring about crap like “organic” and “free-range”…. but hey, its fun to prod the hippies about how free-range organic the meat is from the deer I shot. 🙂

And that’s I think what I’m liking more about this: I know where it comes from. We’re getting far too removed from many things in this world, and that tends to create a lot of mystery and uncertainty. I’m growing to like knowing where things come from, especially the things I put into my body. So hey, if we can know where our veggies are coming from, if we can support some small family businesses, get better tasting food, and it doesn’t cost a whole lot more? Fine.

The crazy thing is, since I signed up, I’ve been getting excited about picking up our first box (we pick it up this evening). Click here to see what’s in the boxes (pictures!). In a way, it feels like Christmas because there’s an element of unknown and surprise: what are we going to get this week? It feels kinda fun. Plus, it’s going to challenge our cooking and palates… because hey, there’s fennel in this weeks box. 🙂

I signed up for the initial 4 box trial and we’ll see how it goes.

Quote for the day

/ hsoi

When it comes to preparing for individual security….

Amateurs think equipment,
Students think techniques,
Experts think tactics.

– John Holschen, Insights Training Center

Gear is fun, but get something that works and run with it (e.g. Glock’s aren’t pretty, but they work and they’re reliable). Techniques help you know what to do with that equipment. But tactics are what see you through the situation.

When you seek instruction, yes seek instruction on gear, yes seek instruction on technique. But too many people stop there. You really have to go to the next level and think about tactics and how to work and think on that higher level.

Yes, it’s dry out

/ hsoi

Texas is having one of the worst droughts on record.  We really need rain.

Just saw this tweet that said the Austin Fire Department has denied permits for Austin, Pflugerville, Lake Travis, Oak Hill, and Westlake for having fireworks displays on Independence Day. I’m sure other areas will have a similar lack of fireworks.

While I feel for the folks that make their money and living in that business, we really don’t need to risk the loss of homes, property, and lives.

Please… please… please… people. Please don’t think that somehow YOUR fireworks will be above it or immune or that it can’t happen to you. Or that you’ve done it hundreds of times without incident. Or that “you’ll be safe”. All that and an “I’m sorry” is of little comfort to the person that loses home or life because of an ember that gets away or a firework that misfires.

I love fireworks too, it’ll be a bummer to not have them. But please folks. It’s too risky.

KR Training June 2011 newsletter — and contest!

/ hsoi

The KR Training June 2011 newsletter is up.

In celebration of the 20th anniversary of KR Training, Karl is running a survey with a chance to win an $80 gift certificate good towards any Fall 2011 training class.

Click the above link, take the survey, and enter for chance to win. And yes… take the survey seriously because that will affect what class you might win. 🙂

Lion ONLY through the App Store? Mistake.

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

As soon as Apple announced that Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” was only going to be available through their App Store, I knew that’d be a mistake.

Seems I’m not the only one. Read this TidBITS article.

The first things that came to my mind was 1. bandwidth caps, 2. people without bandwidth. I think Apple said it’d be a 4GB download. Holy crap that’s a lot of data. More and more ‘net providers are working to impose bandwidth caps, throttling, and other similar restrictions on how much bandwidth someone can use. I’m not sure exactly how this install will end up rolling, but let’s say I needed to update all the Macs in my house (and I have more than 1)… what sort of bandwidth am I going to have to chew up? And is my ISP going to throttle me? What about how that affects the rest of my monthly bandwidth allotment for things like general web browsing, YouTube, and I’ve even been thinking about getting that NetFlix online service.

Then I think about a lot of my friends in rural areas that just don’t have this sort of bandwidth available to them.

In talking with foo.c, he doesn’t have Snow Leopard. He contacted Apple and they said you will have to update to Snow Leopard first… because you need at least Mac OS X 10.6.6 in order to run the App Store. So now the cost has risen significantly.

If you read the TidBITS article, they raise many more issues and problems this sole means of distribution create.

You know, I think it’s a great idea for Apple to offer Lion through the App Store. I think it’s good to start moving the world in that direction. But come on Apple… you know how long it took for us to move from 680×0 to PowerPC… how long it took to move from Classic Mac to Mac OS X… then the shift from PowerPC to Intel. All of these major shifts took many years and we were always given a transition strategy. It was always evident as soon as the ball started to roll that the writing was on the wall for the “old style”, but that always gave us time to move along. To suddenly end optical discs for the OS? That’s rather abrupt and not in line with every other transition that this platform has undergone.

So, I’m adding my voice to the cries of “WTF?” regarding this requirement. I do think Apple should offer it through the App Store and encourage folks in that direction. But I also think Apple should offer optical discs, and I think it’d be reasonable to offer it at increased cost, say $10 more to cover the costs of the discs, packaging, etc.. As well, something like Lion Server can be offered solely as a download, since it seems you get that as an additional purchase on top of your Lion install… so, buy “consumer”, install it, then you can buy and install Server on top of it via the App Store. I see no problem with that strategy. It all helps to push people to prefer the App Store, but it doesn’t leave those without such ability out in the cold.

Cocoa Singletons

/ hsoi

A few days ago I saw Mike Ash retweeted this:

“a lot of misinformation about singletons out there” Yeah, mainly from Apple and folks who followed their samples

– @schwa (Jonathan Wight)

Fair enough. I know that Apple’s Singleton discussion has taken a lot of heat. For one such criticism, see here. Now, figuring that Mike Ash retweeted that, plus since Mike does a lot of great Q&A stuff in his blog, here’s what Mike has to say about Singletons. Note however that Mike actually talks about it from a different angle.

Nevertheless, Apple seems to have listened to the criticism and has improved their Singleton implementation. Personally I’m fine with this. Yes I understand all the criticisms, but it’s like most tools out there: there’s a time, there’s a place. Understand things and work to get a job done as best you can at the time given what you know about your context and needs.

Yes, this is some old news… just that the recent retweet made me want to talk about it. I do wonder what exactly was going on that caused the original tweet. Something at WWDC?

Fractional plates

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

One of the hallmarks of the Starting Strength program is that you are constantly making forward progress, that you are always adding weight every workout.

Granted, you can’t always increase by large poundages. So maybe you start off increasing in 10# increments, but that’ll be sustainable only for so long. So eventually you drop down to increasing 5# increments. Eventually that won’t be sustainable, you want to drop down to maybe 2.5# increments. But that’s where a lot of people run into trouble. Most standard gyms and Olympic weight sets only offer 2.5# plates as the smallest increment, so you can only jump 5# at a time.

There are some places you can find 1.25# plates so you can do 2.5# jumps, but even then what if you want smaller jumps? On the SS program even if you can only go up 1#, that’s still progressing and what it’s all about.

So how to manage the fractional weights? There are lots of approaches.

You can get baseball bat weights, which can go down to being 8 oz. in weight, so that can allow you to move in 1# increments. I looked at these and while they’ll fit on an Olympic bar, they’re also expensive at $5 each (that was the price at my local store). So you’ll have to drop $10 for one set, and you’ll want a few sets to allow you to span a 5# distance in those 1# increments. That adds up. Plus, they’re bulky.

Some people go to the hardware store and are able to find large washers that will fit. If you can do this and find washers with reasonable matched weight, that’s not a bad way to go and generally isn’t too costly. Or if you’re at the hardware store, get small links of steel chain and make loops that you can hang off the end.

I even saw one suggestion somewhere (can’t remember the web page now) where someone used cloth and pennies, rolling the pennies into little “sausage link bundles” and then into a looped chain.

Whatever works! It’s just weight. Doesn’t have to be fancy.

But when I was looking around for a solution, I came across what are called “fractional plates”. I found 2 brands: one from Iron Woody Fitness, and the other from APT Pro Gear. Unfortunately everyone was out of stock, but I found some on eBay:

What I liked about these was the clean increments: 1/4#, 1/2#, 3/4#, 1#, 2 plates of each. So, you now have the ability to move in 1/2# increments and cover a 5# range. Sweet! Plus the color-coding is nice for quick reference. Just keep these in your gym bag and off you go.

Sure it’s not as home-brewed as other solutions, but I like this because it’s a “clean” solution. It’s not moving in 6 oz. increments or 1.333# increments. Really of course, it doesn’t matter… but I guess I just like the nice clean “round numbers”. 🙂

Bottom line: the program needs some way to do smaller increments. Whatever way you get there, so long as you do.

2011-06-08 workout

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Today’s workout was another “first workout”. The exercises were squat, press, and deadlift.

While Monday’s workout didn’t have me leaving the gym feeling exhausted, I did feel worked. And no question, I worked something given the muscle soreness I had. 😉  Worst? my thigh adductors. The form Rippetoe describes for the squat brings those into play, which is good. But walking to the gym helped to warm things up and the first set of squats helped further warm and stretch things out. Felt fine after that.

It felt kinda funny today to spend it all at the squat rack, but that’s how it goes. 🙂

Went like this:

Squat

  • 2x5x45 (bar-only warmup, every exercise starts this way)
  • 1x5x45 (warmup)
  • 1x3x65 (warmup)
  • 1x2x95 (warmup, calculations should have been 90, but “plate math” was easier to just go 95)
  • 3x5x115 (work)

This was my second time squatting, so now I can actually follow the routine. The pattern will basically be like this, where I figure out what the work weight will be (right now, I’m going up 10# each workout, so Friday I’ll be doing 125# for my 3×5 work sets), and then the warmups are basically: 2×5 bar only, 1×5 40% of work weight, 1×3 60% work weight, 1×2 80% work weight. Those warm ups are good. Using the bar only helped me to get stretched and limber (esp. given my soreness) and also to just remember to work on form. I did recall the last warmup set thinking “ok, this is a little heavy”, and that’s what it should be: that it’s easy to do, but it mentally prepares you for the heavy that’s about to come. And sure enough, I put the 115 on my back and my brain went “whoa! cool!”. 🙂

I’m still getting used to the low-bar position, but I did much better with it today. The flexibility will come, just have to keep remembering to pull my elbow back to make the padding/pocket for the bar to rest on.

I felt worked, but not exhausted. The work sets weren’t killer, so I know I’ve still got big progression in me for a bit longer.

Rest? I didn’t rest much during the warmups… just enough to figure out the plates I needed and put them on. I don’t recall how much I did rest between the work sets, but probably 2-3-ish minutes. I just recall making sure I felt fresh and like I could do it.

Press

  • 1x5x45
  • 1x5x55
  • 4x5x65

This was my first press, so I started with the empty bar and went up 10# each set. When I hit 65# I thought that was good enough to start with. I did feel like I could have done more, but I realized as I was going along that I was forgetting some key things about my form, like moving back under the bar as soon as it clears your head. Just a lot of points to remember and I didn’t remember them all, tho that one was probably more key than any others. Basically by the 4th set I’d remember it on my 2nd rep and finish out the last 3 reps properly. That also got the squeeze at the top, like you never stop pressing. I opted to do a 4th set just to help reinforce the movement and form.

The weight is conservative, but that’s fine. I need to get form right. Weight will come.

Deadlift

  • 1x5x95
  • 1x5x105
  • 1x5x115
  • 1x5x125
  • 1x5x135

This was my first deadlift, so again it was just a basic 10# progression. I started at 95# tho because of the nature of the deadlift: needing to have the bar somewhat off the floor. The gym has 25# and 45# plates, so I figured to just start at 95# and that’d get me going. I probably should have put some risers underneath the plates to bring them to 45-plate height, but meh… I’m not sweating it. Yes I noticed form was a lot better on the 135 due in part to the height of the bar, and if the gym had bumper plates I’d use them. But, I’ll manage. Besides, it gets me to stretch my hamstrings a little more, which is good.

Another case of feeling like I could have done more, but again, let’s be conservative. This is one where I need to spend more time working on my form. I wasn’t bad, but I betcha a video of the lifts would have been ugly. 😉  I got better as I went along, but basically I need to review the DVD and book again on press and deadlift form, do more “dry work” at home (I have a 6′ rattan staff from my Kuk Sool days, which offers no weight, but it’s a bar and enough to help me work on form). I’ll get there.

Overall, the workout was good. I’m trying to be conservative, focus on form, and that weight and such will come in time.  I do like the utter simplicity of this workout plan. And that it’s so proven and tested gives me a lot to look forward to.

 

I love the Alamo Drafthouse

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

You know why I love the Alamo Drafthouse?

Numerous reasons. Mind you, I’m not the biggest movie go-er, but when I go, the Drafthouse makes for a great experience. The seats are comfortable, not just cushy and wide enough to fit my 6’3″ frame, but also there’s loads of leg room.. .again for my 6’3″ frame. Of course, the fact there’s excellent food and beer is a wonderful thing too. All the various special events are awesome. Family pretty much refuses to see movies anywhere else, and generally that works out because most any movie worth seeing ends up being shown at the Drafthouse.

But the biggest reason is they take their movie-watching seriously…. as this girl found out:

Awesome. One more reason to love the Drafthouse. 🙂

Distance and cadence

/ hsoi

I was talking with a friend about the recent AT-6 class and he was saying one thing that class did for him was helping him with realizing to change your cadence when changing distance. That is, when the target is up close, you can shoot faster and still get good hits. When the target is further away, you have to go slower to still get good hits.

I’d actually simplify this notion a bit.

It’s not about distance to/from the target, it’s about the size of the target.

You have to go slow to hit small things, you can go faster to hit big things.

If you have an 8-inch circle for your target, at 3 yards it’ll be “so big” and you can go at a faster pace and still get all your hits within that circle. If you then step back to 25 yards, that 8-inch circle is going to look pretty small and you’re going to have to slow down. The target didn’t actually change size, but relatively speaking it did and that’s what matters. If you put a 8-foot circle as your target and went back to 25 yards, I betcha you could still shoot pretty fast and still get all your hits in that 8-foot circle. If you had a 0.8-inch circle, even at 3 yards you’re going to slow down and really be sure of a precise sight picture to hit that tiny target.

So it’s not really about distance to/from the target, it’s more about the (perceived) size of the target. To hit smaller things you’re going to have to slow down. If the thing is bigger, you can go faster. Implied in that is if the target size changes, your shooting cadence must also change.