Life

New Kitteh

/ hsoi

How did this happen?

We now have a new cat in the house. Well, kitten.

If I remember the story correctly, my in-laws were driving and saw this little kitten lying on the road. They stopped to check it out (they rescue many animals; seems to have become an informal hobby), thinking it was dead. Turns out, it was only stunned (pining for the fjords no doubt), but was covered in fire ants and was probably going to die. They took it to the vet, got her checked out, shots, all that. Kitty seems to be OK. They were going to give her away, and being as small and young as she is (we estimate 2-3 months old) I know there’d be no problem with that because the cute is strong with this one.

And as a result…. we have a new cat.

We get to the in-laws yesterday and get told about the kitten (they kept it in the bathroom because some of the dogs would probably play too rough). Kids go to visit and of course, instant love and cries of “Oh Dad, can we keep it?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

So what do kids do when Dad denies them? Turn to Mom.

Wife sees kitty. Falls in love.

“Honey, please?”

“N…..” *begrudging groan* “Fine.”

Later Wife tells me she was having a talk with Daughter. “Mom, I know why Dad said we could have the cat. Because he can’t say no to you.” šŸ™‚ Damnit… my secret is out.

I said we could bring home kitty on one condition: trial period. We have two other cats, which I shall refer to as Gordita and Twitchy. Gordita and Twitchy are very well bonded to each other. I wasn’t sure how a 3rd wheel would work into this, especially a little kitten that doesn’t know its place (yet). Furthermore, Gordita may be a little runty butterball, but I’ve never seen a cat that fights with such intensity or has such lightly quick reflexes and awareness ā€” she’s amazing. I wasn’t sure if she might scrap, and if so if kitten might be honestly harmed. Twitchy is the wild card. She’s nicknamed Twitchy for a reason. I wasn’t sure if she might smack kitten around, or if Twitchy might go and hide under the bed never to be seen again… that’s not good either. So, I told Wife and kids that keeping the kitten required a trial period just in case there were integration issues. Honestly, I didn’t expect any real issues, but better safe than sorry.

So we get kitten home and start the integration. Little kitten is first introduced to the litter box (vital!). We kept her shut in the laundry room for a bit while we unpacked and said Hi to the other cats. Then we let kitten out and she started to meow. Immediately other 2 cats come slinking down the stairs in search of this new meow. Much curiosity ensues. Good thing is kitten isn’t totally inept and is old enough to scrap. There’s lot of sniffing, poking at each other, and kitten knows how to turn sideways and make herself big. But she also seems to know she’s a little thing by comparison.

Gordita follows her around trying to watch every moment. Twitchy was a little wary and freaked at first, but eventually just watched from a distance. Eventually, Gordita lost interest and Twitchy got to a point where as long as kitten didn’t invade personal space, she’d be fine else get a hiss, growl, and perhaps a smack. And that’s about where things are as of this morning. Kitten is running around learning where things are and playing with anything she finds on the floor. Oh, and the strange kitten she saw staring back at her from the reflection in the dishwasher… that one will be dealt with later. šŸ˜‰ Ā Other 2 cats are just going about their business, watching kitten, ignoring kitten, ensuring kitten stays out of their personal space.

I think we’re going to be keeping her. *sigh*

Oh, and Oldest named her. He said the first thing that came into his head and the other two kids liked it, so, it’s official.

Ritz Bitz

Ritzy for short.

šŸ™‚

Work the unfun

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

ToddG makes a good point about practice:

You want to be prepared for war, prepared for a mugging, or prepared for your next IDPA match ā€¦ and that is why you practice so much. Right?

Wrong. You practice because you enjoy shooting and you enjoy the results of the practice. Practice, for most people, is fun. But therein lies a trap. Too many shooters choose to practice only the fun stuff. Shooting at longer distances, for most pistol students, is unfun. Shooting strong- and weak-hand only is unfun. Doing just about anything that is hard, or that weā€™re not good at already, is unfun.

There’s no question about that. All living things are pretty simple: we seek pleasure, we avoid pain. To work on fun drills brings pleasure so we work on those. To work on the things that we like, that give us great groups and results on the target, that’s pleasing to us. Things that won’t please us because it’s hard or because we know the results won’t be immediately gratifying, we don’t work on it. It’s just how we are.

But if we really want to be good, we must work the unfun stuff too. What we have to program our brains to think is that the fun will come in time. So maybe you’re not good at 25 yard shots with your pistol. It won’t be fun to work, but you have to focus on the long term outcome because you know that will be fun. I mean, won’t it be fun to be shooting with your buddies and have everyone shoot at 25 yards and there you go whipping out the fastest and smallest groups? You know that will be fun. šŸ™‚

We must always work to find a way to turn the unfun into fun. That’s what will separate the good from the great, in shooting or anything in life.

The Making of an Agent

/ hsoi

A story of one class’s journey to become US Secret Service agents.

A good read. It’s just a good story and a peek into the training involved to become a Secret Service agent.

You can also pick up a few bits of good tactical advice, like “keep moving.”

Les Lye passes away

/ hsoi

You may not know who Les Lye is, but if you watched “You Can’t Do That on Television” then you know. Mr. Lye died a couple days ago. TCDTOTV was a favorite of mine growing up. I remember the first time I saw it at a friend’s house: they had cable, we didn’t. Because of that show, I wanted to get cable TV.

Kids today watch Nickelodeon and see all this green slime being dropped all over the place. Ask them if they know how the slime originated and I’m sure their response will be “I don’t know.” šŸ™‚

We live long and are celebrated poopers

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

While the title is referencing the Nibblonians of Futurama, it’s all I could think of this morning. For you see, my morning ritual now includes washing my walkways and driveway of all the poop left by the muscovy ducks that congregate at my house. I am amazed how much poop one duck can produce.

False urgency

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Did you ever notice when something is done because a sense of urgency gets foisted upon it, that it often winds up not working out? That something that deserves a lot of research, homework, discussion, debate, consideration… when you ignore those things because “damnit we need action now”, that you wind up with a bigger mess in the end?

If something is truly a good idea, doing it now or later won’t matter all that much. If it allows people to do their homework on it, heck, a good idea will only wind up becoming a better idea, a stronger idea. Why wouldn’t you want people to do their homework, because it only strengthens your cause!

If something is a bad idea, the only way to get people to buy into it is to fool them, don’t let them do homework, don’t let them read, don’t let them research, don’t let them debate and discuss, and insist that if they don’t act now Bad Thingsā„¢ will happen. Then once you get your way, who cares if it winds up being a stinker… you got your way.

There are some things in life that require urgent response, but most things don’t. Ā Even in those things that require urgent action, you cannot approach them haphazardly without any knowledge or plan and expect success. False urgency is a tip-off that things may not be as great as they seem.

There is a time to give them up

/ hsoi

When do we give up our guns?

Never!

“Cold dead hands” and all that.

Right?

Well, maybe not so much.

Joe recounts a personal story, which tells of a good time to give them up.

Aside from the personal drama, the lesson I want to impart is that there IS a time when we need to give up the guns.

The problem is that we wonā€™t know when that time has passed. I know my uncle [who suffers from Alzheimerā€™s]Ā wouldnā€™t hurt a fly, but he doesnā€™t understand the ā€œsuddenā€ mistrust. All he knows is that he does not want to hand over a prized possession, nor be disarmed.

But the doctor reports near 90% loss of short-term memory. He may take an ā€œunloadedā€ pistol and find it loaded after all.

I empathize, but I know the guns have to go. My only option that night was to forcibly take it, but I was not prepared to devastate a huge, strong man for whom I care very much. Afterwards, he went in the kitchen and looked so absolutely hopeless and depressedā€¦ to say it was hard to watch is a gross understatement.

Give the whole piece a read. It’s moving.

The dumbers are getting more dumberer

/ hsoi

Walter Williams, a professor at George Mason University, has published an article on the failed public school system.

The solution? Decentralization and competition (imagine that!):

Any long-term solution to our education problems requires the decentralization that can come from competition. Centralization has been massive. In 1930, there were 119,000 school districts across the U.S; today, there are less than 15,000. Control has moved from local communities to the school district, to the state, and to the federal government. Public education has become a highly centralized government-backed monopoly and we shouldn’t be surprised by the results. It’s a no-brainer that the areas of our lives with the greatest innovation, tailoring of services to individual wants and falling prices are the areas where there is ruthless competition such as computers, food, telephone and clothing industries, and delivery companies such as UPS, Federal Express and electronic bill payments that have begun to undermine the postal monopoly in first-class mail.

We homeschool our kids. Can’t get more decentralized than that!

Little things

/ hsoi

A few days ago we took the kids out for ice cream. Went to the Baskin Robbins near our house.

When we were walking in, a man was sitting outside on one of the benches. We’ve seen this man before inside the BK; we believe he is the owner of the store; at least the manager, but probably the owner given what we’ve seen. We nodded and smiled and said “hello” on our way in. He smiled and said “hello” back. And we continued into the store.

Each kiddo got a single scoop on a cone, then we all went outside to sit on one of the benches, enjoy the evening, and eat our ice cream.

Within 2 seconds of her starting to lick her ice cream, Daughter’s scoop departed the cone and landed on the ground. *DOH*

We just told her to pick it up, throw it in the trash, and we’d go inside and buy her another scoop.

As we were doing this, the gentleman (owner?) spoke up. He saw what happened and told us to go back inside, get another scoop, and to tell the girls behind the counter that he said to just give us the scoop. Free.

That was unnecessary, but kind and generous. We thanked him, and spent time with our kids talking about such generous acts. Sure you could say this was just good for business, and certainly it does make us regard him and his business more positively and makes us want to go back to his store. But the man did not have to do this. That he did was a little bit of kindness, and it shows that it takes almost no effort and no expense to be good to others.

Little things mean a lot.

The Spoetzl Brewery

/ hsoi

Today was a special day for a few reasons, and putting those reasons together gave me and my good buddy W a chance to do something that all good Texans must do at some point:

Visit the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, Texas. Makers of Shiner Bock and other Shiner-brand beers.

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