Life

Tips from the blotter

/ hsoi

From time to time, scan your local Police Blotter. Sometimes you find directly useful tips to avoid crime. In other cases, you could try putting yourself into that situation and figuring out what you would do. It’s a tip from Tom Givens… figure out the plays beforehand so you have a script (and one that’s debugged) before it happens to you.

While reading this morning I came across this entry about two men arrested for a Craigslist scam.

Police said victims would see an ad on Craigslist for an iPhone and would contact the seller to meet. All four meetings were set up in a business parking lot between the hours of 10:15 and 11:30 p.m.

Police said Jenkins and Anderson would get the victim to an isolated area in the parking lot and then rob the victim using weapons and physical force.

Business parking lot is good, as it’s a public place and likely well-lit at night. But that’s also a problem: meeting at night. As well, you should stay in a very public part of the lot, not be taken to an isolated area. The blotter entry echos these tips:

Police are advising that people follow the following safety tips when meeting someone to sell or buy something from an online ad: arrange the meeting in very public places with plenty of people around; avoid, at all costs, being directed to an isolated area of a parking lot; attempt to obtain as much identifying information on subject prior to meeting; do not go alone, take people with you; avoid meeting after dark.

All good tips.

Daughter recently sold a collection of toys on Craigslist. The buyer lived in Lockhart, so when we went to arrange details for the transaction I figured it wouldn’t hurt to go to Lockhart — exchange the goods and pick up some awesome BBQ. When I went to arrange the details, we met on a Sunday morning around 10:00 AM in the gravel parking lot of Smitty’s BBQ. That’s a high traffic area, given it’s right on US-183 — the main road through town; plus, it’s Smitty’s on a Sunday, which is going to have the church crowd and the weekend visitors all around. It was for the safety of both the seller and the buyer. Make it as public and safe as possible. All things I pointed out to Daughter. Good things to learn.

Perla’s

/ hsoi

Had dinner at Perla’s Seafood and Oyster Bar last night.

Austin folk, if you like fresh seafood, especially raw oysters, you must check out Perla’s.

Atmosphere is relaxed, casual, but neat and trim. If you showed up in your summer shirt and shorts you’d be fine, or if you’re in a suit you wouldn’t be out of place. We dined inside, but they have an ample outdoor patio under the oak trees right on South Congress Avenue.

I had a half dozen oysters. I forget exactly which I had… they have about 20 different varieties. But they were quite good. I appreciated the freshly grated horseradish. Wife and I also shared their salt and jalapeño pepper fried calamari… quite good, not overdone at all (very easy to overdo it). For entrées, Wife had an angel-hair pasta with some Gulf prawns, watercress, capers, olives, and I forget what else was in the sauce… paired well with a pino grigio Manu Sauvignon Blanc (wife corrected me). I had a pan roasted grouper with morel mushrooms in a fantastic lemony buttery sauce; very delicate, well executed. We also shared a side of their lobster stock, cheddar & green onion grits — folks, you’ve never had grits taste so good. Finished off with a strawberry rhubarb tart, which on the plate looked like it was going to be a load of pastry but wound up being quite well balanced and not heavy at all.

Service was excellent. This isn’t a hoity-toity fine-dining establishment, but you can tell they care about service and providing not just quality food but a quality experience as well. I appreciated how the waiter knew what was going on, what the restaurant did and didn’t have. The waiter didn’t interfere too much in our meal, but you could tell he was always keeping tabs on things. Just very well executed.

Prices are on the expensive side, but I’ve come to expect that whenever you go to a seafood place that doesn’t consider seafood to be “catfish”. 🙂  I like catfish, but I hope you understand the differentiator here.

Thing is, as I look at the Yelp reviews, Perla’s seems to be a mixed-bag. We had no problems with service, but that seems to be their biggest problem. Maybe it was because we had a special night there (and making prior reservations sure helped). Maybe it was because we came on a Tuesday night a little earlier than later and they certainly were not full (not empty, but certainly no one was waiting for a table). Who knows. But the end result was we had a good experience. Maybe the lesson is to make reservations and go at off times?

Anyway, I’ll certainly go back. Hopefully it will be another home run when I do.

How to handle your mistakes.

/ hsoi

When you make a mistake and flub something, what do you do? Do you stop and start over? Or do you just keep going?

Whatever you do, it’s been my experience that most people always do the same thing no matter the context. Today I write to say we need to consider how we recover from mistakes and choose the right approach based upon the context.

For example, I was doing dry-fire practice working on drawing my pistol from a concealment holster. Typical ways to flub the draw are the shirt doesn’t get out of or remains in the way, or your strong hand gets a poor initial grip. What do you do? As soon as you notice the flub do you stop and start over? or do you acknowledge the flub but proceed and work to recover from it to still reach your end goal? I used to stop and start over, but now I want to keep going. My reasoning? If the day comes and my life is on the line, I could well flub things. In a situation like that, what should my ingrained response be? Recover and move on? Or go “damnit! I screwed up!” reholster and ask for a do-over? I don’t think the latter is reasonable for the situation, so the only option is to recover and move on. Thus I must train myself to acknowledge the flub (must know what went wrong so I know what course of action to take to recover) then immediately recover from it, keeping my cool the whole time. This is the response I would want to have if my life depended upon it, so that’s how I must train.

Let’s consider my martial arts practice, specifically working on forms. If I was working on a form because I was entering a competition, I’d probably want to train myself to recover and move on. You’re performing, and the show must go on! But these days I do not participate in martial arts tournaments, so if I’m working on a form it’s because I want to get it correct, because there’s something in my own body and soul I wish to feel. Plus I’ve been away from Kuk Sool for almost a year and I admit some things are slipping my mind. Thus stopping and fixing is fine for me here because the context may dictate it (i.e. I forgot) or perhaps because I came to a point in my practice where I realized something and wish to focus on it. My goals here are different, and how I contend with mistakes must serve the end goal.

This reminds me of when I was in undergrad and played in a rock band. We were doing some basement recordings. We only had so much tape, so when we’d screw up I’d tell the guy running the board “Rewind and erase that.”  But he never listened to me and kept tape rolling. In my mind there was no point in keeping bad takes, especially when we had a finite amount of tape. However I’m glad he kept the tape rolling because it captured some gems. Looking back I can say we should have handled it both ways. When we’re working out a new song, sure we have to stop when mistakes are made because we’re still learning. But once the song is known, when we’re doing rehearsals for gigs, just keep going… unexpected things could happen during the gig and we wouldn’t come to a halt on stage, so practice accordingly.

Be clear on your end goal(s) and ensure you work towards it. One part we overlook is how we handle our mistakes. The way we handle our mistakes may need to change based upon the context, so be sure to analyze, figure out the plan, and behave accordingly… especially as you practice. Train yourself to handle your mistakes as the context dictates. Your life may depend upon it.

New grill/smoker is needed – Suggestions?

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I’ve had a Weber kettle grill for gosh… 12 years? 15 years? Quite a while. It’s actually served me quite well. It handles grilling needs, and some years ago I added a 3rd party thermometer to the lid and so I’ve been able to use it as a smoker with pretty good results.

But… she’s at her end. The “vanes” in the kettle are no longer moving. One of the vanes has worn so much there’s a hole. There’s just no more ability to control the air flow. I can make a fire in it, but controlling it is pretty much gone. It then becomes an art of just controling the fire itself to keep the temperature right.

Furthermore, I’ve known for a long while that while from time to time I want a grill, most of the time I want a smoker. As well, while the Weber has enough space to say feed a family or enough hotdogs for a neighborhood cookout, it just doesn’t have the square footage on the rack to hold what I cook these days. Plus when I smoke or otherwise indirect cook, there’s even less rack space available.

It is time for a new setup.

There’s a guy I’ve spoken with that makes custom setups. I’m going to talk to him, but I fear it may be too costly. On the flip side, the quality should be good enough such that it will last me the rest of my life with proper care.

The main things I want?

  • Square footage. I don’t need to feed an army, but being able to hold a couple racks of ribs or a couple briskets or a couple legs from a feral hog. Plus being able to throw a dozen ears of corn on the side the last 30 minutes.
  • Charcoal/wood. No gas, sorry Hank Hill.
  • I do want to be able to smoke but also grill. I really don’t want to have one smoker setup and one grill setup. But from what I’ven seen on the market so far, what I want may not be there.
  • Offset firebox for smoking.

I may have to go the custom route to get what I want. But if any good readers have suggestions towards what fits my bill, please comment.

(BTW, the Big Green Egg has always been curious to me, but it’s just not big enough.)

How To Train Your Dragon

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

I’m not really high on Dreamworks’ “animated children’s movies” because well… they’ve sucked and have a pretty poor track record.

My rule is simple. When you see the commercials/trailers for the movie, are they pitching the movie and the story? or do they work on promoting the “star power” of the “voice actors”? Pixar? They don’t advertise that so-and-so does the voices, even if they’re not really good voice actors and are just doing their normal voices. Pixar knows story is king, and that shows in their movies.

But with Dragons, Dreamworks well…. now that I see WHO the people are that did the voices well, it’s not like it was massive star power there anyways. But that’s just fine! There was less focus on the glitz and more focus on making a good movie.

And good it was.

Sure it was a story you’ve heard/seen a thousand times. There’s really nothing new to the base story. It’s the telling that changes, and I think they told a good story. I found the movie most enjoyable. Comedy, action, suspense, just a hint of innocent romance, some emotional heart-tugging moments. Sure you know how things are going to go (tho I thought the end um…. thing that happened to Hiccup at the end of the movie, that was a cute touch), sure you know “happily ever after”. But still, I enjoyed myself.

Daughter approves as well.

Oldest and Youngest… well… fisticuffs in the morning meant no movie for them in the afternoon. *sigh*

Anyway, an enjoyable movie. I’m sure it means a “Dragson 2” is already brewing… not sure it should be done… sometimes I think it’s good to just let good things stay as they are, we don’t need to milk it to death. But you know how it is… there’s money to be made and ideas to run into the ground. 🙂

Small win for APD

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Going to give some kudos to Austin Police Department here. It’s a small thing, but it’s little things like this that add up.

As frequent readers know, we have a lot of ducks that hang out at our house.

Well, about 45 minutes ago my kids saw some random Rottweiler trotting across our lawn. I was called to come see, and so I went and saw. He was perked up, looking at something. My guess? The ducks, but a few houses down and out of sight.

I go back to work.

A minute or so later I hear my kids screaming in terror. The Rot was attacking a duck.

Granted my kids understand nature and life, but they are very fond of the ducks… so injury to these ducks is like injuring a member of the family.

I tear down the stairs and run outside looking for the Rot. He was behind/under a truck… apparently it was just some guy driving through and he saw things too and tried to do something about it (I guess… I really didn’t know, my only exchange with him was “That your dog?” “No.”). I chased the Rot, shouting and yelling. The Rot broke off his attack and retreated back into a yard in the cul-de-sac. I don’t know what happened to the duck, but I did see him waddle off… I don’t know his condition, but it is what it is.

The Rot eventually stopped and laid down. I took out my phone, dialed 911, explained, and they said police will be dispatched. My wife was also on the phone to 311 and they took the animal control call. Yes it’s just attacking a duck but my thinking is 1. it’s a Rot, 2. if he’s showing a penchant for attacking things who knows what else he could attack, 3. no collar so who knows if he’s a pet or feral. Who knows. My brother-in-law has a Rot and she’s a sweetie. I know Rot’s aren’t evil, but there’s no question there’s a legit reason for their reputation. I don’t want some unknown Rot wandering my neighborhood.

About 10 minutes after the call goes in, 2 APD cruisers pull up. We point out the dog, explain things, they drive over to the dog. You could tell there was some joking “you get him, no you get him”. A third cruiser pulls in, and that officer had some leashes in his trunk. A little figuring out of who will do what, tasers at the ready, and the third officer approaches the Rot. He tries calling him over and the dog obediently comes, a little unsure, but obeys. Leashed up, “good dog” petting, and into the back of a cruiser. Some handshakes and thank you’s to the officers, and what’s done is done.

My take

I don’t feel bad about what I did. Granted, as the event wore on it was evident the dog is fairly well-behaved. He’s certainly someone’s pet (tho lacking a collar, but hopefully not a microchip). He did show signs of submissive behavior, but he was also constantly alert. That’s good stuff, when it’s your dog. But again, I have no idea about this dog. He demonstrated attacking behavior, and well… I just can’t allow some unknown and potentially dangerous dog to be trotting around my neighborhood with other pets, small children, and people around. No apologies for what I did.

APD took about 10 minutes to show up, and my guess is they were there that “quickly” due to the fact the dog was seen attacking. I can’t fault them… it’s not like there was a cop right here, they did have to drive to get here, so 10 minutes is reasonable. But as with all things, it shows what response time can be.

I did have my gun on me. It shows that situations can happen suddenly and you have to run with what you have. There was no time to run and get my gun or get anything… I ran outside barefoot. If the dog was a problem, yes I had no problem shooting it. I wanted to avoid that at all costs of course, but if someone’s life was in danger (because again, I knew nothing of the dog’s demeanor, other than he was attacking a duck) well… that’s how it goes. While standing off with the dog, I asked my wife for her pepper spray, as that’d be my preference. I had a prior experience with dogs and wishing for OC. I still don’t have OC on me, because I haven’t found something suitable (even tho GT Dist has some decent options).

I do hope the dog has a microchip and can be reunited with his owner… and his owner is a little wiser for the experience so it doesn’t happen again. He was a good looking Rotty, and seemed to be a “good dog”, so I do hope there ends up being a happy ending to this story. But again, dogs are what they are, and I’m not going to take a chance.

APD did well. Took care of things. Thank you to the local Boys in Blue.

Star of Texas Fair & Rodeo

/ hsoi

Yesterday I took my family to the Star of Texas Fair & Rodeo. It’s an annual thing in Austin, but this is the first time we went. I’m so glad we did. Weather was perfect, time was right.

The Kid In Me

I went to county fairs and rodeos all the time when I was a kid. My Dad had to campaign in various counties in Nebraska, and county fairs were good places to meet with the public. So Dad would be there all day pressing the flesh, and we kids would get to run around and enjoy the fair all day. I’ve got lots of fond memories of those times, from all the midway games I’d play, to the rides (I still will not ride The Zipper… not into things that make me throw up), to even the people I’d meet. A lot of the same carnival groups would be at the various county fairs, so I got to see a lot of the same carnies over and over. I got to actually know a couple fairly well because hey… I loved the “pop gun” booth (little pump rifles that shot small corks out the end… you’d shoot the corks at these little wooden stands and when they flipped off the back of the rail you won the prize) and spending so much time at that booth I got to know the lady running it. I also recall that’s how I learned about the band Bad Company; talking with another carnie, he told me to check out their album (their self-titled) and eventually I did and glad I did.

And of course, growing up in Omaha, there was Peony Park.

So with many fond memories in my head, I always wanted to take the kids to some sort of fair. There’s frequently a fair running in town, but I can never find out when they’re here. It’s one of those where I’m driving in town, I see it in the distance, “OH man!” and then we can’t go for some reason. But now we had a plan!

The Joy of Mobile Internet

Of course, I look up the fair online and find out they even have an iPhone app just for the fair! The iPhone app had a few rough edges, but it was pretty useful. I thought the best part was how they used the GPS services on the map to say “here’s where you are, and here’s where you want to go” to help you get around the fairgrounds. Nice!

But the real treat? I found out you could buy a carnival wristband for $20 online, which included the gate entrance fee. Sounded like a winner to me. But when I got there, yes it was an online-only deal. If you bought at the fairgrounds, $7 for adults $4 children to get through the gate, and $25 for the carnival wristband. Man… that online deal is a deal. So I went back to the car, sat down, pulled out my iPhone and purchased online right there in the parking lot. 🙂 That saved some money… or so I thought. It’s only saving money if you’re going to ride a lot of rides. Most rides cost 3 tokens and each token was $1. So you’d need to ride 8 rides or so to make it worth it. Was it worth it? No, because we didn’t ride that many rides (more on that shortly). The thing was, I was under the impression you could only do the carnival if you had a wristband. That is not the case. The wristband is only good for carnival rides, and you can pay tokens for rides as well. So if you’re all about the rides and expect to ride a lot of rides, a wristband can be the way to go. Else, just pay tokens as you go. Live and learn.

The Rides

For me, a big part of a fair are the rides. I did not know what to expect with my kids… would they like these rides? Would they not? The first ride? The Tilt-a-Whirl. That’s one of my favorites. I have many fond memories of riding that at Peony Park with my Dad while growing up. All 4 of us climbed into a car and off we went, tilting and whirling. I saw nothing but smiles on the faces of my kids. We have a winner!

I saw on the other side was a “scrambler”, tho this one was called The Scorcher. We climbed into that one, Youngest and I in one car, and Oldest and Daughter in another. Off it went. This one went a bit faster than I remember them going, so the G-forces were pretty strong. It was fun, we all enjoyed it, but we all also had the same thought: geez… this is getting boring, can you stop now? It just got old because it ran for quite a while. But I was happy the kids enjoyed it…. tho Oldest didn’t like it as much as he would have because well… I told him to sit on the out-side of the car so he had his sister squished into him the whole time. 🙂

Then… the bumper cars.

I’m glad this wasn’t a “modern” bumper cars where everyone was told to just drive in a circle and not run into each other. Yes, I’ve encountered those and what fun are those? The whole fun about this is to bump into each other. Head-on collisions are what makes bumper cars fun. 🙂 Daughter climbed into a car, Oldest into a car, and I took Youngest in a car with me. I gave them a briefing on how they work (e.g. press the pedal down and don’t let go, if you turn the steering wheel all the way around you’ll go in reverse), and off we went.

So while the kids and I were having fun bumping into each other, Wife was standing at the railing taking pictures. And boy, was Wife taking a lot of pictures. She was heavily interested in taking lots of pictures. Why? Because the carnie working the bumper cars was being very friendly with her. Not too friendly, but friendly enough that Wife did her best to be polite yet tried her best to make it clear she was more interested in her big husband than him. Oldest got mad that some other man was trying to hit on his Mom but he saw me laughing and not worried about it… but I can’t argue with my son’s desire to defend his mother. That’s a Good Thing.

Of course, what trip to a fair would be complete if there wasn’t a ride that was a little too much. There was a ride called The Orbiter. Didn’t get a picture of it, but this Wikipedia entry is close. The cars were more enclosed cars and it didn’t go 90º (maybe 45º??). The thing was, when we saw it earlier it seemed somewhat gentle, so Daughter and I went on it. Youngest wanted to go but Oldest didn’t and you couldn’t have single riders, so only Daughter and I went. Well… that was a mistake. The sensation was really weird and the G-forces very strong… because of the angles you were put at, the resulting angle of the G-forces just did not sit well with Daughter and she was most unhappy. I just cradled her to keep her from banging into the car, and eventually the ride ended. Cross that one off the list for the future. Me? I thought the ride was OK… it did mess with my equilibrium a bit (I had “sea legs” for a short while after getting off the ride), but how could I enjoy a ride while my child was hurting? Ah well… it was a good experience no matter how you slice it.

The Food

What can you say? If you can fry it and put it on a stick, it’s carnival food. Oh, and expensive too.

Actually the food was pretty good. Of course fried, greasy, salty, huge portions, and just horrible for you… but no question it was delicious. If it wasn’t so darn expensive we would have eaten more.

The one bummer? I didn’t get a funnel cake. I love funnel cakes. But at $7 a cake? Sorry… my wallet was hurting. I had to pass this time around. *sigh*

Attractions

There were a lot of cool fair attractions.

They had some small bands playing free shows on a back stage. There was a ZZ Top cover band called Cheap Sunglasses that were playing when we arrived. They were actually pretty good! I enjoyed them a whole lot. Later that evening another band was playing… I don’t know who they were, but they were doing a horrible job butchering Bon Jovi’s “Bad Medicine” and I couldn’t stand it.

We wandered through the livestock barn. Lots of cattle and pigs, a few goats and rabbits. Spent a little time watching the judging of a youth cattle show. All I could think to myself was how much tasty beef was out there. Eventually we had to leave as the smell was overwhelming everyone.

Of course, there was a petting zoo with llamas, goats, sheep, some sort of deer… and again, I just kept staring at those deer, finding that kill zone. Now that I think about it, I should have used that as a time to talk kill zones with the kids! I mean, I had a live sample right there and could have walked right up to it and pointed everything out! Missed opportunity.

Concealment, not cover.

There was a cowboy shootout. Not a lot of action, but the comedy was funny with 3 bumbling robbers and eventually the sheriff coming to break up the party. They shot blanks, which were pretty loud so everyone would jump when they shot. I did think it was cool how they ended it tho: having all the “dead” robbers get up to show that no one was really hurt. But they also talked about how they used blanks and that blanks can still be dangerous (they shot an empty soda can pointblank and you got to see it blown apart). Then saying to be thankful for the police so we can live our lives today without us each having to carry around 6-shooters ourselves. Uh huh. 😉

One more thing on the shootout. Those guys had terrible trigger discipline. But I’ll chalk it up to old-time realism because Jeff Cooper wasn’t invented yet. 😉

We missed the “Swine Sprints”, but we did catch Whiplash. Whiplash is a little money dressed up like a cowboy that rides on the back of a dog. The show actually started off with a young man doing roping tricks, which was pretty impressive. Then onto the show. A little money, in a cowboy suit, on the back of… a border collie. That’s important. What was the show? Three sheep were released into the area and Whiplash the monkey cowboy (or is it cowboy monkey?) herded them around. But the reality? The monkey was just the attraction that put the butts in the seats. The real work was the dog, and the dog was on. The moment those sheep were let out of the carrier, the dog was locked onto them. It was so cool to watch how tuned in he was. And the sheep were huddling together, because they knew there was something out there with fangs. And the dog went to work, and the monkey just held on. Wife and I didn’t care about the monkey, just the dog. He was awesome.

Heading Home

So a long afternoon and evening spent at the fair. No, we didn’t get to see any actual rodeo, because that cost a lot more money. Apparently there’s a rodeo in Marble Falls in July and we may go check that out.

But still, we had a good time. Got to see animals, got to see some shows, got to ride rides, got to learn all about carnies, got to eat terrible but delicious food. The kids had a great time, and Wife did too (tho she wishes she had worn her Ariats and not her Luccheses). For me? Reliving some childhood family memories and making some new ones with my own family? All worth it.

Lockhart BBQ Wars

/ hsoi

On the cable TV channel, Travel Channel, they have a new show called “Food Wars“.

Normally I don’t care for such things, but when I saw a commercial for the Lockhart, Texas BBQ battle, well… I can’t resist wanting to watch this episode.

I love the BBQ from Lockhart so much that I go there just to buy food and bring it home to eat. Yes there are BBQ joints closer to me, but none come close to what is produced in Lockhart. Yes I personally prefer Black’s BBQ, but Smitty’s does make good brisket. There’s of course Kreuz’s but I just haven’t been impressed with them, to be honest. What I like about Chisholm Trail BBQ is actually eating there… a strange and warm nostalgia about it all. Now I must say, much of what I say about this rests upon evaluation of their brisket because in many respects, beef brisket is what Texas BBQ is about; Black’s wins hands down. But sausage is something too, and for that I’d prefer Smitty’s… the way Black’s grinds their sausage, it’s OK but not my preferred texture. Of course if you want sides, Chisholm and Blacks have you covered, but if all you want are beans and potato salad well, anywhere will suit you. I will give Kreuz’s credit for offering tortillas… mmmmm.

Thing is folks, if you haven’t tried the Lockhart BBQ joints then you just don’t know Texas BBQ and how yes there is a difference and how yes things are better in Lockhart. It shows that competition is good and helps to foster better products.

So yes, I’ll be watching Food Wars this evening. I’m curious to see how it goes. It won’t settle anything, but I’m sure my mouth will be watering.

If you’ve never experienced Lockhart BBQ and you’re in the area, let me know. I’ll be happy to take you around. 🙂

Erwin Ballarta Retirement Tribute

/ hsoi

The Edged Weapon Defense seminar I attended a few days ago was headed by a man named Erwin Ballarta. Erwin spent many years as the head of Texas DPS’s Defensive Tactics. When he retired from DPS, a Recruit Cadet made a tribute video:

Pretty cool. 🙂

There’s one quote/voiceover in there that is a great adage for self-defense:

Move and stun, stun and move.

It’s simple. In a self-defense situation, you have to keep moving. Moving, attacking/defending, moving.

Another good quote?

Don’t give up.