Author: hsoi

Home break in caught on webcam

/ hsoi

The Austin American Statesman has a slide-show of pictures from a home break-in. Here’s the accompanying article. (h/t to Kellene) Apparently the Austin homeowners had installed a webcam to be able to watch their dogs during the day. When the house was broken into and the alarm company notified the homeowners, the homeowners checked on the webcam and caught a series of pictures that ought to do a fair job at identifying the burglars.

What can we take from this:

  • The break-in happened about 10 AM on a Tuesday. This is when many home break-ins occur (weekdays between 10 AM and 3 PM), because chances are high people are not home: both the house being broken into and any neighbors to witness the event.
  • It appears the first guy came in through the window next to the front door. From the looks of the picture, the window was raised up, not broken. The only way that could happen is if the window was not locked. Folks: a determined individual cannot be kept out by locks, but when criminals are after easy targets, why are you making things easier for them? Lock your doors, lock your windows.
  • A dog is not a guaranteed deterrent. From the looks of the pictures, the dog looks like he was just being friendly with the burglars, trying to chase and jump on them to say hello. Certainly the burglars don’t appear to have reacted as if the dog was acting in a threatening manner.
  • The homeowners had an alarm system. It did not keep the home from being burglarized. Despite what the TV commercials say, the sound of an alarm going off doesn’t make the invader instantly shit his pants and run away. It’s likely the alarm did let them know they have a finite amount of time in the house (the police would probably eventually show up), but they still had enough time to grab $1000 worth of electronic equipment.

The homeowner:

And although the burglary has shaken her, she said she still feels safe in the neighborhood.

“I love the neighborhood and know a lot of the neighbors,” Emily McGuire said. “I know these kinds of things happen.”

This is a healthy attitude, because there are no places immune to bad things. The homeowners did appear to do all that they could (tho the window lock is in question). Furthermore, the homeowners are hoping that good comes out of it. One of those good things is to try to learn from the experience of others.

Differences between conservatives and liberals

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

If a conservative doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one.
If a liberal doesn’t like guns, he feels that no one should have one.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat.
If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants to ban all meat products for everyone.

If a conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy.
A liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good.

If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a liberal is homosexual, he loudly demands legislated respect.

If a black man or Hispanic are conservative, they see themselves as independently successful.
Their liberal counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels.
Liberals demand that those they don’t like be shut down.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church.
A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God or religion silenced.

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

I am not the author of the above; I found it online and am reposting it here. I grant it makes blanket statements and they are exceptions, but on the whole whether you like it or not, whether you agree with it or not, it’s rather the way things are today.

Updated: I really like this: someone added their own Libertarian slant to the above. Hear hear!

BTW, while I generally don’t delete comments, I did delete a comment and my reply to it (thought about keeping my reply, but lacking his posting my reply lost all context). I saw something in my blog stats that raised my eyebrow so I poked around t3h int34w3z a bit and this guy seems to be specifically looking for any and every (re)posting of the above and copy/pasting his reply to every forum and blog he can. Yes it’s copy/paste, I saw the same posting in numerous places. If he was willing to engage in discourse with me that’d be one thing, but it appears he’s just trolling. I can sympathize with his cause and perhaps even understand the chip on his shoulder, but won’t be party to his Google bombing. 🙂

Testing

/ hsoi

Let’s see if I can get WordPress for iPhone to post not just this text but also a picture.

Updated: It appears to work. 🙂

The image is hosted out of WordPress’s files area, which makes sense, but isn’t where I normally host my pictures. As well, it was resized smaller (which is an option in the app, which I can turn off, but I think is OK to do for network/transmission purposes). All this is OK, as they can be edited after I get back to home base.

I also don’t like that the WordPress for iPhone editing is severely limited (e.g. no style). You can do raw HTML but it’s cumbersome on the iPhone’s keyboard (e.g. the < and > are on the third keyboard screen). Of course, this is understandable as the iPhone interface is small and limited, so they had to keep things simple.

But at least the basics are there and that’s enough to make a basic posting from the field.

Ammo rotation

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Funny this comes up now. Sebastian just wrote about ammo rotation and SayUncle commented upon it.

You see, yesterday while working the deer lease it eventually started to rain pretty hard. We were at the back of the property, too far from camp (and my rain coat) and so we just kept working. I was soaked to the bone. I did remember to leave my iPhone in a dry place and I also left my spare magazine there. However, given the amount of water I took on, on the drive home I made the decision to rotate out all of my carry ammo, even tho I just did it a few weeks ago (the normal 6 month rotation). My wallet sighs, but I’d rather have the assurance of “known good” ammo. Yes I’m pretty sure the ammo that was in the gun will still go bang, but my life is worth the assurance. I’m even going to change the rounds in the spare magazine because while they didn’t get the soaking, they probably took on some rain during the course of the day. I’ll shoot the “wet” ammo next time I go to the range to practice.

Sebastian hit upon the key thing:

Ammo does last a long time, on the shelf. But carry ammo is not ammo that’s sitting in a safe or a foot locker, in its factory container, often sealed. You’re carrying it around with you. You sweat, you extrude oils, salts and various proteins, which get on the ammo when you handle it, and are on the dust particles your skin and clothes give off and end up in your gun. Every time you chamber and unload, you’re putting stress on the ammunition components.

So, to rotate or not? Everyone has their take on it. I do rotate my carry ammo on a regular basis (about every 6 months) because I’d rather be safe than sorry. The ammo loaded in a home-defense gun? Not so much, because it’s sitting in my nice, climate controlled house; eventually it will be rotated, but I don’t feel the need to do it as often.

Sunday Metal – Dark Angel

/ hsoi

I forget how I first discovered Dark Angel, but I know their “Leaves Scars” album was one of my favorite albums during my teenage years.

A band so fast, they were dubbed “caffeine metal,” their “Time Does Not Heal” album promoted by the record company as containing 246 riffs. The band grew fast and more complex, and it was always joked that you needed a dictionary to understand their lyrics because Gene Hoglan used some “rather big words” in his writing. First time I heard the word “lachrymation” was in their song “The Promise of Agony.” 🙂

When working college radio, I got to do an interview with Gene during promotions of “Time Does Not Heal.” I remember him being a soft-spoken and gentle sounding man. Nice guy, friendly.

Three videos today. This is Dark Angel from the “Ultimate Revenge 2” video set (I’ve got this on VHS tape somewhere). I bought that tape precisely because of Dark Angel.

New Shooter Report

/ hsoi

After a few false starts (Oldest learning about achieving goals and being task focused, failing a few times but finally succeeding, thus here we are), I was able to take Oldest out to the Austin Rifle Club. Due to circumstances, Youngest had to come too, which was cool. I’ll speak about each in turn.

Continue reading →

Seven Habits of Successful Hunters

/ hsoi

A discussion of seven habits of successful hunters.

Being a novice hunter, patience is going to be the toughest to come by for me. I’ve been told there are 4 stages of hunting:

  1. Just want to get one.
  2. Want to get as many as possible.
  3. Want to get “the big one”.
  4. Want to get altruistic, teaching others and becoming larger sportsmen.

I’m somewhere in the 1-2 phase. I’ve gotten other stuff (e.g. hogs), but haven’t gotten a deer yet. Patience will be tough to come by. 😉