Life

The free exchange of ideas

/ hsoi

…. so long as we approve. (h/t to SayUncle).

…but that the school was unwilling to allow any pro gun rights speaker to come speak to her class, out of concern for how the parents would react.

Did you ever think parents might react negatively to presenting lop-sided arguments? to providing anything less than an actual education to their children? This of course assumes the parents spending their money to send the children to this school care about such things.

One promising thing is the exchange with the teacher… the teacher seems to understand the value of things, and it sounds like the students might actually be thinking — more than can be said for the school administrators. Hopefully the kids will learn a little extra from the whole experience… a “teachable moment” if you will.

Me and my Leatherman

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

What can I say. I like tools. I especially like useful tools.

One of my favorite useful tools? My Leatherman Wave.

Sure I had a pocket knife when I was a kid; in fact, I had a bunch of different pocket knives. You’re a young boy. You’re in Scouts. You get your Whittlin’ Chip. You get your Tote N’ Chip. You have knives (and work with other things too like axes and saws). You learn how to be responsible in the use of these tools and how to use them correctly and effectively. It’s just what you do as a kid. 🙂

I’ve also had various other knives, and sure they’re great and fun, but they’re just not always useful and handy. Tools are really most useful when they’re available to you at the point in time you need them. So you need to cut something? If you can’t get at your knife, what good is it?

So when I finally was able to get a good knife, the first thing I looked for was the ability to get the knife into my hand and the blade in a position where I can cut. Even better is if I can do this one-handed, and even better, if I don’t have to look to do it.. There are certainly lots of knives out there that do this (I like Spyderco Delica‘s too). This is one great thing about the Wave. When it was introduced, most Leatherman tools had the blades on the inside, meaning you had to open up the whole tool just to get at the blade, then close everything up to be able to use the blade. This was not handy at all. Leatherman realized this and created the Wave with the blades on the outside of the tool (seen at right). Now you can pull out the Leatherman from your pocket or sheath, and the blades are right there. You can place your thumb in the hole on the blade and with one hand open and lock the blade and off you can use it. One subtle but important thing Leatherman did was understand the importance of the sense of touch. There are 4 blades on the Wave, 2 blades are within easy deployment by a right-handed person. But when the Wave is in your hand and you can’t see what you’re doing, you can feel! There’s a small bumpy ridge on the back of the serrated blade (bumps, serrated, get it?), so you can feel for this with your thumb… if you feel the bumps, you’re in position to deploy the serrated blade; feel smooth, the straight blade. So this was a key reason in my choice of the Wave back when I bought it. These days it seems most of Leatherman’s full-sized multitools offer the blades on the outside, so that’s good to see.

The other reason for choosing this over a traditional pocket knife? More tools! Well, that and locking blades (most traditional pocket knives don’t have locking blades… something you appreciate the first time something slides and a blade closes or nearly closes on your fingers). It’s nice to have tools. There are countless times I have used the pliers, wire cutters, screwdrivers, bottle opener, can opener, ruler, scissors… yes, I’ve used just about all of it. But this is me and what’s right for me. What’s cool is there are many different combinations and variations out there. For instance, check out the Leatherman Crunch and it’s different pliers. The pliers have probably been one of the best things… you don’t realize how much you can actually enjoy having them handy until well… you’ve got a set always handy. Another thing that was novel about the Wave when it was introduced was that when the pliers were in use, the handles were smooth and rounded, which made it very comfortable on your palms, especially if you have to grip hard; Leatherman’s with pliers at that time didn’t have this and it wasn’t enjoyable to use the pliers.

There is only one problem with the Wave. It lacks tweezers. The first Leatherman I actually owned was a Micra. I received it as a Father’s Day present long ago because it was small and had a good pair of scissors. Why scissors? Well, my children were very small at the time, but able to sit up and drink from beverages with straws… which were always too long… which would always cause drinking problems…. so I wished I could just trim the straws down to size for the kids. And lo, I was given the gift of the Micra. I will say, the scissors are better than the Wave’s, but the Wave’s are sufficient for most needs. The real bonus with the Micra, again, is the tweezers. And I still carry my Micra, on my keychain. No reason not to. Splinters happen and need to be removed.

Keep your Leatherman handy. In your pocket, on your belt, in your bag, whatever works for you. Useful tools, on hand when needed. Leatherman ranks high on my must-have list.

Why She Carries

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Syd wrote a wonderful piece titled “I Don’t Carry A Gun.” Kellene wrote a, I guess you could call it a companion piece, titled “Why This Woman Carries A Firearm.”

We live in a society that strives to put women and men on equal footing, and there’s certainly a lot of merit in that as there are many situations and context where gender and gender-based differences don’t matter. On the flip side, we cannot ignore that there are differences between men and women. When it comes to matters of self-protection, many things are gender-neutral, but there’s no question some things are gender-specific. Kellene articulates some of these quite well. I especially love her final reason:

I carry a firearm because as a woman I have the privilege of giving life.  That’s right.  I don’t carry a gun to take life, but to ensure that it’s fully given to those who choose live.  


Children and shoes

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Oldest’s shoes died a quiet death this past weekend. A little duct tape was used to keep them in play for a bit longer, but there was no question they were gone. Plus he’s growing and his toes were scrunching, so without question he needed new shoes. Darn these kids… they keep growing for some reason. 🙂

Oldest wanted some Dad time, so I took him shopping. Had lunch at Carl’s Jr. (they just opened here in Austin, tho I’ve been to them before when visiting California… it’s a burger, but it’s novel for the kids), then off we went for shoes.

Shoe Carnival? Nothing. Payless? Nothing. Wal-Mart? Nothing. Target? Nothing. JC Penny’s? Nothing. Then we hiked it across town to the Mall. Finish Line? Nope. Sketchers? Nope. Journey’s? No. Vans? Nope. Foot Locker? No. There’s a store or two that I’m forgetting, but they were “no” as well. Why so many failures? Well, some were just lack of selection… I tell my wife that Payless is great for women, and it is, but that’s all. Also Oldest’s feet seem to be at a stage where he’s maybe youth size maybe adult size (size 6), but either way there isn’t always enough available in his size. So when we can find a store that’s even plausable, then there’s nothing he likes.

Me: So what do you think?

Oldest: I don’t know.

Me: Well, did you see anything you liked?

Oldest: I don’t know.

Me: Did you see anything you didn’t like?

Oldest: I don’t know.

Me: *sigh*  Well, you said that pair you maybe liked. So… what did you like about it?

Oldest: I don’t know.

Me: *sigh* The color? The style? The fit?

Oldest: I don’t know.

Me: *sigh*

And so on… the conversation went. Yes… those teenage years are upon me. I suppose this is my penance  for my teenage years, right? Karma’s a bitch, man. 😉

So I explained to Oldest about guiding through decisions. How you gather information. If you liked this, what did you like about it? color, style, fit, etc.. If you didn’t like this, why didn’t you like it? Again, take a catalog of it. Make an explicit bit of work to figure that out. Tally it up. Eventually, if you pay attention to what you’re doing, you’ll figure it out.  I kept working with him to help him figure things out, to help him sort it out, but letting him ultimately make the choices.

And so, eventually we get to Champs. We stood outside. Oldest was obviously tired and frustrated and wanting to give up in all of this. But I just stood there, reminding him that his current shoes were dead and giving up wasn’t going to solve anything… he’d just have to be back out again, so might as well deal with it now instead of prolonging the pain. We go into Champ’s, and the first few he tried he didn’t like. But we talked, he seemed to catch on to the decision making process. I might ask a question, have him compare to a prior shoe he tried. He’d tell me this felt better or worse, he didn’t like the color on this one, or whatever… so there was a breakthrough here, which made me happy. And eventually he found something. And lo, it was comfortable. It wasn’t too gaudy. Could be something casual but he could even wear them to church. They were in his size, good construction and fit. We had a winner.

Finally. 🙂

And Mom seems happy with the choice too. So, Oldest seems happy. Mom is happy. I got to have some time with my son. I got to teach him about a few things, and he seemed to catch on. So, there’s hope!

Breakfast for supper

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Almost titled this “Breakfast for dinner” but that would be my northerner coming through. 😉

Brigid reminisces about pancakes for dinner. I’m not much of a pancake fan, but I know what she’s talking about. Sometimes we have breakfast for supper. It’s simple, it’s good for you, and yes… the best part is everyone at home, eating together, talking and laughing around the table. Oh, and yes… bacon. How can you go wrong with bacon?

Being at home as much as I am, most of the meals I eat tend to be with the family. I know that’s not a common thing these days, which is a bit sad to hear. All to often it’s scarfing down McDonald’s in the back of the SUV on the way to soccer practice or whatever activity there is tonight. I never was into running around like that. To me, that’s not quality of life. And that’s a nice thing about breakfast for supper: it can be pretty quick to whip up, so if you are tight on time, you can still have a good meal and a good time together.

Try it some time. Try it tonight.

Domestic archeological expedition

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

My more recent endeavors in life are amassing lots of stuff. What happens when you acquire stuff? You need a place to put that stuff. Thank you George Carlin:

But instead of going and finding a place to put more stuff, I’m just getting rid of some old shit so I can reuse that storage space for my new stuff. So into the closet I go, figuring out what’s there…. boxes that haven’t been unpacked since moving into the house many years ago, things you can’t remember the last time you looked at. It’s a trip down nostalgia lane.

It’s always an interesting education for my wife and especially my kids when things like this happen. It gives them a peek into the past. For instance, I got to show the kids what a cassette tape is. Even found a player and was able to play some of them… you know, the mixed tapes you’d make, recording your favorite songs off the radio, or when you were really cool and had one of those dual cassette stereo/boom-boxes that could allow you to dub your friend’s purchased album onto a blank tape? or better, the dub of the dub of the dub of the dub such that the tape hiss was the dominant sound you actually heard? Yeah, good times.

Found a lot of old pictures. It’s a shame my scanner died years ago. I need to collect them all and take them somewhere and spend an afternoon just scanning them all in, sending them to old friends and having a good laugh at the memories. Y’know, I think that broken scanner is actually buried in the closet… well, something else to toss (yes, this would go to Goodwill’s electronics disposal center, not the landfill).

Other things I found:

  • tons of 3.5″ floppy disks. It’s been years since I had a computer that could even read one of these.
  • tons of CD’s… old CodeWarrior CDs (gazillions of these, from my past life), lots of old Mac software, things that you think for a second might be worth keeping but then you see it requires a 680×0 processor and these new Mac-Intel boxen running Leopard will never grok them
  • a set of KISS McFarlane Series 1 action figures, new in box
  • tons of old cassette tapes, from my earliest heavy metal years. Man, I need a way to convert them to MP3’s… too many good and rare albums here.
  • lots of old computer books
  • a lot of old vinyl and some neat things too:
    • Sepultura “Arise” picture disc
    • Monster Magnet “Superjudge” red vinyl
    • White Zombie “La Sexercisto” in glow-in-the-dark vinyl
    • tons of old and rare Red Decibel 7″ stuff from The Coup de Grace, Drop Hammer, Walt Mink, Libido Boyz, Last Crack
    • The Journey “Raised on Radio” album I won from Power 105 WAVA. I remember waking up, getting ready for my paper route, 5th caller wins, I called in and won not just the album but a key to the “Power Porsche”… a key that could start up a Porsche and if it did it was yours! Sadly, the weekend of the event I had to go on some youth group retreat so I didn’t actually get to try it… I think my Dad and younger sister and cousin went instead. Didn’t win, of course.
    • Autographed copies of albums from Treponem Pal and Malevolent Creation 
    • Lots of other stuff
  • Stuff from my old radio days
  • Promotional materials
  • band promo pictures
  • air checks from all the various stations I worked at
  • carts with my show bumpers on them
  • posters (many autographed)
  • A couple boxes of old things from growing up
    • My 8th grade English class journal
    • All my homework and papers from Drivers Ed class
    • An old model kit of an SR-71 Blackbird, and lots of Testors model paint jars
    • some old t-shirts
    • a couple cool pencil boxes from Korea, which my kids quickly usurped
    • A bunch of old birthday cards and letters, a couple of which included hand-written letters from my paternal grandmother… cards I tossed, the letters I kept.
    • A ton of my old Boy Scouts stuff… from the little advancement/achievement cards for merit badges and rank; certificates of youth leadership training, Patrol Leader, and Senior Patrol Leader; Patrol Leader Handbook; a cool leather “50 mile canoe trip” patch; a bunch of useful handouts and other reading material, good for camping or other outings today (Scouts or otherwise)
    • 8 to 10 (lost count) glasses cases.
    • One pair of old glasses… plastic frames, huge lenses (to go with the onion on my belt). Put them on, the wife and kids had a good laugh.
    • Yearbooks from middle school and high school, and a couple from undergrad
    • band trip pictures
    • autographed picture of me meeting President Ronald Reagan in The Oval Office
    • More things that I can remember
  • A bunch of my old Magic: The Gathering cards. I saw some kid with Magic cards a few weeks ago and I realized that I used to play that game… 15-ish years ago. 
  • And there’s still more stuff to be discovered I’m sure. It’s going to take the rest of today, at least, to get things fully cleaned and reorganized in there.

    • It’s quite a trip down memory lane. A lot of stuff was junk that was no problem to throw away, but there’s no question some stuff your heart just won’t let you toss. And I know if I really had the gumption there’s a fair lot of stuff I could put on eBay and could make some money with.

    So, blogging will be light until this is done.

     

    Updated: added more stuff that I’m uncovering.

    Updated 2: Been working at it all day. Donated a LOT of stuff to Goodwill. Threw out a lot of stuff… had to get over the nostalgia of things because if I haven’t looked at it in this many years, do I really need to care and keep it? Many things cleared out. And while I moved a bunch of new things into the closet, in the end there’s a lot more room in there now. So sum total of it all puts me in the negative which is good! Got rid of far more stuff… things are better organized and located now. Big win for all the work done in the last 24 hours. Got some tax deductions from all the donations. Uncluttered. Things are good.

    Of course now…. I guess Carlin would say it’s time for me to buy more stuff. 😉

    A Zen Moment in Parenting

    / hsoi / 2 Comments

    This is a great little parenting story.

    First, I think the situation was handled perfectly. Sure he could have taken the simple route and spanked the kid, or “time-out”,  or grounded him, but that really wouldn’t directly address the problem. I often find it’s better to address the problem in a manner directly related to the problem. Denying the Xbox for a week wouldn’t address this problem. He was able to help his child see himself, discover his own problem, and correct his problem on his own. All the parent did was be patient and guide.

    It’s tough to get people to change by forcing them to change; they’re not necessarily going to change for you. The more successful route to get someone to change is for them to change themselves. It’s tougher for you to do, you really have to take a different tack and approach in guiding them to see things for themselves, but often that’s how things tend to work best.

    Of course, there are some things that folks are so emotionally tied up into that getting them to see reason is quite difficult. But just because it may be difficult for you to do doesn’t mean the other person is a lost cause or that it’s not worth making the effort to try. Patience. Devotion.

    A little financial lesson I learned

    / hsoi

    Like most people, the past some months in my household have involved a lot of belt tightening and reexamination of financial situation. I’ve done my best to be responsible with the money I earn, currently having no debt other than the home mortgage, which is a reasonable mortgage at that. Live within your means; in fact, try to live well below your means. Still, I kept feeling a crunch. I had spent a bit beyond our means the past some months to stock up on various things, dipping into savings and such. I’m wanting to recover from that but was having a bit of a time digging out. It hit me what was going on and I wanted to try it. It’s only been a couple months so it’s a bit early to tell, but so far the results are promising so I thought I’d share.

    What was going on was that I was paying too much towards credit cards every month. I use credit cards because of purchase protections, extended warranties, rewards, and other such side benefits. I pay them off in full every month. But that was the problem. When it came time for me to pay the bills, I always paid the full amount. For example, the billing cycle ends with a $500 balance, but between the end of the billing cycle and the time I get the bill in the mail then sit down to pay bills, I might have charged a few more things and might have $700 on the card. I always figured that I’ve already used the money, send it now or send it later didn’t matter I still had to send it, so I might as well zero out the card. Thus I’d write a check for $700 and zero out the card. Technically that’s a good thing to do, but it was having a subtle side-effect on me. I would look in Quicken and see that we had a zero balance so I would think to myself “ok, we can spend X amount”, but in reality, I had kinda robbed Peter to pay Paul. I try to shave off a good portion of my paycheck every pay period to put into savings, but to pay that credit card bill down to zero I might have to reduce or eliminate that savings. Thus I’d have a zero card balance, but I didn’t get to save as much as I wanted to. And so, I was treading water, paying bills, but not rebuilding my savings.

    So instead what I decided to do was just pay the required amount. Bill comes for $500, I pay $500. Sure that might mean at the time of the bill paying I leave $200 (going with the above example) on the card, but that’s fine. It does a few things. First, when I look in Quicken I see there’s already some sort of balance on the card, thus I’m reluctant to put more charges on the card thus spending less. Second, when I do my bill paying now I am saving in full or might be able to save a little more. And so far, that has really been paying off. It’s helped me curtail spending and keep my savings on a good pace.

    Yeah, it’s a bit of slight-of-hand, it’s just mentally fooling myself. In the end it’s all about budgeting and such and keeping within your means. But for me, this change helped. I keep bills paid in full, no revolving balances on the cards, but I keep the monthly spending correct for the pay periods and don’t “overspend” because I miscalcuated. My savings is rebuilding at a good click, my spending is reigned in more.

    Man… wish I had realized this years ago. 🙂

    911 didn’t answer

    / hsoi / 2 Comments

    An elderly woman in Parker County, Texas dials 911 repeatedly, and receives no answer, repeatedly.

    Eventually the woman’s daughter and son-in-law arrived and were able to hold the intruder at gunpoint. Finally 911 gets through. Police are dispatched and arrive 13 minutes later… 13… minutes… later.

    According to the article:

    [Capt. Mike Morgan of the Parker County sheriff’s office] said he understands the family’s frustration. But he said records show that when 911 dispatchers answered the calls, the family had hung up.

    Morgan said cellphone calls can take up to 30 seconds to connect in the dispatch center.

    Cellphone technology is great, but it still has problems. When you’re in a situation like this, 30 seconds is going to seem like an eternity. Even still, how much evil can happen in 30 seconds time? And then, 13 minutes to respond.

    As the saying goes, when seconds count, police are only minutes away.

    While it’s nice to know there are other people in this world that are willing to keep you safe from harm, in the end the only person you can count on being around when you’re being attacked is you. You’re in the best position to preserve yourself. Ms. Hokett now knows that:

    Hokett said she hopes she never needs 911 again. But just in case, she said her daughter bought her a shotgun that she has places near her bed.

    Going fast

    / hsoi / 3 Comments

    Rob Leatham is one of the top competitive handgun shooters. In his blog he has an article about shooting fast, and he’s certainly one that knows that area well. While Rob’s article tilts towards the gaming/competition aspect of shooting, the fundamentals apply to any sort of activity, not just shooting.

    Shooting fast is about shooting at the highest level of your ability, and that isn’t to say that you can’t raise your highest level even higher through practice and work. But speed that’s sloppy? That’s not speed. You have to be correct. You have to be accurate.

    A few weeks ago when I was down in Houston for a black belt test, one of the things Master Alex spoke to us about was being fast, but sloppy fast isn’t fast, it’s just sloppy. One of the 5 principles of forms is “hands fast” but you must be correct, you must be accurate, you must be crisp and clean, then also be fast… never so fast as to lose those other aspects.

    Remember years ago when the Pentium processor had floating point calculation errors? Back then it was a wicked fast chip, but I started saying “No one cares about the first person to get the wrong answer.” Fast may be important, but correct is more important. 

    Ever have a group of kids, you ask them a question and there’s always those that shoot their hands up first, maybe before you even finished asking the question? Then you call on those kids and many times they don’t have the answer… they just wanted to be fast and first. 

    So you see, it doesn’t matter what the realm is: shooting, martial arts, computers, or just life. Yes, being fast and first is important, but I would say being correct/accurate is more important. Slow down, work to be correct, work to be smooth. Speed will come.