Finally hooking up the blog to my Facebook account so posts here link there… or something.
Let’s see if this works.
And instead of the usual “testing, ignore” statement… I’m going to request you lavish mountains of attention and affection upon me. kthxbye.
Well, classes. Two to be exact.
KR Training held two classes today: Defensive Pistol Skills 1, and Beyond the Basics: Handgun. What was different was the classes were held at the Austin Rifle Club instead of Karl’s A-Zone Range. Reason is simple: Karl doesn’t do live-fire there during deer hunting season so the rural neighbors can hunt without gunfire scaring all the deer out of the area.
Apart from the strong winds all day long, the classes went alright. I’m actually rather exhausted so I’m not all that motivated to type, but I’ll say a few things:
It’s great to see such diversity in students. Young people, old people, various ethnicities, various backgrounds. Guns aren’t just for old white rednecks, no matter what the stereotypes say. What made me especially happy was to see a few women attending these intermediate-level classes. For whatever reason (and I have my hypotheses), you see lots of women in beginner courses but so few in courses beyond that. I think it’s great to see anyone wanting to take their skills to a higher level, but it’s especially wonderful to see women wanting to become truly skilled shooters.
It’s good for people to come to these classes and learn their gear sucks. Any gun is fine when you’re under no pressure, shooting at your leisure, and nothing important is on the line. But if you’re betting on this gun to save your life someday? It’s good to know if it can actually run. It’s good to know what gear is bad, what gear is good. It’s good to learn how crappy those double-action/single-action guns are (I’m looking at you, Sig)… when you have that long, heavy, first trigger pull and how difficult it is to get a good first hit — especially when the first shot is the most important — well… it’s just good to learn all of this stuff under the pressure of a safe classroom environment than when it may really matter. I tell people that while we have investment, financially and emotionally, in our gear, just weigh the costs here: if it’s a range toy, whatever; but if this is your life, what’s your life worth? If your gear sucks, abandon it and seek better gear. It may take you a while to shop around, lots of buying and selling, lots of trying, lots of asking questions. Do whatever it takes, because at least for me, while I might have a little emotional attachment to my choice in guns, I have a HUGE emotional attachment to Wife and Kiddos. I want a gun that works right and works best, so I can keep those emotional attachments that matter most.
But the best part? Seeing people improve. At the beginning of BtB:H oh… we had to do some serious reworking of fundamental skills of trigger control and sight alignment — mostly trigger control. And while yes, everyone needs more practice, there’s no question there was substantial improvement by everyone in the class. I was pleased with what I saw.
Two biggest things to help? 1. Dry fire practice. 2. ball-and-dummy drill.
So, apart from being very wind-blown and weary, it was a good day. Everyone left with the same number of holes they came with. Looks like everyone learned something, and hopefully we’ll see these folks back again at future classes.
This is one of those times where the blog is more for me… where I want to write something to help me think through it, to help me remember what I’m thinking. But if someone wants to comment, great.
I’ve got some things rolling around in my head. Trying to think about what to do.
One gun thing that I’m not waffling about… I need to step back on my formal working and step up my informal working. That is, be it teaching classes or taking classes, I have to be selective and moderate here. I’ve been really diving into this because there’s so much I want to do, but it’s consuming too much time and I have to pull back. Because the flip side is, I have to get to the range more regularly. The trouble is going to the range is a massive time sink for me but you know… if the ONLY thing I can do is go to the local indoor range and do “abridged” work (e.g. can’t practice draw from concealment, but I can practice press-outs, I can practice 25 yard groups) well, so be it. Some live fire is better than none, and if my only recourse is the local indoor range well, so be it.
On the reloading front…. as you can see, I’m getting back on the ball with .38 Special. If I keep up with it, even if I slack off a day or two here and there, it should be done by the end of the month. So… rifle time. But, what? .223? 6.8? .308?
I recall when I did rifle last time (which was my first time ever with rifle reloading), I had a dog of a time and it just wasn’t happening. Why? Potentially numerous factors, but too difficult and costly (time and money) to nail down. But my thinking then was to just load cheap 55 grain .223 FMJ’s using well-establish recipes and see how that did. Work out any bugs in technique or gun issues or whatever, then go back to serious loads (e.g. hunting stuff). Since that time I’ve gotten into 6.8 SPC and really want to reload for that… but the main reason there? Because I want to use those Barnes 6.8 SPC 95 grain TTSX’s, which you can’t get in a factory load. The thing is tho, reloading 6.8 is just costly, period. Even trying to do “cheap plinking loads” isn’t cheap. And for whatever reason, a few days ago I got some itch to do .308.
Yes. My present leaning is to do .308 Win. Why? I’m not really sure, but I think it’s because .308 is such a great caliber and well.. it’d be cool to do something beefy. 🙂 It’s kinda hard to do .308 wrong… so many people just say “yeah… 45 grains of Varget or 4895 and you’re good to go”. I’ve got a bunch of 147 grain FMJBT’s from Dock, I’ve got powder, I’ve got primers, I’ve got cases, I’ve got dies and shell holders and everything you need. Why not? My thinking? The new range up north has really long yardage. I’ve been toying with the idea of an elk hunt with my Dad. If I want to do that? I probably should be able to ring the gong on demand out to 500 yards. So… working up a .308 plinking load would be in my best interest. And once I can ring the gong like that, then get some Barnes 168 grain TTSX (or maybe 180 grain, if my rifle can handle it) and make a hunting load.
So I don’t know. I may well change my mind again. But I picked up 1000 CCI #200 large rifle primers today, and my present leaning is .308 Win, just cuz. 🙂
I stopped Kuk Sool practice for 2 main reasons: tired of the political bullshit and greed, tired of the lame-ass training approach. The art is sound, and while it has things I don’t care about (e.g. sword), it’s rather solid in its foundations so long as it’s taught and trained in a practical way.
That’s part of why I went to Kali, Silat, Muay Thai, JKD, boxing: practicalness. I wanted to focus (thus why I didn’t add BJJ to the mix), I wanted more practical, where people did spar and go to town. Where a takedown was performed and you went to the mat because you were put there, not because you said “ok, and now I cooperatively fall to the ground”. The only real reason I stopped this was a practical one: just couldn’t make classes.
So I’ve been out of the formal mix for some months and want to get back to it. I have been thinking about Aikido and even paid a brief visit to a local dojo. Been talking to an old friend about it, reading up. And while there’s something about Aikido that interests me, for some reason I just can’t pull the trigger on it. Yes the philosophical notions are interesting to me to explore, but they conflict with my own philosophy. Furthermore, let’s just be frank — I like hitting things. 🙂 There’s really no striking in Aikido (yes there is atemi, but certainly nothing like say Muay Thai). Plus you have to find the right school, because Aikido spans so much and risks being watered down and too new-agey-touchy-feely; old-school Aikido I could be cool with.
So I found this one school, “Martial Arts Center of Austin“. I know the location and well, while the website doesn’t strictly say, I know that was Brian Duffy‘s place. Brian Duffy’s a legit guy in the world of Ed Parker’s American Kenpo. I even recall my old Kuk Sool teacher, Dewain Perry, telling me how he and guys from Duffy’s school would get together and full-contact spar all the time, only having to stop because they were getting too hurt from going too rough (they liked to “go”). 🙂 Thing is, last few times I drove by that place I don’t think I saw Duffy’s name on it. And if you look at this MACA website, they are really devoid of any idea of who is running the place… no instructor names, no instructor bios. But I do see Kenpo on the schedule. The schedule tho… it’s got a ton of stuff, seems an eclectic place. Not 100% sure what to make of it. Then over here, this guy reviews all the Aikido-related places around Austin and spoke highly of MACA. I’m not sure what to make of the place
But the real kicker? Watching the videos of that school rekindled a desire for particular training. Yeah, I kinda like traditional arts, formal but not uptight. In the end, the body only moves in so many ways, and heck, if we want to talk about Aikijujitsu lineages then Kuk Sool eventually falls from that tree (look at the Hapkido bridge). So really, what’s the difference? I have had thoughts about rejoining Kuk Sool, because I didn’t get to leave it under the circumstances I wanted to. Especially now that Master Lee has broken off from WKSA gosh… he’s a great guy, worthy of respect because of who he is, not what he is. I know if I joined up that way, there’d be no real political b.s. to have to deal with. But what about training? As much as I love Master Les and know HE can be a pretty hardcore guy, the way he runs his school is very family oriented and NOT hardcore at all.
While out shopping I ran into an old training buddy, Ricky. We got our 1st degree black belts together, and were testing together for 2nd, so we were “classmates”. Of course, I left, but he stayed on because it’s been his dream to have his own school. Well, when Master Lee broke off, he did too, and started his own school. Running into him today was purely by chance, but it was really cool to see him and his wife and talk about things. He extended an open invitation for me to work out at his school any time and I may just take him up on it…. dust off the dobok and see how much I’ve forgotten. 😉 The cool thing? Talking to Ricky about how they train there. They are of similar philosophy to me, which is good. But also slightly different, for Ricky and the old school stable of friends well… they’re all at least 10 years younger and me and with slightly different motivations and goals than I have (e.g. I just can’t do the gymnastics they like doing). Will it mesh? Will it work? I’m not sure. Plus, could I have the long-term growth that I want? The freedom to explore and work “outside the box”? I’m not sure. But that this happened is good as it gives me more options.
So I don’t know. There’s a lot swirling around and perhaps there’s a reason I haven’t been able to pull the trigger on things. That I bumped into Ricky was odd, but perhaps part of the bigger picture. Don’t know, we’ll see.
But I think I might dust off my dobok and see how much I remember. 🙂
I wonder if future generations of children will play “TSA Agent” instead of “Doctor”.
…doing it yourself.
200 rounds of .38 Special. Loaded myself, same recipe.
Happy because there’s no factory load like this. I can do it myself and get exactly what I want. The materials, the performance, the quality, the satisfaction.
When I posted about “What To Teach The Kids“, I desired to write this side-bar on learning how to program.
You see, the trouble with getting started in programming is it’s difficult. Usually you want to learn to program because you want to do something, but there’s a lot of things you have to get straight before you can do something. It’s frustrating. You have to learn programming concepts, like loops, if-decisions, storage, subroutines and the like. You’ll have to learn higher concepts like factoring and organization. If you’re doing object-oriented programming you have to learn that whole paradigm and perhaps start to understand design patterns. Then you have to learn some language and all the quirks that come with it. You’ll have to learn some sort of library or framework. Depending what you want to do, there may be other specialty frameworks or concepts you have to pick up on, like for games work. I mean, it’s hard to get started because there’s so much you must have in order to just get started.
So how can you get started?
It so happens some other folks are presently discussing this, here and here. I think they’re headed in the right direction but haven’t quite gotten there. But the direction really is nothing new.
Back in undergrad I took this “abstract” computer programming class that used something called Karel the Robot. I remember in grade school learning to program in LOGO, which was kinda neat but looking back I see it was poorly taught and taught without direction… what’s the point of making this turtle draw a star on screen? But that started the ball rolling. BASIC was cool and very functional. But Karel was different.
Karel wasn’t out to teach you a programming language or other hard skills. Karel was out to teach you the basic theory of programming. Karel’s a robot that lives in a grid world. He can do a few simple things like advance, turn left, detect a beeper, pick up a beeper and put it in his beeper bag (I always thought “beeper bag” was a cute concept), detect walls. Very simple things, but from those simple building blocks you were able to learn concepts. For instance, you learned about the notion of subroutines when you wrote the “turn right” routine implemented as 3 turn left commands. And so it would grow from there. Karel was deliberately simplified so you didn’t have to worry about all the gory details that programming truly involves, so all you had to focus on was concepts of programming that apply anywhere regardless of programming paradigm.
Karel’s been around for 30 years, and truly I think this is the way to start programming because once you understand the concepts — and can do so free of all the other complex dreck — you’ll “get it” and be able to progress a lot faster. Karel’s been ported to numerous environments and languages, with an attempt to keep the essence of Karel but also give a gentle introduction to the language. I’m of mixed feeling about that because it removes a basic tenet of Karel: the simplicity of worrying about other stuff. But for those eager to get going, it may not be so bad.
Still, the trouble with the Karel is you can’t do anything useful, but that’s the tradeoff: ease of learning vs. usefulness. Again, when people get interested in programming it’s typically because they want to do something. So how can we get them to do something?
I’ve looked around for ways to teach kids to program, that honors the real tenants of programming — perhaps simplifying but not dumbing down nor misrepresenting — but still lets them do something useful.
I found this product called Stagecast. I’ve only evaluated it, but it looks pretty neat. It’s visual programming. It’s very simplified, a lot of click and drag and so on, but it still is true to real programming. The real bonus is the feedback and results are immediate. The kids can see what’s happening and how it all works. There’s no need to edit 500 lines of code across 20 files, wait for it to build, fix compiler errors, build again, then try to debug it. It’s like my “fishing vs. catching” analogy: there’s fishing, then there’s catching… you can fish all day, catch nothing, and it’s still a good day fishing. But if you’re trying to introduce a kid to fishing, they want to catch and catch soon else they will lose interest. So for kids, you have to start out with “catching” and as they start to enjoy “catching”, inevitably they’ll discover what “fishing” is. So I feel the same can happen here with Stagecast… let them “catch” and immediately create things in a simplified way. If they truly love programming then they’ll start to see the restrictions and limitations of Stagecast and want to explore further (“I want to write an iPhone game!”) and so, then you can start to introduce them along the path to other languages and other things.
If I picked a more generic path, I’d say the next step might be to teach them HTML. No it’s not a programming language, but it’s still simple, teaches formal constructs and organization, how to look things up in references, and again you get results but still have to debug those results. If they want to do more, JavaScript could be a simpler language to learn. I’d also say a modern scripting language like Python or Ruby would make a good “next step”. But exactly where to go from here really all depends upon their interest and direction.
Of course, something like LEGO Mindstorms would be wicked cool too, if you can afford it. 🙂
Getting started with programming is a daunting task because you have to lay so much foundation before you can do anything useful. I believe laying the core foundation of principles, through something like Karel the Robot, is a good approach to take. Then moving to simplified but immediately productive environments such as Stagecast makes for a good transition. After that, you just have to determine your goals and where you want to go. There are ways to get there in steps, you just have to be patient. 🙂
Bluesun starts the experiment (in earnest).
And now with my linkage to them, I guess the chain continues.
Y’all pick it up.
I have no words… just a lot of turbid emotions.
But it’s a sober reminder for you and the ones you love.
Go read. Then go tell those you love that you love them.
U.S. to Host World Press Freedom Day in 2011
The theme for next year’s commemoration will be 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.
Emphasis added.
I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
I ebb and flow when it comes to RSS. Oh sure it’s great in a lot of ways, but I also found that because I can keep up with a zillion websites that I do… and it becomes a huge time sink out of my day. Addicted to information, I guess.
So I’ll use RSS, then go away for a while, then come back, then go away… and now I’m thinking about coming back again for my daily “catch up on everything I care about” -fare. So as I plod my way through NetNewsWire I see how many feeds I need to manually massage to get back on track. I notice that just about every Blogspot-based blog needs a manual re-subscription to get things back on track. WordPress.com-hosted and sites hosted by individuals seem to still be working just fine.
Another reason I’m happy I avoided Blogspot. 🙂
The interesting thing? Most of the sites of true merit I checked manually anyways. As I sift through most of the other blogs and news sites I subscribe to… gosh… if there isn’t just a lot of noise to sort through. Much use of the “Mark Everything as Read” command.
Of course, my little blog here contributes to the mess…. be it signal or be it noise, you can decide for yourself.
