Author: hsoi

Do the Republicans get it?

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In today’s mail I received a Travis County Ballot Book. It’s a little booklet designed to be a candidate guide for the upcoming elections. Of course my first reaction is to see who put it out to know how the bias will spin. This particular guide was published by the Travis County Republican Party (how lame… the booklet says their website is www.tcrp.org but that doesn’t work).

The guide starts out with a letter to voters from the TCRP Chair, Rosemary Edwards, Ph.D.. It ends with this gem:

The Republican Party in Travis County stands for protecting YOU from the overreach of government. Your hard earned money is being spent in ways that just don’t make a lot of sense. We want to keep more money in our own pockets to provide for our families. We stand with you in cutting back government programs that get in the way of your prosperity.

When your representatives do not represent the will of the people, we stand with you to VOTE them OUT!

Gosh… what are the odds these words are going to come back and haunt the Republicans?

I do like the word-craft. “Overreach of government”… which means they’ll be happy to reach into your lives and pocketbook to whatever level they see fit, but no more. “We want to keep more money in our own pockets to provide for our families”; my guess is that came out differently than it was intended, but I’ll chalk it up to a Freudian slip because yes… they want to keep more of OUR money (my money) in their own pockets to provide for THEIR families. And cut back programs that get in the way of my prosperity, which implies they’ll be happy to create loads of programs that they believe will somehow benefit me.

What a crock.

I like the last part tho, that if they don’t represent the will of the people they need to be voted out.

You Republicans do realize that means you too, right? Supposing your party wins big in 2010, you realize if you fuck up over the next two years you’ll be seeing an even bigger problem in 2012? Are you going to be man enough to say “yes, vote me out because I talked shit and didn’t back it up like the no-integrity-having scumbag I am?” Or better, are you man enough to acknowledge if you make a mistake and voluntarily step aside?

I’m not betting on them being any different, but I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

The Republicans right now are preaching “hope and change” of their own, especially the change part. I know this is nothing but election-time posturing to get themselves back in power. What they fail to realize is they too are part of the problem. I’d be happy if the Republicans gained control of the Congress because a little gridlock would be good (helps minimize potential for damage). But what the old guard (Democrat and Republican establishment) needs to realize is they are both part of the problem and causing the growing unrest in this nation. The more you bullshit the citizenry, the more angry and upset they will become. Obama promised change, and we got nothing but the same old bullshit. Now you Republicans are promising an alternative, but I know it’s the same old bullshit. Once both major parties demonstrate they’re cut from the same cow patty, it’s only downhill from here.

The slope is slippery, n’est-ce pas?

/ hsoi

All those closed-circuit cameras around town. They always claim they’ll be used for some wonderful purpose, like to stop violent crime. They claim they will never be used for anything else. But you ought to know by now, once something gets put in place, it’s not only next to impossible to remove but they will find other things to use it for.

And such is the case in Nice, France. The CCTV was to only be used for violent crimes, but now parking offenses will be handed out based upon video surveillance.

So… how far are you willing to slide down?

Doggie School – First Day

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Today was Sasha’s first day of doggie school. We’re going to Triple Crown Dog Academy, which is the best school in the area.

I’m pretty impressed with the facility and our trainer, Abel. Looks like they run a good ship, and Abel has the knowledge and experience. He’s never worked with a Kuvasz before, but he was reading up on them before we arrived.

We started out with me being interviewed about our situation, what we wanted out of training, and so on. We then took Sasha out of the car and brought her over to the potty area. Abel observed and as expected Sasha was excited and nervous and reacted as such. We switched her collar to one of their StarMark collars, and boy, that made a difference. She was MUCH more responsive to corrections.

We worked on basics of walking on a loose leash and “sit”. How to work in correction, how to work in praise. The interesting thing? Some of the immediate “how do we deal with these problem situations?” are going to be addressable by this. For instance, when sitting, dog should sit, quietly, waiting for us to “free” them; distractions shouldn’t distract, they are to do nothing but sit (if you will). So let’s say there’s something outside she doesn’t like and she runs up to the window and starts barking. I don’t mind if she alerts us to the situation, so that bark is OK, but continued barking? No go. But do we need to issue other commands, like “quiet”? Well, perhaps later, but not right now. Right now we just work to distract and have her work on “sit”, since that works out the “be quiet” part as well. Of course, we must be a human Pez dispenser with the treats to keep the positive reinforcement going. But for now for the next week, this is where we want to go. Also our walks and teaching her how to walk on a loose leash help out with distractions, keeping focused, and so on.

By the end of the hour? She was approaching Abel and ate out of his hand but then something spooked her and she barked and ran back to Momma. But it was a big change from how she was an hour prior. Furthermore, she was getting pretty good at keeping a watch on us as we walked; able to go further and further without problem.

So, the trainer felt the progress was good. We were all pleased with the results. Yes again we’re behind the curve so there’s work to be done. But so far, so good.

We’ll continue doing private lessons like this for a few weeks, working on the basic obedience and manners. Once she’s got things down, we’ll continue to up the ante, further training, group classes, and so on.

I’m just happy to see progress, both in her, and in us.

Sasha progresses

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These first few days at home with Sasha have been a challenge.

First, we have to make a big paradigm adjustment to “dog think”. Wife and I have been neglecting many other things in our lives (including each other), instead spending our time devouring all that we can about dog think, training, behavior, etc.. Who said training is for the dog? It’s for the owner. 🙂

There is no question Sasha loves and submits to us. We go away and come back, she explodes with joy and excitement at the sight of us. We can cuddle her, brush every part of her, manipulate her head and teeth, you name it, and all the kids can do it too. No doubt, girl has said “This is my family. I love them, I will protect them.”

It’s that last part that’s been hard to deal with.

We don’t know if Sasha has baggage. I spoke with the breeder about this a couple of days ago, and their feeling is Sasha is adjusting. New family, which is strongly claims, then everything else around her is new as well. So, family is good, everything else is unfamiliar thus a potential threat. Thus, much barking, almost impossible to have other people in the house. It’s been a challenge. Wife was rather dejected on Sunday evening. Even the discussions with a friend of mine were a bit on the negative side and had me a little concerned and beat down, like did I get myself into a bad situation?

But I’ll say this.

Sasha is improving.

I’ve been working on the basics: sit, stay, down, come; she knows them, but isn’t 100% with them (especially if there’s a distraction like a perceived threat, which could just be someone outside walking down the sidewalk). She’s good at “drop it” and “leave it”. She knows her name.

I’ve been working on her with “quiet”. I’ve been working on her about going to her “room” (crate). I’ve also been working on loose leash walking. I see progress, but also a lot of work ahead.

This morning, I took her out for a walk. The past few days I haven’t done a neighborhood walk, instead we’ve been in the yard working on loose leash walking technique. But later today Sasha will have her first visit to “doggie school“, so I didn’t want to do any training work, just morning poop and a walk to get a little exercise. I expected the walk to be like prior walks: her talking me out for a controlled drag (I will not let the dog control the situation, but certainly past “walks” have been a massive tug-o-war). But to my (welcome) surprise, the walk was not like that! Oh sure, it wasn’t a picture perfect “at my side” walk, but I could tell she was getting it with regards to proper walk. I’d say the leash was loose 70% of the walk. Oh sure she’d get a little behind me to sniff something, but I’d keep walking and merely the pop of the leash tightening when I got far enough away was enough to tell her to get back to me. Or she’d get in front of me, perhaps slight tension on the leash, but never a strong pull that I had to fight. A few cars drove by, she got alert but no problem. We had to stop on the sidewalk as a car was backing out of a driveway, I had her sit, no problems. Someone was in the shadows of their driveway, coming out to get their newspaper, and that did excite her more than anything else on the walk so I did have to give a few explicit pops, but there was no barking or overt “must fend off the threat!” behavior.

Much praise was lavished on Sasha throughout the walk. 🙂

The Kuvasz has their nature, and that’s part of why we chose this breed. I do not want to turn her into something she’s not, I do not want to suppress her nature, only help us live in better harmony. She needs to allow our friends to come over to our house and allow herself to get to know them — they are extended flock. So, we just have to keep working on things.

She’s not a lost cause. She just needs work, but then, don’t we all?

Perhaps cliché, but so true

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Talk about an interesting start to the morning.

I just woke up about 10 minutes ago. For whatever reason as I stumbled all bleary-eyed into the bathroom a phrase went through my head:

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

and I thought to myself how cliché that may be and some people groan at the phrase because of that reason, but the phrase has much truth to it. Why it popped in my head? I don’t know. Maybe all the dry fire I did just before bedtime and how I kept telling myself to not rush the draw just for the sake of getting it out there fast, because I know the more relaxed and smooth I am, the better quality the draw becomes (including acquisition of the front sight and thus getting off a good first shot, thus overall time from draw to first hit is going to be faster).

Then I read Jay’s latest posting about his recent police academy sim. What does he say? Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

And it’s not even a full moon. 🙂

While that’s a good thing to keep in mind, I thought a few other things from Jay’s posting were worth pointing out:

  • Always keep fighting. When you’re dead you’ll be dead and then you can stop fighting. Until that time, keep fighting. And frankly, that applies to anything in life, not just self-defense.
  • Practicing basics like trigger control, sight alignment, draw, etc. are all important, but there are lots of other skills we need to practice too, like reloads, one-handed shooting, one-handed reloads (esp. with your weak hand).
  • No such thing as too much ammo. Some people say they’ll only need X amount of ammo. I wonder, how can you know that? One reason I carry a double-stack 9mm is because I can have more rounds. One reason I thought about switching from my XD to an XD(m) is because there’s more rounds. You just don’t know what you’ll be up against, so why not do all you can to be prepared and stack the odds in your favor? All pistol calibers suck about the same, and 9 lets me carry more.
  • And the best thing from Jay’s post:

 

Shitty situations are shitty, but there is always a way out.

 

 

Just remember that. 🙂

 

From the road – Cherokee National Forest

/ hsoi

To bring Sasha home we had to drive 2000+ miles to Georgia and back. Spending about 37 hours on the road, we saw many interesting things.

When figuring out how to get from here to there, of course I turned to Google Maps. Punch in the “from” and “to” to go driveway to driveway. While Google put us on Interstate Highways most of the way, as we drew closer to our destination, Google took us off the beaten path. Oh sure, we could have gone through Atlanta, but interestingly that was going to be slightly longer… and frankly, more boring. If I can avoid driving through huge cities, great.

But we had no idea where the road actually was taking us.

We got to drive through the Cherokee National Forest.

All I can say is… wow.

Breathtaking.

Majestic.

Apart from Sasha, it was my favorite part of the trip. We had no opportunity to stay there or really see anything that wasn’t on the road. But I would love to someday go back to visit.

When we planned the trip we figured we’d use it as a good homeschooling opportunity. The kids checked out the map, figured out what states they were going through. We’d discuss how the plants changed, how climate changed, whatever sorts of things we’d observe and see along the way. But we had no idea we’d be given an opportunity as cool as Cherokee National Forest.

Trivett Wingo leaves The Sword

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Austin’s The Sword just played the Austin City Limits music festival this past weekend. They were all set to embark on more touring behind their new album.

Suddenly, the European tour was cancelled. Then the US dates quickly followed. Reasons were vague, but now the reason comes out: Trivett Wingo, drummer for the band, is leaving. 😦

 

On the heels of the cancellation of their European tour, Austin, TX’s The Sword are also regretfully canceling the remainder of their scheduled US dates due to the departure of their drummer, Trivett Wingo. The split is amicable and both Trivett and the rest of the band wish each other the best of the luck with their respective plans. The Sword are already working diligently to reschedule their European and US dates.

Trivett explains:

“It is with deep sadness that I am announcing my departure from The Sword. After nearly seven years and some of the most amazing adventures of a lifetime, I have arrived at a place where I am physically and emotionally unable to continue on as part of The Sword. If I could go any further, I would as I love the music and JD, Bryan and Kyle are people that I deeply respect, but I have reached a point where I just can’t do this anymore. I would like to thank the wonderful people who made this experience what it has been: the fans, the people that I have worked and all of the bands and musicians that have inspired me over the years. I thank you and apologize for any disappointment that this may cause anyone, not least of which The Sword.” – Trivett Wingo

Here is an official statement from The Sword:

“We wish Trivett nothing but the best, and it is with heavy hearts that we bid him farewell. He is a phenomenal musician and has been an integral part of this band’s success. He helped to lay the foundation that we will continue to build upon, and we wouldn’t be where we are without him. We wish he could continue the adventure with us, but we understand that the life of a touring musician is not for everyone. It’s been a hell of a ride, and we’re sad to see this part of the journey end. The show must go on, though, and will be back on the road as soon as humanly possible.” – JD, Kyle & Bryan

 

 

Bummer. There was no way I could see them at ACL because they’d be the only band at ACL I would have cared to see (other than The Eagles). But that was the only Austin show for the foreseeable future. Still, I wanted them to do well on the tours because they’re building up a strong following and I’d like to see them succeed.

This is merely a bump in the road, hopefully just a small setback. They’ll find a new drummer and forge ahead.

Best of luck to JD, Kyle, and Bryan, and to Trivett as well.

 

Tolerance. You keep using that word…

/ hsoi

… I do not think it means what you think it means. (thank you Inigo Montoya).

I just read a story. A guy was sitting in a restaurant. At the next table some elderly gentleman was apparently speaking very loudly to his dining companion. The first gentleman was aghast because he was listening to the old man saying “the most disgusting, evil racist invective” he had heard. The first gentleman was so incensed he “was ready to jump over the booth and stab him in the eye with a fork.” While he didn’t do that, he did loudly state that he “should have requested seating in ‘no bigot'”, and the old man’s dining companion then steered the conversation in another direction.

While I cannot deny the old man’s intolerance of blacks and women, the first gentleman is also displaying great intolerance; in fact, the intolerance is so strong it aroused violent feelings within him.

The sad part is, I know the first gentleman and I believe he considers himself an open-minded progressive person. The fact he is upset at hearing someone speaking in racist tones denotes that he considers himself a tolerant and non-racist person. But it’s evident he still has his prejudices. The question is, is he aware of the log in his own eye?

If you are truly tolerant, then you are going to be tolerant. Period. That means you are going to deal with things you do not like or agree with, or could find totally revolting. THAT is toleration; dealing with things you already like, by definition, is not toleration. So if you’re going to call yourself tolerant, then you best behave that way, period. Or, be honest in your assessment and representation of yourself.

I make no bones about the fact that I’m not a totally tolerant person. I really don’t care what your skin color is, gender, race, religion, national origin, creed, hair style, clothing, if you have less than 10 fingers, the shape of your nose, your choice in music, whatever. I really don’t care.  Yeah I may not like all of it, but so what? That’s your life, you go live it. What I will not tolerate is bullshit. I don’t like bullshit, I don’t like to be bullshitted, I don’t dole out bullshit. I do not tolerate assholes. I do not tolerate mean people. I do not tolerate people telling me how to live my life and forcing their preferences and choices upon me (don’t you be calling yourself “pro-choice” then spend time working to deny me of my ability to choose merely because you don’t agree with my choices).  I will not tolerate ill-behaved children. I will not tolerate chicken being served for dinner all the time.

There are things I tolerate, there are things I do not. I will not represent myself as tolerant unless I truly am. I will not represent myself as open-minded unless I truly am. If I have a log in my eye and fail to see and remove it, I hope someone will point it out to me so I can remove it and see (myself) more clearly.

From the road – deer

/ hsoi

To bring Sasha home we had to drive 2000+ miles to Georgia and back. Spending about 37 hours on the road, we saw many interesting things.

Deer.

Tons of deer.

The rut is starting. That means deer are going to act stupid.

Lots of deer on the side of the road. We’d sometimes see singles, sometimes see multiples. And yes… it made us nervous. Driving at night, can’t see deer until it’s too late. We did not want to hit a deer and have that derail our travel. It was nerve-wracking.

But oh…. there were some awesome bucks. Big body, big racks. Oh man oh man.

 

TANSTAAFL

/ hsoi

My life has been an interesting road travelled.

20 years ago would I have thought I’d be where I am now? Apart from “happy”, no, this is nothing like I thought it would be. Heck, 20 years ago I couldn’t imagine being 20 years older — that seemed so…. old. I mean, like you’d be watching VH-1 instead of MTV! (and of course, I do watch VH-1 now and not MTV).

There’s a lot about my life that I cannot explain. Why did I take the path I did in undergrad? Why did I choose Texas A&M for grad school (well, I know some reasons, but still it seemed odd to pick up my life and move to Texas)? Got married in somewhat of a whirlwind, but we’ve been together longer than most couples have these days and are still very much in love. Lots of things like this, where there’s calculation, but only so much calculation. The rest just sorta happens and things work out, many times better than I could have ever expected.

Sasha is one of those things, at least so far. Sure we’ve been researching dogs for years to find what would work for us. There’s been a lot of calculation and figuring. But then our obtaining of Sasha just suddenly happened. An opportunity knocked and we answered the door. It was somewhat calculated, and I think we were prepared for opportunity knocking. But still, I look back and think about how many questions I should have asked, things I should have sorted through before we drove 2000 miles to Georgia to get this unknown dog (tho I said to myself that we’re allowed to drive 1000 miles back empty-handed, if need be). I feel in some respects that yes this was calculated, but that in a lot of others I just blindly dove in head-first.

However, I think if I thought about it too much, I would have over-thought it and it wouldn’t have happened.

Sasha needs work. She needs more work than a puppy should at her age. She’s got some things in place, but there’s a lot that isn’t… and maybe even needs remedial work. For instance, while this morning I saw some progress in getting her to walk on a loose leash, she never once responded to “sit” (always had to push her butt down).

But like the saying goes, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. I knew there’d be work involved. I didn’t know there’d be this much work involved, but I’m committed. Does it annoy me a little bit? Yes, but mostly because I question if I did my homework well enough and if I truly knew what I was getting myself into. But I look at that cute little doggie face and I melt. It’s like any labor of love in life… like kids. It’s more than you bargained for, but that also means the payoff will be well worth the investment. 🙂