Author: hsoi

2011-04-18 workout

/ hsoi

Gotta make this a quick entry… need to get to other things with the day.

The workout went well. After doing a lot of reading over the weekend and giving how my body is feeling, I’m changing up slightly. Instead of aiming for 3 sets of 8-12 reps, I’m going for 4 sets of 6-10 reps, except the isolation exercises like curls and triceps extensions I’ll have those be 3 sets since those muscles will have gotten some good work already.

Exercises were the same as prior workout. Some weight increase too. I’m getting close to finding my groove in all the exercises and the amount of weight needed. When doing squats tho, the owner was walking by and just said “keep your core tight, push up through your heels”. Good advice… I’ve forgotten so much but getting it all back. 🙂

I strove to do that during the workout but found that there’s a part of me that’s trying to push more through the weight and letting form be a bit less than strict. Not sloppy by any means, but I’m focused on so many things and strict strict form hasn’t been one of them. For instance, keeping my core tight. Any time I did that, it made things harder, so that’s good. I’m thinking next workout I’ll keep everything exactly the same in terms of sets, reps, weight, exercises, but slow down a bit, try to exaggerate form to be uber-strict, really squeeze at the top of the rep.

Left ankle hurt a bit on the jog home so it was half jog half walk. That’s the ankle I blew out years ago doing jump spin kicks in Kuk Sool and landing badly from being exhausted and losing my balance.

Also tweaking some of my thoughts on nutrition. Only supplements I’m doing right now is a general multivitamin and fish oil in the morning, calcium and vitamin C before bed. Eating good food, ensuring good protein intake. Trying to space out meals every 2-3 hours and keep them small. Not being uber strict here… need to find my groove here too, but it’ll come. I figure after a month or two I’ll want to look at picking up whey protein and perhaps creatine, but we’ll see. I will likely also switch to a better multivitamin, but not until our current supply in the house is used up (e.g. we bought Centrum for the kiddos but it seems to bother their stomachs… so… I need to use it all up since I seem to be the only one that can consume it).

Another cool thing was finding FitnessTrack. It’s a barebones workout tracking app. It doesn’t have all sorts of sexy frills, but I don’t need that. It seems to be doing what’s needed, straightforward, and seems to work nicely. Of course being a developer myself I thought I could write something, but hey… let’s see what’s out there first. If this ends up fitting my bill, great.

Feeling good!

A reminder for you smokers….

/ hsoi

Texas is having major drought conditions. It’s dry, it’s windy, and that’s prime for fires.

We’re having them.

On Sunday afternoon I was out with some folks and we noticed a large plume of smoke rising in the distance. No question something big was on fire. I get home and Wife sees there’s a brush fire that broke out around 2 PM not a few miles from my house. Yes, a little scary to think about.

As of this writing, they don’t know what the cause is…. but I’m going to go out on a limb and wonder if it was caused by a smoker flicking their cigarette butt out the car window.

A few weeks ago Wife and Daughter were driving out of our neighborhood and saw some smoke rising up off the curb. All the Live Oak trees have dropped their leaves and pollen sacks, so all that tinder is pooled up along the curbs. At first they weren’t sure if it was exhaust from a car that was parked and running, so they didn’t think much about it. But on the way home, they still saw smoke and called the fire department.

Look… I used to smoke. I understand finishing a smoke and flicking the butt away. But it’s irresponsible and can cause so much damage, loss of property, loss of life. In general you shouldn’t do it because it is one of the biggest sources of litter. But even more so now it shouldn’t be done because it can lead to fires… to people losing their homes, massive disruption of their lives, and perhaps even loss of life.

I don’t care if you smoke — it’s your life, it’s your mouth, lips, heart, and lungs. But once you flick a lit butt, a fire starts… now you’re infringing upon others and their ability to enjoy and live their lives. That’s not permissible.

Find a more responsible place to extinguish your cigarette, please.

Updated: Looks like they have a suspect in custody and are charging them with arson. Glad to hear it. Doesn’t say how it was started, if it may have been a cigarette butt. I should make it clear that I don’t know if that’s how it was started and I’m not saying it is. But I have seen more than enough times in my life where such a simple, thoughtless act can cause big ugly things to happen. It’s completely preventable, so folks… let’s prevent it.

2 Letter Words

/ hsoi

On Sunday afternoon, Family attended a birthday party for a child that’s friends with Youngest. During the party, the males went off to Blazer Tag and the women-folk stayed at the house and did their thing. Apparently that included playing Scrabble.

The men returned from a hearty battle, and I see Wife’s Scrabble tray is full of useless letters. 🙂  There’s the rulebook, and in the rulebook it lists a bunch of 2 letter words.

How in the world is “AA” a word??????

Sure, “am”, “is”, “do”, “it”, “in”, and the like… sure, those are fine. But there were a whole bunch of 2-letter words that I couldn’t believe existed.

A joke started that I should blog about it and see if people knew. But honestly, why blog about it when you could just Google and find the answer. And so, that’s what I did.

Apparently there are 101 two-letter words that are acceptable in Scrabble.

So there you go, El. Google to the rescue, and I blogged about it. 😉

Moneydance – so far, almost good

/ hsoi

Moneydance has been working out as my financial software. I’m still dealing with those interface quirks (hey Moneydance, you hiring?), but you figure them out and soon enough it just fades into the background.

It seems to be doing the job well enough.

Except… exporting.

This is the first year I have to file for my LLC, so since I tracked those expenses in Quicken I just exported a QIF and sent those to my accountant. Funny… QuickBooks doesn’t grok QIF. You’d think Intuit might recognize its own file format, but I guess not.

Let’s see… what can Moneydance export? Oh… QIF. They can also export in their own format as well as a simple tab-delimited, which is better than nothing and thus can go into Excel, but… that feels so flat. Especially when Moneydance can import OFX and OFC files… why can’t it also export those formats? I’m not sure if QuickBooks can import those either. Bottom line: I’d love a file format that my accountant can grok. 🙂

In the end tho, Moneydance’s reports came to the rescue. I created a detailed income & expense report, printed to PDF, and sent that to my accountant. Hardly ideal, but here we are.

Will have more in-depth talks with my accountant later about how we can come up with a better solution. 🙂

Shooting tips from Julie Golob

/ hsoi

A short but great article by Julie Golob on how to shoot a pistol better.

This part stood out to me:

Q: What about your grip?

A: I like to get a high grip on the gun, gripping as strongly as I can with my strong hand, but not so much that my hand shakes. I also cant the wrist of my support hand down so that my thumb is pointing straight down range. I wrap my support hand fingers around my strong hand, with the fingers overlapping. My support hand thumb fits under my strong hand thumb like a puzzle piece. I don’t want any gap between my hands. I squeeze my support hand fingers toward my palm.  Last, I use my chest muscles to compress the palms of my hands together around the back of the grip.

Gripping the gun is a full-body exercise! It will be tiring.

This is the kind of stuff taught out at KR Training. Come on down!

2011-04-14 workout

/ hsoi

Today’s workout was MUCH better than Monday’s. 🙂

First, after Monday’s workout, of course I was VERY sore, which was to be expected. Not just because it was the first workout, but because I found my limit. At this stage it’s more important for me to recover than it is to get back into the gym, so for now I’m opting to go 2x week to maximize rest and recovery, but still tell my body it needs to start adapting and growing. Once I adjust to this, I’ll see about 3x week, and then once that’s good I’ll consider 4x doing a split like upper body one day, lower & abs the next. But that’s a ways off.

Jogged there, and the jog went smoother.

At the gym, the goal was to do the exact same workout as Monday, pushing myself, but not going over the limit. So if I did 3×12 of something, unless it was WAY easy last time still do 3×12 this time. If I could only do 3×8 because I was sore, leave it alone and just do that. I wanted to finish a full workout today and not go past my limit again.

  • Squats
  • Bent-over barbell rows
  • Bench press
  • Seated overhead dumbbell press
  • Standing machine calf raises
  • Barbell bicep curls
  • Rope-handle triceps pushdowns
  • crunches on ab machine

I managed to get through the whole workout this time. Dropped the reps on squats because my quads are still rather sore. Upped the weight on the rows and it was just right; probably will bump up next time. Bench can be bumped up in weight. I dropped the dumbbell presses 5# and was able to squeeze things out much better — that’s what pushed me too far last time, so pulling it back was good. Upped weight on calf raises and I think I’ll keep it there but go 15 reps now; I seem to recall calf work likes more reps. Curls went fine. And the triceps pushdowns… man, I forgot how much using that rope attachment forces you to squeeze at full extension. I like, but my triceps may be sore after that. 🙂  Tried this ab crunch machine because I’ve never used one before but I’m not sure how well it actually will work my abs just due to how the machine’s range of motion forces/limits how you move. I’ll keep trying it a few times before I pass judgement.

Was able to jog some of the way home… legs were a little weary, especially the calves, so it wasn’t a full-on run, but it was much better than the “oh God please help me just get home” feeling I had on Monday. 🙂

Feeling good!

Ball and Dummy for Dummies

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Dave Re wrote an article about the ball & dummy drill. He challenges the notion that it’s a good drill for curing flinch, offering his critique as well as a better drill.

Give it a read. It’s good food for thought.

I still think ball & dummy is useful because, if nothing else, it helps to make a shooter aware of what they are doing. Most of us will never SEE ourselves yanking the trigger and be aware that we’re doing it, until we press the trigger, there’s no bang but there’s one hell of a dipping of the front sight. So if nothing else, to that end, it’s a useful drill towards helping identify and become aware of a problem, which is really the first stage of fixing the problem.

But no question his suggestion of a solution is useful. I think Karl called it “zen shooting” to me. It’s slightly different but the point remains the same: shooting into the berm with no specific target so that all you do is focus on the front sight and watch the front sight as it moves. You learn a lot.

Politicians not keeping their word… whodathunkit?

/ hsoi

It looks like Sen. Eddie Lucio (D-Brownsville) and Sen. Mario Gallegos (D-Houston) like to go back on their word.

I don’t know about you, but people who give their word then go back on it? They lose a lot of standing in my book. Integrity is about all you really have in life, so it’s important to maintain and improve it… not lose it.

From Alice Tripp of the TSRA:

First Senator Lucio and then Senator Gallegos!
Dear JOHN, 

Rumors include the Brady Campaign funneling money into Texas to kill CHL on Campus!

Background:

SB 354by Sen. Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio) would allow adult students, faculty, and staff with a concealed handgun license to carry in buildings located on college campuses currently prohibited by Texas law. SB 354 would also stop colleges and universities from creatingadministrative rules which serve to expel a student or terminate an employee for simply having their licensed handgun in their personal vehicle.

You might be interested in knowing that every college and university in the state of Texas has such administrative rules on the books.  That’s what local control buys you: zip, nada, nothing!

Update and Status:

SB 354 became eligible to be debated on the Senate floor last week.  TSRA worked to help Senator Wentworth count the required votes to reach the two-thirds rule.  The Texas House uses a Calendars Committee which prioritizes and sets the House Calendar; the Senate requires 2/3s of the total senators present to agree to bring a bill up for discussion.   There are 31 senators and the required number is 21.   The final vote is an up or down simple majority.

It’s a gentlemen’s agreement.  I’ll hear your bill even though I might ultimately vote against it, and you’ll hear mine.   It also gives power to the minority party and in the case of SB 354, a great deal of power.  Two Senators have taken SB 354 hostage, two with help from their “friends”.

Senator Wentworth had counted his votes and turned in his list to the Lt. Governor and we were good-to-go with 22 votes, counting Senator Wentworth.

Governor Dewhurst recognized Senator Wentworth who made the required motion to suspend the rules and consider SB 354.  A debate followed.

The list of senators agreeing to the two-thirds rule included Senator Lucio (D-Brownsville).  Senator Lucio requested language that would address a primary, secondary, and child-care facility on one of his college campuses.  Over night the language was hammered out and Senator Lucio’s staff believed the correction would address the school’s concerns, would be acceptable to Senator Lucio, and wasn’t harmful to Senator Wentworth’s bill.   Good-to-go…

The next day, last Thursday, as Senator Wentworth laid out and began explaining his bill, Senator Lucio decided that he wanted his college to take the weekend (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) to review this language and insisted Senator Wentworth hold off.

Wentworth was ready and anxious to get on with it.   He would keep the language but did not want to wait three more days.   Lucio removed his name from the list and now we were down to 21 but still Good-to-go.

For quite a while the debate continued among those who opposed the bill.  This included Senator Steve Ogden (R-Bryan).   Ogden insisted that so few students would have a concealed handgun license, how could this number possibly make a college campus more safe.   Senator, this is about personal safety!   Not policing a college campus.

After a couple of hours a group of senators gathered around Senator Mario Gallegos’ desk.  Gallegos was on the two-thirds list.  Senator Gallegos supported a similar bill last session and told me he had no problem supporting it again.    However, with some pressure from the opposition, he too took his name off and now we were at 20 and below the required number.   The wheels came off!

Senators Lucio and Gallegos signed the sheet and pledged to vote for the two-third rule to bring up SB 354.  The pledge sheet was submitted to the Lt. Governor’s desk.     Nothing happened to cause these two senators to go back on their commitment, their  word to Senator Wentworth and to Texans.

Below is the list of contact information for Texas state senators:

Please pay special attention and email and to call Senators Lucio (D-Brownsville), Gallegos (D-Houston), and Ogden (R-Bryan).   It’s not a waste of time, it’s important that everyone hears from you but particularly the “opposition”.     If you have children or grandchildren in a Texas college let the Senate know this information too.

I clipped out the contact information. You can find it on the Texas Senate website.

Here’s an even better part to the story. Local CHL Instructor and rights advocate, Robert Greene, visited with Sen. Lucio’s office about this matter. He asked for their source of the information and was told “this conversation is over and you need to leave.”. According to Robert:

Sen. Lucio wouldn’t vote for SB 354 Campus Carry because of the high school using TAMU Kingsville cafeteria and gym. This is not true. After calling St. Gertrudis Academy, we found they are in their own building and use another K-8 schools building for a cafeteria and gym, which are already exempted under federal law.

Yes, the particular issue is of interest to me, but regardless of the particular issue… if someone gives their word then goes back on it, how can you trust them? How can you be assured they won’t renege on a promise they make to you?