Me

Observations from the morning dog walk

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Dog walk this morning was well before dawn. Point being, it’s very cold, it’s very dark.

  • Loose pants are good. I can put some long johns on before the walk, then easily slip out of the pants and remove the long johns upon return. Layers are good, but only when you’re out in the cold. Tac Pants 1, Jeans 0.
    • I state that because I find myself gravitating back to wearing jeans. Tactical/cargo pants are very useful, but they have zero style. That said, I am looking at “tactical jeans”… not many out there, but they don’t even have to be “5.11”. Just the chief requirement being the front pockets have a more open mouth.
  • Christmas lights are very useful for detecting movement. They put down a blanket of predictable and traceable light patterns, so when a deer trots out it’s very easy to spot their movement.
  • There’s this buck living back here. Oh he’s pretty sweet. If he’s the same guy we’ve been seeing and he lives another year, he’s going to be a monster (for the Texas Hill Country) come next year. Shame we all live in the city.
  • Someday I’ll get more into star-gazing, such that I’ll be able to spot-recognize more constellations than just Orion. 🙂
  • An essential part of good home security is having a well-lit property — cockroaches don’t like light. This morning I noticed an interesting pattern. Houses that were well lit (interior and/or exterior) also were near street lights. Houses that had little to no illumination from street lights were also dark (no interior nor exterior lights). I could make lots of inferences as to the meaning of this, but they’d be only hypotheses. Still I found it interesting that if the house was in the light, it was really in the light, and if the house was in the dark… well, there were lots of places one could hide and do evil things without anyone noticing.
  • It’s good to carry your flashlight in your hands at all times. It doesn’t have to be on throughout the walk, but if nothing else it’s useful for letting that guy backing his truck out of his driveway know you’re there. Besides, if someone did jump out at me, having the flashlight already in hand means it’s the first line of “give ’em a WTF moment”: flash ’em in the eyes to disorient them while you take the precious seconds to side-step and assess the situation (or immediately draw). Of course, having big killer doggie at your side doesn’t hurt either. 🙂
  • Doggie likes cold weather — a lot. Some weeks ago Daughter said she can’t wait for summertime, because doggie will mellow out. 😉

Couple random things

/ hsoi / 12 Comments

Oh, before I go… couple random things.

1. Feeling a lot better. I think whatever I had is now gone… but last night I felt really bad. My guess tho? The cigar and glass of wine did it… body just wasn’t quite ready for that yet. 🙂   But I’m on the mend, almost 100%. Thank you for the well wishes.

2. Daughter did something cool.

My father-in-law has a deer lease (natch) and the first couple weeks of January there’s a special youth season. He invited Daughter out to come take a doe or a spike during that time. I spoke with Daughter about it and she declined. Why? because she doesn’t feel her marksmanship skills are quite there. She would rather pass on the opportunity than recklessly take it. I am mighty proud of her. I know  she’s got the ability to put a rifle round within an 8″ circle at 100 yards, but she’s not sure of her ability to do it on demand especially given the excitement and pressure of “the moment.” I respect her thinking here; she wants to do the right thing and would rather wait than rush into it and do things wrong.

So it just means more range time. No arguments there!

Make me think… maybe time to buy a second Ruger 10/22 and do an Appleseed with the kids. I’ve been wanting to do that for some time. Hrm.

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho

/ hsoi

It’s back to the reloading bench I go.

I don’t know why I stopped reloading, but I just stopped. My guess? The daily routine of loading 9mm until I had a mountain of surplus just burned me out. I don’t WANT to reload .38 Special, I feel this NEED to do it to use up the rest of my Titegroup, build up a bit of surplus there, and also finish pistol reloading so I can shift to rifle.

But you know… I just haven’t had a burning desire to do rifle reloading right now. I think it’s a matter of time and the lack of it. To properly do the rifle reloading I’d have to spend a lot of time at the range, more than usual, and it’s not that I don’t WANT to, but I just don’t have the spare cycles these days to do it, let alone all the researching to come up with a good recipe and so on. It’s not lack of want, it’s lack of resources mainly time. And when I look at all the things I need to spend my time on these days, other things are taking priority.

I think that’s why I didn’t hesitate to order another 100 rounds of SSA 6.8 SPC 85 grain TSX. It’s the time vs. money tradeoff. I’ve got the money, don’t have the time.

Nevertheless, I need to get back in a groove so…. enough writing. Off to reload some .38.

’tis the season….

/ hsoi

… for being sick.

Kids had something, mild but no fun. Seems that Wife and I now have it.

My throat is so sore I don’t want to talk. I’ll let you smartasses decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. 😉

I’m starting to feel the Benedryl kick in… asdjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj;

Sorry, did my face just hit the keyboard?

How did we manage before Google?

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

I’ve been working on a new programming project that’s new in every way. It’s a new project, it involves new API’s, new platforms, new paradigms, new things to explore… just about everything with this project is new.

When I get stuck and wonder how to get something done, first I turn to documentation. The docs are useful but generally are straight API docs. I need more conceptual docs, I need more HOWTO docs. So I look for sample code, and while some code is linked to from the docs, it many times hasn’t been enough to satisfy my question. So I do what has become natural in this day and age: turn to Google. Within a few keystrokes and clicks, I tend to find what I’ve been looking for. I can implement a solution in my code, get back to work and get on with things. Progress is quite rapid, all things considered.

What did we used to do?

I recall having to walk down the hallway to talk to other engineers at the company and ask for their help. Working from home for the day job and then having my own side gig, I just don’t have that luxury any more. Oh sure there are people I can turn to when I need it via IM or email or phone, but the world is growing so diverse in languages, technologies, platforms, APIs, and then the depth of what’s within those areas that often I ask someone a question and their response is “never used that before… never did that before… I don’t know”. 😦   While that isn’t solely a problem of today, in the old days we’d then turn to things like Usenet newsgroups or ad-hoc mailing lists; today we’d use web forums and official mailing lists But no matter whether we walked down the hallway or posted online, those all took one thing: time. If you walked down the hall you had to keep asking until you found someone who had a clue about the problem set, then you’d talk at great length, you’d get sidetracked, and eventually get back to your desk and work. If you posted online, you had to wait for a response with netiquette saying you should give it at least a day or two for people to respond. That sort of lag time isn’t always acceptable.

Now with so much content being online and Google’s amazing search capabilities, it takes almost no time. Chances are your problem isn’t unique, thus someone has asked about it before. And if you’re lucky, someone has responded with a useful solution… and Google was there to index it. Just craft your search string well and hopefully you’ll dig up what you need and be back on track within a few minutes of typing, clicking, and reading. The only thing we need is for people to keep their data online: websites can’t go away, blogs can’t close up, else that knowledge and information goes with it.

I’m quite impressed with how much I’ve gotten done this past week. With everything so new and having to wrap my head around so many things it’d normally take me a few weeks to get done what I’ve accomplished this week. The immediacy of the giant collaborative network that is The Internet is becoming a more awesome thing and powerful tool each day.

on a dog

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I don’t know why you were given to me.

But here you are, part of my life from now until the end.

You have your issues, but don’t we all?

We have to work. We have to adjust.

We have to sacrifice.

I sometimes wonder if it’s worth it. But you look at me and I melt. Yes, it’s worth every moment.

We are learning. You don’t speak our language; nor do we speak yours. We are learning, and I can only hope you are patient and forgiving of us as we learn. It’s our job to understand you.

All you want is to protect us. That’s why we have you. We need you to gain perspective. We need you to understand the UPS Man is cool. Our friends? Allow them into the house and protect them like us. But otherwise, your instincts should remain true.

You are work. You are sacrifice. But you are awesome.

The pork has been smoked

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

This morning I took care of the hog I shot a few days ago. Drained the ice water, brought the quarters inside, trimmed and cleaned things up. Since I’m taking the week off work, it was a perfect day to put something on the smoker for numerous hours. So I did.

I took both shoulders, cleaned them up, and put some Special Shit rub on them. Got the smoker going, initially with briquets but then went all oak wood once things got started. Temperature range was 250º to 350º… a bit of a wider swing that I wanted, but I’m still learning this smoker. It was mostly on the lower end of things, but the occasional 300º+ spikes. As soon as the smoker temperature stabilized, put the foil-wrapped shoulders on the grate. I opened the foil a bit for the first hour to ensure a good initial smoke. After the first hour I then mopped both shoulders with some apple cider vinegar and onion (each shoulder got half a yellow onion, sliced and broken apart). Sealed the foil up mostly tight… I want smoke to get in there, but retain as much moisture as I can. After a couple of hours I see one shoulder has less moisture than is desirable, so I baste both shoulders in half a bottle of Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Reseal the foil. After about 6 hours it’s evident the pork is done. I pull it off the smoker, leave it sealed until it cools enough to be handled by bare hands. Pull the meat off the bones, and all is good.

I even fixed a small plate for Sasha.

I think she was unsure of the rub spices, so I took the meat and ran some water over it to wash off the spices. She seemed to like it better. 🙂

If I do anything different next time, it’d be ensuring more moisture retention. One shoulder was great, the other wasn’t… there was a foil puncture due to the bone and while I tried to seal things up I think it wasn’t good enough (and I was out of foil). Still, that shoulder turned out fine, and it shows the key to the long smoke of lean meats is moisture retention.

Anyways, everyone seems pleased with how the pork turned out. So I guess it’s time for a beer and some pork tacos. 🙂

Chillin’

/ hsoi

Might be light on posting this week. I took the week off work and have been busy with things that keep me away from the computer.

For instance, this morning I did some processing work on the hog I shot on Thursday. The 2 shoulders are presenting bathing in oak smoke. 🙂

So, posting should happen, I just expect it to be light as I’m otherwise occupied this week.