Author: hsoi

Sunday Metal – Chris Broderick

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

While YouTubing around for metal videos, well… you know how YouTube gives you related video suggestions. I came across a bunch of selections from Chris Broderick, presently the guitarist for Megadeth.

Now there’s no question the guy is beyond talented, but I didn’t know how talented.

Can you two-hand tap like this?

Here he is playing Caprice No.7 Op 20 by Luigi Legnani (amazing).

I’ve always enjoyed and appreciated how much classical music and heavy metal have in common. Another, from J.S. Bach

Then you get a little jazz piece like this:

When I saw Megadeth a little while ago, it was amazing to watch him up there playing Headcrusher. The song shreds and he’s just effortless. Even Mustaine, who’s no slouch, appears to be challenged by Brodericks’ playing.

Awesome.

We now know about Sasha’s past…

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

I haven’t written much about our dog training because well… I just haven’t. But we haven’t stopped. We’re still working with Sasha and the new (well, she’s not new any more) trainer. We’ve done a lot of the basic obedience, working on her territorialness, and teaching her how to be calm on command (“settle”).

What’s really interesting is the recent turn of events. If you remember, we took ownership of Sasha around 8 months of age. She had another owner for 4 months prior. We had a lot of questions about what went on during those 4 months because the time from age 2 months to 6 months can be a very vital stage in a puppy’s development. But we resigned ourselves to never really knowing what happened apart from the few things the breeder told us.

Let’s hear it for the Internet. A few weeks ago I get an email from Sasha’s previous owner! You see, when he returned Sasha to the breeder they said she’d become a show dog. Well, a few weeks ago he happened to be thinking about her and figured he could Google to see if perhaps she was listed in any dog show results. Instead, he found my blog and based upon what I had written knew it was her. He wasn’t sure about reaching out to me, but because he’s always dealt with recuse dogs and wondered about their pasts, he figured now being on the other side of that coin he’d contact me so he could fill informational void.

We’ve been exchanging some emails, with him telling me a lot about her past, including sharing pictures. It’s been very useful and answered a lot of the questions we had. We gave all of this information to our trainer, and it’s creating a new course of action for us in terms of behavior modification work. All good. It’s still going to take months of work, but we’re dedicated to this dog. She’s awesome… it’s just that well… “this one goes to 11” and we sometimes just need her to turn it back to a 10. 😉

Here’s a puppy picture her previous owner shared with us. Ain’t she cute?

Random

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

That hog Oldest shot? Yielded 95lbs of “parts” at the butcher. Easily would have been over 100 lbs if we had kept the shoulder he shot through. That does include ribs, which should have enough meat on them for eating. It’s at the butcher’s, and so we wait for them to finish; much sausage to be had.

That reminds me, I need to call that taxidermist to ensure he picked up the head. Getting it european mounted. I was surprised tho. I immediately nixed getting a full mount of the head because I figured Wife wouldn’t want it. To my surprise she actually wouldn’t have minded it, so long as it stayed mounted in Oldest’s room. 🙂  I actually wouldn’t have minded it because after I washed all the dirt off Mr. Hog, his fur was actually very pretty. It’s thicker hairs so there’s more of a “rod” to catch and diffuse light; couple that with the deep dark brown-red color and the way the fur looked in the sunlight was actually very pretty. But just as well, because Oldest actually prefers the Euro mount since there’s more skull to see… the anatomy/biology of it all is interesting to our own Mr. Science.

Geez… and some 15 years ago I never would have thought I’d be hanging dead animals on my wall. People change.

Tax paperwork is done and I drop it off later this morning with my accountant. First time doing taxes for my LLC, so this will be new and novel. I hate the fact it has taken me so long to get my paperwork in. Usually I have it all ready by the start of March, not the end. But life’s been crazier and more hectic than I’ve experienced in many years and I just wasn’t able to get it done until now. But on the good side, I think that was a big source of my stress as of late, and I feel a lot better now. I may even get some chores done this weekend.

Heck, I might even catch up on my blog/RSS feeds this weekend. I forgot that I have NetNewsWire on my iPhone and since it’s all synced via Google Reader well…maybe in bed before I fall asleep I need to read instead of playing Angry Birds. 🙂

Julie Golob keeps posting awesome recipes to her Facebook page. I commented that she needs to write a wild game cookbook. She “liked” my comment. So folks you heard it here. If Julie writes a cookbook, it’s all because of me. 😉

Anyone ever install a cat door on a house interior door? I’m wanting to put a few cat doors on our interior doors (e.g. one into the laundry room where the cat box is; let cats in, keep the poo-eating dog out) but you know these interior doors are just cheap “shells”. I’m afraid if I cut into a door it’s just going to collapse, or that there isn’t enough structural integrity in the door to actually support a cat door. Anyone have experience with this?

And that marks all I can write about right now. Just been too stressed and living a hectic time to be able to write much. *sigh* But thank you for sticking around and reading. 🙂

Palm38 Tri-Plex ammo

/ hsoi

I like snub revolvers. One challenge is finding the right/best ammo to carry in a snub. I have documented my snub trials, if you want to read them. So when I read over at The Firearm Blog about the Palm38 Tri-Plex Multi-Projectile .38 Special Cartridge, I was intrigued.

I read the specifications PDF. It looks… interesting. I’d like to see how it actually fares in something other than gel, and it’d also be nice to see it performing 1. in a lot more tests, 2. out of its intended firearm. From what I can tell, this ammo would NOT be good for use in the general sense (looks like it’s not very useful past 10-15 feet). But you see, this ammo is made by the people behind The Palm Pistol. So within that intended niche, the ammo appears to have promise. The Palm Pistol is designed for people who may have dexterity issues or arthritis and the like. In cases like those, the less recoil the better. But of course, if you reduce the kick going backward you also reduce the kick going forward. Furthermore, the Palm Pistol is single-shot, so anything you can do to make your one shot do as much work as possible, that’d be good. The Palm Pistol isn’t meant for distance, and aiming is either by point shooting or at best a laser, so distance isn’t too much of a factor. Within those parameters, this ammo could be a good thing.

It’ll be interesting to follow their developments.

Observations about observation

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Jay’s back online. He’s been on duty as a Deputy for about 6 weeks now, and has some observations about observation.

I’ve observed some unobservant behavior recently myself.

Was at a bookstore a couple of nights ago and there was some hipster guy walking around with his nose glued to his mobile phone. The entire time I was in the store and saw the guy, he was always glued to the phone (15 minutes? maybe more). He was holding the phone up such that it forced his eyes on a more horizontal plane than on a diagonal downwards to the ground, but yet he walked around constantly with the phone in front of him and his eyes more focused on the phone than anything else. He was able to notice things better than someone whose focal plane was aimed downward, but yet I could still see his walking wasn’t steady nor decisive. He might have noticed that giant bookshelf in front of him, but barely. I was tempted to walk up to him and constantly get in his way to see just how badly his “condition white” was, but I was out with the family and figured the guy would have caused a scene… since he’s engaging in his behavior, he doesn’t find that behavior to be wrong, so my pointing it out to him would only put him on the defensive and then I become the asshole. I didn’t need the grief. Besides, sooner or later he’ll fall into a fountain and hopefully learn a lesson on his own.

I was in the drive-thru at a bank. The woman in the lane next to me finished and she pulled forward into the open parking lot. I saw her park her large SUV, get out — leaving her driver’s door wide open (and car running) — and go around the back of the vehicle to the rear passenger-side door. She opened it and proceeded to do something for a few minutes, my guess is there was a child back there in a car seat that needed tending to. So now, her car is running, her driver’s door is open, and she’s on the complete other side of the car. She can’t clearly see anything on the driver’s side of the car, her attention is focused on the child that’s strapped into the car seat… and here I see some strange man walking through the parking lot. There’s no way she can see this man, and he’s walking in a direction that puts me into condition orange: he’s going towards her open driver’s door. I’m formulating a plan of action, then I see the man continue past the car. A minute later the woman closes the rear door, walks back around the car, into the driver’s seat, and off she goes.

I just kept thinking how someone could jump into that car and drive off… who cares about the car, it’s about the child in the back seat.

No, I’m not perfect myself. We are all guilty of slipping in and out of condition white. We just have to do our best to be vigilant and spend as much time ‘condition yellow’ as we can.

Like free stuff?

/ hsoi

I just saw this posted to TacticalGunReview.com

We will be holding monthly drawings for cool schwag for reviewers.

For every review submitted, you get your name added to the hat.

The more reviews, the better your chance of winning

We will have COOL stuff to give away, no crap you don’t want.

At the end of the year we will put the monthly winners in a drawing for something VERY cool, like a gun or nice scope!

Spread the word

Guess I’m going to need to post more reviews… there, not here. 🙂

Is your iPhone data fully encrypted?

/ hsoi

I subscribe to TidBITS, and in issue #1068 (21-Mar-2011) was an article about ensuring your iOS device is really encrypted.

I fell into that situation. iPhone 3GS, started with iOS 3, upgraded to iOS 4, but while I used a passcode my data wasn’t fully encrypted. Or at least, as encrypted as it can be.

Apple has an article that explains it all.

It was time-consuming to perform on my part because I have a lot of data and almost full iPhone. But it’s a one-time operation. I just started things before I went to bed and let it roll.

If you have a recent iOS-device, you’d do well to check to ensure your data is fully encrypted (the articles explain how to check), and if not, take the time and trouble to remedy it.

The dream of one-shot stop

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

I don’t want to say it’s a myth, because it can happen. So instead, I’ll call it a dream because sometimes dreams do come true.

The “one shot stop”.

A few days ago something happened that caused me to think about this topic again. Oldest shot a 255# boar. A big, tough S.O.B.. It was a perfect shot through the vitals, 165 grains of .308 Win Barnes TSX dead-on through the heart. About 2500 fps, about 2300 ft-lbs of energy. Massive damage, and right through the pump station. Yet, the hog still ran a good 25 yards.

So why is it that people believe one shot from a .45 ACP is going to drop someone in their tracks? I’m not saying it’s not possible, but it’s not something you should count on. Remember, all pistol rounds suck. Caliber only matters inasmuch as it affects your ability to get good penetration and shot placement. As long as your round can get down where it needs to be, and you can put it there on-demand, that’s what matters. But don’t think that one shot is all it’s going to take. If you’re in a self-defense situation, your goal is to stop the attack. Techniques where you shoot once, or “double-tap” and assess, they can lull you into a routine that may set you up for trouble. That hog was shot through the heart yet he still “kept fighting” long enough to potentially do some damage if we weren’t 60+ yards away from him.

One-shot stops can happen, but instead of wishing for your dream to come true, it’s better to keep working to make the reality happen. Keep fighting until the fight is over… because your opponent probably will do the same.

If you need tree work done in the Austin area…

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

I just had some tree work done at my house. Took one tree out, some serious trimming on another that was causing constant roof and fence issues for myself and a neighbor. I am pleased with the work: the job done, the cost involved, how long it took, etc.. I wanted to give some credit to the guys that did the work. If you’re in the Austin area and need tree work, give them a call at least to get a bid:

Don Glass of Arbor Logical Tree Care: 512-368-6523

Silvester Rodgers of Awesome Tree Service: 512-466-1169

Technically two companies, but they work together. Call either one.

They have almost 50 years experience between the two of them, are arborists, and from the looks of the services offered can handle almost any tree need you have. Estimates were free, so there’s no downside to contacting them when you need work done.

I write this because everyone bitches when things are bad, but people aren’t so quick to provide support and complements when due. I try to give both: if it’s bad, say it’s bad; if it’s good, say it’s good. Let people know there’s good out there. 🙂