Me

Hard Drive Upgrade

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

It appears the hard drive upgrade for my MacBook Pro is mostly complete and successful.

I’ve had the stock hard drive in the machine and space was running tight. As a developer you can quickly fill up your hard drive with all sorts of things, especially artifacts from the compile process. Since the MacBook Pro still has a lot of life left, why not just upgrade the drive? Looking at Other World Computing‘s prices, I am amazed at how much you can get for so little money.

I settled on a Hitachi Travelstar 7K500, which is a 500 GB 7200 RPM drive. It’s one of the biggest and fastest 2.5″ hard drives you can get today. It’s not the fastest nor the biggest, but when I looked at all factors it ended up being the best all around. If this was going into a desktop machine I might be able to accept a little more vibration, a little more power consumption, a little more heat generation, but since this is a laptop, sorry, no.

The upgrade process was fairly smooth. I purchased the drive with OWC’s upgrade bundle, which includes their “On The Go” enclosure kit with the FireWire 800 interface. I thought it was also cool that their little upgrade toolkit was included. I didn’t really need most of the tools within it, but the nylon pry tool was useful. I installed the new drive into the enclosure, plugged it into the MacBook Pro, and used Disk Utility to format and partition the drive. I then used a Mac OS X 10.6 OS install DVD to reboot the machine (boot from the DVD). Once rebooted, I launched Disk Utility, selected a drive, selected the Restore panel and restored my internal drive (source) to the new external drive (destination). I let that run overnight.

Waking up this morning, I shut the machine down and went about taking the MacBook Pro apart. It’s actually pretty easy to do, so long as you have the right tools (e.g. anti-static wrist-strap). Plus, OWC makes a series of videos that show you exactly what to do. It’s mostly unscrewing a lot of little screws, the details once you get inside are where the videos helped most, but even then it’s pretty painless… just a matter of figuring out what to do.

So the old drive comes out, new drive goes in, reassemble the MacBook Pro, put the old drive into the external enclosure, and restart the machine. She started right back up, no fuss, no muss!

Performance? I can tell there’s an improvement. Going from a 5400 RPM to a 7200 RPM drive, plus whatever other advances are in the drive yeah, you can tell things are peppier. Any sort of read from disk is going faster, even just basic things like browsing in the Finder and listing the contents of a folder. I have noticed web browsing is faster, since web browsing can be very disk intensive as it reads to and writes from cache files. A good test will be later on when I start running Xcode and compiling, pushing real memory to the limits and involving a lot more virtual memory… how will swapping improve? I figure some, but just how much remains to be seen.

So far so good. There’s a lot of work still yet to be done, but that’s just a matter of time. I’m shifting around some files since I was able to make a better partitioning scheme. Spotlight is doing a full reindex and that’s going to take a while. I’ll suspend Time Machine backups during the day today and let it run overnight tonight since I’m sure it’ll have to do quite and extensive backup.

All in all, a good upgrade. Went smooth. More storage space. Better all around performance of the machine.

Now if I really wanted to see a performance upgrade, those solid state hard drives would be cool, but the price tag is scary! (OWC’s Mercury Extreme Pro SSD, 480 GB, $1579.99!!!). But OH the performance is wicked. 🙂

Updated: Now that I’ve been using it a bit longer, a few things to add.

It’s quiet. In fact, I think it’s quieter than my OEM drive (which was also a Hitachi). When I was working with the old drive in the external enclosure, I could hear it, clicking, whirring… not loud, but noticeable. But the new drive never made noise that I could hear above the rest of the din of whirring drives in my office.

Speaking of whirring, I don’t feel any vibration through the case of my MacBook. And maybe it’s just me, but it actually feels like there might be less. It’s hard to say. My body, specifically my left hand, is having a feeling of “something’s missing”. Like any vibration before was slight so the loss of it is barely noticeable. So maybe I’m imagining it, maybe I’m wanting to feel less vibration, but I can’t even say it’s vibration I am or am not feeling… just there’s a sense in my left hand (which rests over where the drive is located) that something is missing.

Heat generation doesn’t seem to be any different, at least that I’ve noticed so far. In terms of just what I feel through my hands on the machine, and smcFanControl’s temperature readout. That’s good.

Power consumption? Just have to wait and see. Not going to be using my battery any time soon.

The machine is still the machine. I can’t go faster than the CPU and video lets me go. But without question anything needing disk i/o is faster. Not some giant leap faster, but you can tell things are peppier.

I’m happy! All around good upgrade.

Doggie School – Day 5 & 6

/ hsoi

I just realized I didn’t write about “day 5” of Doggie School. But I can’t remember exactly what we did. Everything blurs.

Because yesterday’s day 6 of Doggie School was mostly a reinforcement of all that we’ve been working on. We continue to work on things like sit, down, place and so on, but with added time, distance, and distraction. Specifically yesterday we added food to the mix. So if I say “sit” but then drop a treat to the ground right in front of Sasha’s face? She’s not allowed to touch the food. Sit means sit and that’s all you do until I tell you otherwise: no moving, no barking, no getting things even within reach of you, nothing… you sit. If I get up and move away, no matter how far away I move, no matter how long I’m gone, you don’t get up… not until I say “free”.

The other thing we specifically worked on was the “recall”. That’s the dog being somewhere away from you and you say “come” or call their name and they are to come directly to you. The amusing part? When an energetic 10 month old 75 lbs. dog comes running at your petite wife? Well… the impact sends your wife airborne. 🙂  Wife wasn’t hurt, but she did get some nice air when Sasha barreled into her. One of those moments you wish the video camera was running.

That marked the end of our private lessons. We have the basics for manners and obedience: sit, down, place, come, , heel, no (corrections, both marking with “no” and a tug on the leash), “good girl” for praise, use of primary reinforcers like food/treats, walking on a loose leash. We have techniques for introducing her to people and people to her. We need to continue to take these further, such as sit with more distance, with more distractions, with more time, with food, etc..  We need to extrapolate behaviors such as when she hears the doorbell she doesn’t go ballistic but instead goes to her place bed (which implies laying down and being quiet, until we free her). So the basics are there, we just need to continue to practice and work on them with her.

I don’t think we’ll do another round of private lessons. I think that was necessary for the situation we were initially in, but now she needs even greater socialization. The neat thing about the private lessons was tho it was one-on-one instruction, Sasha was around a lot of distraction and other dogs because Triple Crown wasn’t devoid of activity while we were there. But I think next up we should take their basic manners and obedience class in the group setup. Yes, this would be a repeat of the curriculum we just learned, but it would be in a different context with more dogs and more people. It would help Sasha continue to generalize the commands, it would help us to reinforce the commands, and hey… I know that getting the same thing a second time can be good because the presentation may be similar but won’t be the same so inevitably you learn something new. Next classes that fit our schedule won’t be until January, so we may have to wait until then.

What can I say about Triple Crown? My experience has generally been good. I can’t imagine they’d be doing such good business if they didn’t do something right. But I also have heard stories and opinions from other people who Triple Crown is bad, but typically that’s been on the kenneling side of the business, not the training side. From reading How Dogs Learn it’s evident there are different approaches to training, and before I can put too much stock in stories and opinions I’d need to delve deeper into seeing where these opinions are founded. Perhaps that person views training differently thus Triple Crown’s methods are “bad” in their opinion. All I know is, I cannot debate the results. The Sasha we have today vs. the Sasha of 6 weeks ago is starkly different, and we’re happy both with the Sasha of today and our ability to handle and work with her. But will I kennel her there? That I can’t yet say, only because I’ve heard enough good and bad that I cannot determine what the Truth of the matter is. But furthermore, I just don’t know how well Sasha would take to being penned up and away from the flock she’s to protect for extended periods of time. Maybe as she’s older and more mellow it might work out better, but for now, just don’t know. So at this point, any sort of kenneling is out of the question no matter who does it.

Doggie grows. She’s just shy of 10 months old, and probably is now weighing 75 lbs. She needs to stop eating acorns (we think that’s what’s giving her the on and off diarrhea… we’re working on keeping her from eating them but she gets sneaky on us). She’s learning the groove of things, she’s becoming better behaved and accepting of the world around her. Like anything worth having, it takes time and work. So far, so good. 🙂

Been a long time since I rock and rolled…

/ hsoi

Daughter has been asking me to teach her to play guitar.

About a week ago she pulled one of my guitar’s out of the rack. Mind you, I haven’t seriously touched my guitars in years… they’ve mostly been collecting dust. 😦   But she pulled out the classical guitar, I tuned it up, and showed her an E chord and sent her to practice it.

Last night I rummaged through a box and found a “new” set of strings and restrung my steel-string acoustic. Now I’ve taught her an A and a D.

She knows 3 chords. She can officially start a rock band now. 🙂

Our fingertips are hurting, but had a lot of fun. Played a lot of Led Zeppelin for her, some Badlands, John Cougar Mellencamp, even some stuff I wrote years ago. Amazed at how much I remember.

Time with my kids, teaching them, seeing the look on their faces as they discover and grow… hard to beat that.

Further Android impressions

/ hsoi

Been reading the official Android developer documentation. The Notepad Tutorial is the most complex introductory step-by-step tutorial they offer. Going through it I can say a few things that I find pretty cool, mostly about Eclipse.

  • The “Organize Imports” command is awesome.
  • I like to type things out manually and format code my own way. So that the Eclipse IDE wants to format things its way, wants to code-complete, and keyboard shortcuts aren’t fully the same as true Mac editing? Well… it’s getting on my nerves. But I’m trying to remember that “ok, when I open a brace/bracket/parenthesis, it’ll close it automatically and also indent to the next level”. So I just have to try to stop typing so much.
  • When you get a compiler error, that it attempts to suggest fixes and you can just pick from the list? That’s kinda cool.
  • Bring up a contextual menu in source code, Source, Override/Implement Methods…and then you can just pick inherited methods to override and a template is inserted? That’s cool.
  • I don’t like how not-seemless all the work is. This is certainly where Apple has things down. You see, in the Apple world all parts of the toolchain work together. The language makes things go. To help the language make things go, the library provides a base NSObject that (almost) everything descends from, and also provides design patterns for everyone to follow. These patterns then are implemented by the tools, so things like Interface Builder allow you to just click and connect everything. The entire toolchain is integrated and supports the greater developer paradigm, so things are smooth. But here in this Android world? Not so much. There’s still a lot of manual hooking of things together, from the layout XML to the code to make everything go. But I will say, the trick with the generated “R” class is a pretty slick way to try to blend this all together. I just wish the editing process was a little more smooth.
  • I’m curious why Eclipse is sooooo slow with things like opening files. I mean, I’ve got an 8-core Intel Mac Pro with 10 GB of RAM. There shouldn’t be such pauses just to do simple operations like opening and closing files.

All in all, it seems that Eclipse strives to help you out as much as possible. I like that. Sometimes I wish it wasn’t so helpful, but I reckon that’s probably because I’m not used to it. The real test will be spending a long time in this world then switching back to say Xcode and seeing what I miss and then hate about Xcode lacking. 🙂

I went to the bookstore and got the Pro Android 2 book. Of the various “How to program Android” books out there right now, this seems like it has potential to be the best one, not only in terms of how the book itself is put together, but the breadth and depth of topics covered.

The more I work in this, the cooler it is. Yeah, I also see more of the rough and painful edges, but yeah.. this is neat.

I did realize one thing tho. I don’t like looking at Android. There’s a grace and elegance that Apple brings to everything it does. They care about the design down to the last pixel. Looking at Android GUI? It feels like I’m thrown back to 8-bit Atari games. Not really, but that’s the only analogue I can think of to describe it. It just doesn’t look as graceful nor sexy as iOS or anything Apple does.

Olivia cigar

/ hsoi

In my recent cigar purchase I picked up some cigars I’ve never tried before.

One was a Olivia Cigar Serie G Maduro, Robusto.

It was good. It wasn’t as good, to my tastes, as that Rocky Patel Edge Missile Maduro, but it was good.

The cigar body itself was soft, and while smoking got softer… almost “squishy” in my hand. I didn’t like that. I also felt like some of the heat flowed back while I was smoking it… not bad, but just a little warmer and perhaps contributed to the squishy feel over the life of the smoke. An interesting note is the cigar itself is square shaped, but that faded of course as the cigar feel softened. I know W doesn’t like the square shape, and often when we have a Rocky Patel 1990 or 1992, those are hard and the square shape may not fade. So, he might like how this Olivia progresses.

Flavor was good. Mellow, a hint of spice but not overwhelming. I had a glass of Paul Newman Cabernet with it (Wife likes Newman products and so we thought we’d try his wine… it’s OK, something’s missing from it, hard to describe, subject for another posting some other day). Even now as I write this and feel the aftertaste of the cigar in my mouth, it’s a pleasant earthy flavor.

Draw was good. Lots of good smoke to fill the mouth.

Would I have this cigar again? Yes, but I think I might want to try a Belicoso size… a hair larger, and I want to try the “pointed” shape (sorry… don’t know the technical term for that “pointed” shape) to see how it would affect the draw.

Meat

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Dropped off the doe parts at Johnny G’s. Yielded about 63# of parts (meat and bones). Not a lot, really, but that one doe was pretty small. Getting backstraps cleaned up, roasts, a few ham steaks, the rest ground 90/10. If I want more venison to last through the year, I’m going to need to go back out and bag a couple more.

While at Johnny G’s I ordered one of their freezer packs. Good variety of meat, better quality, about the same price as at the grocery store. Their bacon is awesome. Also picked up an extra pound of bacon. Took some venison backstraps from last year out of the freezer (vac packed, so they will last longer in the freezer) and this weekend I’ll wrap ’em in bacon and put them on the smoker. Need to find a good marinade.

Wife and I surveyed the freezer this morning. It’s getting empty, so we figure once deer season is over and the butcher can handle it, we’re going to get a cow from Storm Ranch and have it fully processed. A full cow should last us a good long while… year at least, depending how much beef Wife wants to cook for me. 🙂  It’s a little more expensive than buying at the grocery store, but it’ll be hormone free, grass fed, aged, processed just like I want (e.g. thick steaks). It will be awesome. Never hand-picked my beef before… this’ll be a new experience.

And to think…. about 13 years ago I tried a vegetarian diet.

iOS vs. Android – programmer first impressions

/ hsoi

I did my first “Hello World” style Android app yesterday, and while it’s only a first impression I wanted to share my first impressions.

My background is that I’ve been a professional Mac software developer for about 15 years and a hobbiest Mac and Apple developer since I was a wee lad. I used to work at Metrowerks, makers of CodeWarrior, back in the day when CodeWarrior was “the thing” for Mac software development. So I’ve not only used developer tools, I’ve made them. That all said, I don’t have a lot of iOS experience from a developer perspective because I’ve only so much time in a day and just didn’t have time nor a job that required it. But that’s changing and so into the abyss I go. I say this because yes, my initial Android experience is going to be tainted by the world I’m coming from. I’m not saying the new world is bad, just different.

Java

Android uses the Java programming language. I haven’t touched Java in over a decade, and I know the language has evolved. First thing I did was pick up a book on the language. I bought Learn Java for Android Development by Jeff Friesen. The book has NOTHING to do with Android itself, it’s a pure language book. But I choose this book because the book is geared towards Android so it doesn’t waste time talking about matters irrelevant to Android, like AWT. I didn’t give the book a hard-read, nor did I bother with doing much of the exercises because I don’t feel I need it (famous last words?). I’ve used Java in the past, I’ve been programming for quite a while, and the book is geared towards someone who is starting from scratch. So talking about Generics? It’s akin to C++ templates so I just needed to get the details and differences. Container classes? Just give me an overview of what’s there, I don’t need to read 10 pages about all the various methods and what they do (that may come later for reference).

That all said, there’s a lot that’s changed in Java since I last really used it and I think a lot of the changes are good. Being able to “inline” a lot of things, nest classes, anonymous classes… it’s nice to just define your “callback” right there as you go along. It’s nice to have a language that’s more pure OO than C++ (Objective-C is pretty good at being true OO). It’s nice to see the library expanded, and things like Generics added. Yes there’s a lot of syntax I’ll have to get used to, but that’s how it is when you switch from one language you’ve used for years to one you haven’t. I should be alright.

But while the language is fine, the IDE is another story.

Eclipse

Oh…. I don’t like.

You see, every platform does things they way they do it because they believe they have something different and better. Mac OS X is one thing, Windows is another, Linux another… and everyone does their thing differently. Sure most of the core concepts are the same, but little details of interactions and how widgets work and the parts mesh vary. And Java apps seem to like to do things their own way, perhaps with a Windows-bias since many Java developers are Windows-based. Coming from the elegant world of the Mac user experience? Using Eclipse feels bizarre and klunky. I’m sure I’ll get used to it, but it still feels strange and like a step backwards in terms of human-computer interaction and experience.

One thing that really bugs me is I don’t like being forced into a tabbed single-window-only interface. I’m not that into tabbed interfaces, but I have come to appreciate when tabs are good and when they are not — for me. Apple’s really pushed a single-window mode of being on Mac OS X, and for the most part that’s alright. What I find I like is the ability to exist how I want to exist. Sometimes I want two windows because I need to arrange the content as I need to to do my work. Other times I want these “windows” to be grouped together and thus having the content in multiple tabs within the same window makes the most sense. I like options. If Eclipse allows me to escape this tabbed world, I haven’t found it yet.

Tools Install

You want to develop for the Mac? These days it’s pretty much Xcode. You download, you install, and off you go. All the apps you need, compilers, libraries, documentation, everything. It’s simple and rather painless.

To develop for Android? I had Eclipse installed from a prior thing I was working on, but now I had to get another version. So download that. Then I have to download the Android SDK and put that somewhere and tell Eclipse about it. Then I have to actually download and install all the API’s and tools for developing Android apps. Then more configuring. Finally, I can get going. What a pain. I don’t really blame anyone for this because the nature of the beast is so open, requires things from different vendors, and there’s a lot of flexible options. I do think options are good, but I also think there’s something to be said for providing a setup to get new folks started. It’s a high bar of entry, and I can only wonder how a total programming newbie would handle this. If Google could provide a “one click download and install” that gets you going, that’d be awesome. Sure it may provide more than is needed, it may bias towards one product or SDK or something, but get the n00b going, then once they grok the world they can sort things out and streamline later.

Nevertheless, things are going.

First App

A friend sent me this blog posting on writing your first Android app. I figured I’d give it a try before I went through all the Getting Started stuff at the Android Developer website. First, this blog posting was great because it gave better instructions on how to get the tools downloaded, installed, and configured. Thank you for that!

But as I worked through this, it helped me see how spoiled I am in the MacOSX/iOS world, especially with how integrated the developer toolchain is.

Designing the user interface. So, I have to hand-write XML? Holy crap… I thought we were in the 21st century! Oh sure there’s a little tool to work it, but it sounds like no one uses it and it’s very rudimentary. That everyone just prefers to edit the XML by hand. Man, that’s…. unacceptable in this day and age.

Then to hook your GUI into your code, you have to do all this manual labor in code to make it happen. Yes, I’m spoiled by the actions and outlets paradigms in Cocoa, where in my code I can just declare an IBAction or IBOutlet, then in Interface Builder just click and drag to hook everything up. It’s a small thing, but it’s there.

I do like Android Virtual Devices thing, where you can simulate any sort of device. That’s of course necessary, but it seemed to run a little smoother than the iPhone/iPad simulator.

As an aside, I got to learn about a cool prototyping/wireframing tool called balsamiq.  That app is way cool.

From here?

The first impression I’m left with? Android as a technology might be really advanced, but the developer experience is archaic. The toolset just feels really klunky, and I can see how spoiled I am with Apple’s tools.

That said, that’s the toolset and I will work with it. I’m sure I’ll get used to it and come to find things I love and things I hate. I’m still looking forward to delving deeper into the world of Android development. I’ve only begun and I’m sure my impressions will change, but first impressions are important and the impression I’ve been left with is one that desires more. Here’s hoping for the best.

Maduro

/ hsoi

It started back in college.

Three friends of mine from high school. We’d be away at school for a few months, then return to “home base” for holidays… and we’d get together for a “stogie night”. Thus, I started smoking cigars. Nothing serious, just the occasional thing. But it was fun to do every once in a blue moon.

Over the years I’d have a cigar now and then, but never really enough to gain enough understanding of different cigar types, fillers, wrappers, flavors, sizes, draw, whatever… all those characteristics that make this cigar different from that cigar.

A few years ago my buddy W, who likes good cigars, introduced me to Rocky Patel’s. Boy… talk about a quality cigar! And since I can find good cigars fairly easily in town (thank you, Spec’s), I’ve started to smoke cigars a little more often… much to the dislike of my children. 😉  (stinky!)  But it’s also a nice thing to be able to do now. I go outside, have a cigar, a glass of wine, spend an hour with Wife just talking in the evening in the backyard, and now that we have Sasha she comes and romps around in the yard. It’s a nice bit of quality time with Wife (and dog).

So I’ve been enjoying the Rocky’s, and with a generous gift from W a little while ago I got to try a bunch of different RP’s. And I started to say “ok, I like this… no, I don’t like that”. Like the RP 1961? Great cigar, but just not my thing. Why?

Well, one thing I’ve noticed? I prefer maduro wrappers.

For instance, the Rocky Patel Edge Missile with the maduro wrapper? I’d say that’s my present favorite. The corojo wrapper? there’s a “spice” to it that I find is OK, but not a strong preference. But the maduro has a smoother, more mellow flavor. And the way the Edge Missile is wrapped? It’s not too tight, I get a great draw, great smoke, great mouthfeel. Just good good stuff.

But I’ve also noticed, I prefer smaller cigars. The size of the petit corona, robusto… those tend to work for me. Even the Edge Missile is a little big for me in terms of when I get to a point of saying “OK, I’m done”.

So when I went to the store today to restock on cigars the criteria was: maduro, small size. I picked up some RP’s because it’s something I like, and I picked up a few more random brands that fit the criteria.

We’ll see how they go.

I just finished smoking a RP Edge Missile with a nice glass of red wine. Oh so good.

Deer hunting – opening weekend 2010

/ hsoi / 13 Comments

This is opening weekend for general season (gun) whitetail deer hunting in Texas.

Of course, I was out in the field. 🙂

I had such a great experience at Storm Ranch last year, I opted to go there again. My goal? If I could bag a couple does, I’d be thrilled. Meat was the goal, didn’t feel like paying for a big rack of antlers since they don’t cook up very well. 🙂  However, if some awesome monster came along, I wasn’t opposed to taking him.

The cool thing about this go-round? I took the kids.

Saturday Morning

Oldest went with me Saturday morning. He’s hot and cold about hunting. Sometimes he’s all gung-ho, other times he groans when I talk about it. But he talks about wanting to go hunting enough that I figured he needed to go like it or not (tho I think he does like it). I also figured to take him out first, because I haven’t been able to spend a lot of time with him lately. The plan was to alternate: Oldest on Saturday morning and Sunday evening, Daughter on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. Youngest isn’t ready to go (he doesn’t care, and would just be beyond bored). Thing is, Oldest only committed to going Saturday morning. *sigh* Oh well, I’ll take what I can get.

I got him up around 3:30 AM, then again at 3:45, then again at 4:00. 😉  We got dressed, a little breakfast, load the car, and off we went. We get in. Casimero the ranch hand, and his son, once again picked us up. He had a new truck, but only with a standard cab so 4 people were cramped up in the front. Good thing the kids can still sit on my lap. We went to a stand, got ourselves settled in, and waited. I remember this stand well — it’s where I had “redemption” last year.

Let me just say that I’m glad I planned ahead for Oldest. I made it clear to him a few days ago how cold it was going to be, so that he couldn’t ignore my telling him to dress in layers, wear gloves and a hat, and so on. The notion of freezing his buns off was obviously unappealing, which worried me that the day might flop. So while at the sporting goods store yesterday on a whim I picked up those dry pack “hand warmer” things as well as a small propane heater. Man, I’m so glad I did. There was a freeze warning out for the Hill Country, and I reckon it was around 32º that morning. We were layered well, but still it was cold. I recalled how last year was a bit miserable just sitting in the stand bored and cold, so yeah… I was happy for the warmth and Oldest was too. . The heater didn’t make it feel like we were indoors (the blind windows of course let all the heat out), but it did take the edge off and allow us a nice way to keep our hands toasty. The little hand warmer packets were so-so… didn’t live up to my expectations, but I will say my hands weren’t as numb as they could have been. I also bought Oldest a big insulated thermos so he could bring some coffee. In the end, good purchases… we were still a little cold, but the gadgets took the edge off.

But that’s all there was to write home about. We saw nothing. No deer. Just birds. Did see an owl, which was cool. Thankfully, Oldest has been fishing enough to know there’s “fishing” and then there’s “catching”, so he knows there are no guarantees. But he was very positive about everything and told me he still had a lot of fun. I asked if he wanted to go back out Sunday evening and he said yes. Frankly, I didn’t care so much about the lack of deer; just being out there with my son was satisfying enough. We got to talk a lot, fun around, make jokes at the other’s expense, I got schooled at Doodle Jump. Sure, bagging a deer would have been nice, but as cliché as it may be, time with my son was priceless.

I will say tho… while sitting and growing mildly impatient to even SEE a deer, I realized that while I want meat, I also want to finally bag something with that 6.8. I found myself itching not so much to bag a deer, but to bag a deer with that 6.8. If a warm gun is happiness, then I have a very unhappy gun. 😉

Saturday Evening

Came home, cleaned up, then got Daughter ready for the evening hunt. Drove back out to Storm Ranch with our hopes high. Got there about 3:00, loaded into the truck, and Casimero took me out to a stand that I remember well. This was the stand where last year the feeder went off, then a bunch of horses came out and never left… I spent the evening watching horses and wishing they would go away. I was fearing another repeat of the same for there were 5-6 cows parked right at the same fence juncture. Great…. But, I spoke up about it. When I was left the ranch that morning, I spoke on the phone to Josh about how the morning went and where I’d like to sit that afternoon. I actually wanted to sit in the same location as I did last year’s first night when I got the doe. So I mentioned that to Casimero and well… I don’t know if there was a mix up in the communication, if I didn’t describe it right, if another hunter was already there… don’t know. But, we did pack up from that horse-and-cow laden location and went somewhere else.

I don’t believe I ever sat in this spot. And to be honest, the picture cannot do the beauty of the location any sort of justice.  That picture was taken from within the stand. The stand was up on a hillside looking down at a feeder 100 yards away (you can see the feeder as a little dot in the center of the picture). Behind the feeder the hills went up and it was just a gorgeous view from that stand. Thing is, the deer could have come from any direction since trees were everywhere and paths everywhere. So we just had to keep our eyes open.

4:00… 5:00… feeder goes off. We continue to wait. Last year my father-in-law gave me a deer grunt call as a Christmas stocking stuffer. I really don’t know how to use calls, but I studied some prior to going out so… what the hey, might as well try. Oldest and I tried in the morning, but had no luck. I tried a few calls and nothing. Nearing 6:00.

Now about this time I was changing my mind about going back out on Sunday. You can only get a deer if you’re in the field, but did I really want to be in the field another day? Yes, because I wanted some deer. Yes, because I wanted to share more of the experience with my kids. But no, because I’m dead tired. I haven’t been sleeping well lately and the lack of sleep has been affecting my performance. Furthermore, with Daylight Saving Time ending well… technically it’s “fall back” so you gain an hour of sleep, but not in my case because the sun and thus the deer still rise at the same relative time, so instead of waking up at 3:30 AM to get ready I’d have to get up at 2:30 AM and oye, that’s just even more lost sleep. I was giving serious contemplation to staying home on Sunday and resting. I can go hunt later, but I need to heal my body now.

I changed the deer call to a “tending/hyper grunt”… a buck mating call, used only during the rut. I gave it a whirl. Waited 5 minutes. Gave it another whirl. I looked down in my lap at my phone, and when I looked back up… I saw her.

“Here child… here!” and I shoved my phone and the deer call into Daughter’s hands. “Deer! Deer!” I excitedly whisper. “Where? What?”, Daughter replied. I’m working to get my rifle into position. “Down there, in front of the feeder”. It was actually hard to see her with the naked eye, she blended in with the terrain very well. I had the rifle up… but ugh… I was facing south, the sun was setting, and so my right eye was getting flooded with sunlight and I couldn’t see. Reposition. Sun gone. Got her in my crosshairs. Breathe… breathe… calm down… steady… deep breath……. breathe.

“There’s another!” Daughter whispers. Scan scan scan…. ah, there. Doe. Smaller. Switch back to the first one. Damnit… she jumped inside the low-fence around the feeder. Well, that’s OK. She’s hungry, she’ll be here a while. Wait.

Wait.

Wait.

Come on… jump out. Perfect broadside shot, but I’m not going to take her while she’s inside the fencing…. tempting tho it was. Finger went to the trigger a couple of times, but I wasn’t going to take it.

Wait.

Wait.

SHIT! They just flew the flag. “Dad, it’s a bird on the fence.” Doesn’t matter why, they got spooked well enough by something. Big doe jumped out of the fencing and was looking to bolt, but she paused. OK, now or never. Damnit, another almost front-on shot… why can’t I get a broadside? well, I know the anatomy, so here goes. “Daughter, plug your ears.”

Boom!

I press off the shot. I follow through. I see the doe take off running towards me (to her 1 o’clock, my 11 o’clock). Her front left leg is moving funny so I know I got her and broke her shoulder. OK…. running behind that little group of trees, I can’t see her… I’m still following her though, my head turning to my left and oh! What’s this?

It’s the other doe.

She of course ran when she heard the shot, but only ran about 50 yards to the east, stopped, and looked back in the direction of where the loud sound came from (me). Gosh… the grass is tall, you’re down the hill and mostly hidden, but I have a perfect and clear shot on you.

Boom!

I didn’t see anything. No idea if I got her due to the terrain… she could have run and I wouldn’t know where she went. Daughter and I gave a small celebration. Daughter reported she saw the first one crash on the ground, and the second was either dead or long gone. Yeah yeah… wait before you get out of the stand. I saw no reason to wait. But I tell you, I felt like a clumsy fool trying to get out of the stand. Trying to move the chairs, trying to get through the door… I was shaking so much from the excitement, from the aftermath. I strapped the gun over my shoulder and headed down the hill.

We found the first doe. about 25-30 yards from where she was shot.

But we didn’t stop to take pictures then. We flagged where she was, then went searching for the other one. I knew her general location, but with all the rain we had this past year, the grasses were pretty tall and plentiful… figured it would be a lot of scouring around. A little bit of searching and we found her. There was a splotch of blood on the ground, and from how the deer was laying, all twisted up, we deduced she was DRT and never took a step.

I talked with Daughter a bit about how she felt, what she experienced. She was excited, it was thrilling. I talked to her about being thankful, about giving respect and thanks to the deer for giving their lives to nourish ours… and Daughter finished the sentiment by saying then when we die, we go into the ground, feed the plants, which then feed the deer. And the circle of life continues. 🙂  While we waited to be picked up, I phoned Wife to tell her the news. Her take was that I placed my order (“I’d like two does, please”) and God served it up. And how.

Casimero came to pick me up. We loaded the deer, went back to the cabin area to clean them. Daughter was feeling tired so I asked if Casimero could clean them because he’s amazingly fast at it (I’d take twice as long, at least). While he did that, I got to talk with Josh and catch up with him. Another group of folks was in for the weekend to hunt and the had a campfire going. Daughter went over there to warm up. I admit, I was a little nervous about Daughter going over to a campfire with a group of strangers… not that they’d do anything, but I had no idea who was there, if they’d be nice and accepting of a little girl coming over or what. Turned out to be great tho, since Daughter got to meet Lauren who was so welcoming and kind to Daughter, as well as the other group in for the weekend. Everyone was so nice to her, they all talked for a while. I eventually wandered over myself and chatted with everyone. Seems this other group saw 8-10 bucks during the day, a dozen hogs…. so that’s where everything was! 🙂  We stayed and talked to everyone for a while. Makes me think that one of these times I need to just stay the weekend; sure it’s a 30-45 minute drive so it’s nice that I can sleep in my own bed, but gosh if the camp isn’t part of the fun of the experience.

Daughter was fading, so it was time to head home. Two deer in the cooler. Earlier I wasn’t sure if I was going to hunt on Sunday, but having 2 in the cooler? I figured I could rest on Sunday and head back out to hunt another day. I spoke with Oldest about it and he’s cool with it; we’ll go out again together, just him and me.

When I got home, I washed all the quarters and put them on ice and water. I’ll let them wet-age in the garage for a couple of days then take them to Johnny G’s for processing. The fun part? While I was cleaning things up, Wife came out to the driveway and brought Sasha. Oh… I guess a primal nerve got struck with her. She’s never smelled deer and so much fresh flesh and blood, but she was mightily interested. I had a couple chunks of the fresh venison flesh that I set aside, and when I was all done cleaning things up, gave Sasha the chunks. She wolfed them down. When the deer were cleaned, I had them keep all the organs they could (that which wasn’t blown all to hell). Got a heart, a liver, a couple kidneys. Going to cut them up today and make another “stew” for Sasha. She’ll love them. 🙂

Gun (and other) Geekery

What would this entry be without a little gun geekery.

I shot these two deer with my rifle chambered in 6.8 SPC. It’s a mild franken-gun, with the upper being a Wilson Combat 6.8 and the lower from a Bushmaster, and the trigger a Rock River Arms 2-stage match trigger.. The scope is a Burris Fullfield II 3-9x40mm with a standard Plex reticle on their P.E.P.R. mount. I used Silver State Armory 6.8 SPC 85 grain Barnes TSX tactical load for ammo.

Interesting on the ammo. On the second doe, the bullet passed through. Hit in the front shoulder, exited out the side. On the first doe tho… there was no exit wound. Now, her heart and lungs were sufficiently destroyed, the shoulder joint was blown… but where did the bullet come to rest? There’s a lot of deer it had to go through (remember, it was an almost front-on shot) so the bullet came to rest in her somewhere… just… where? Don’t know. We didn’t find it. It could still be in the meat somewhere (tho I didn’t find it), or in the carcass that is now buzzard and fox food somewhere on the Storm Ranch property. If the bullet is in the meat I have, I’d love to recover it. But the bottom line for me is… it shows the impressive performance of Barnes bullets.

I’m also happy that the 6.8 performed so well. This is my first kill with the 6.8 and it did great. I’m certainly looking forward to loading those 95 grain Tipped TSX bullets and using them exclusively for my Texas hunting needs.

The gun was zeroed to be 1.5″ high at 100 yards. That worked well. The first doe was at about 100 yards and the second I’m guessing 125-135 yards. There was only the occasional slight breeze (5-10 MPH at far most). Everything performed well and did what it was supposed to.

In other geeky stuff… notice in the picture I’m wearing a white shirt? There was no camo wearing in the afternoon. I know… wearing camo is the way things go. It’s part of the tribal aspect of the event. But come on. Siting in a box blind is all the camo needed. I might not wear white again since it’s kinda reflective and visible. Camo has a place, but I’m not going to get religious about it.

The deer call. Who’s to say. It was evident these does were hot, so did that “excited buck mating call” bring them in? Or were they just aware of the feeder and came out of habit? Who knows. I’ll continue to practice calling.

Sum

It’s evident from speaking with some long-time hunters that I’m in a different place than they are. They’ve been at it a while and generally only want to shoot “that big one”. They want something different from I want. I want experience: I’m now up to 4 whitetail deer in my lifetime, and the fact I got to shoot 2 in row? Wow! I want meat in the freezer. I am a little impatient. I am not picky. I want to give my kids an experience I never had growing up, and just like fishing vs. catching I know that it’s sometimes better to catch a little bluegill quickly than to sit all day and never catch Big Bubba Largemouth, if you want to capture their interest. Sure I’d love to bag that big buck of a lifetime, but why? For the stories, for the experience. Well folks, right now I’m having one heck of a fine experience as it is, so I’m good.

What made me most happy? My shooting. Yes as soon as I saw the doe my heart rate went up, my breathing went up, I started to shake. I calmed myself. The two shots I took? They were calm, steady, true. Bullet went right where I wanted. I had to make quick decisions, and decisive shots, especially on that second one. My mind was made up to take two deer if I had the opportunity, so when it arose I didn’t have to think if I wanted to do it, I just acknowledged the situation, assessed if I had the shot, and since I did I took it (had plan, executed it). To be able to make such a shot quickly, calmly, accurately, and decisively felt good and reassuring of my skillset. This has extrapolation into other areas.

I’m happy with how things turned out. The gun performed well. The weather was fantastic. I love how Storm Ranch is so close to home, but being buried in the middle of the ranch you have deep stars and absolute silence (other than someone else’s gunshots ringing out in the distance). I got to spend good time with my kids. I got to provide some true free-range organic meat for my family to be nourished by. Folks, life is good.

I again want to thank Josh Storm, Casimero and his son, and everyone at Storm Ranch for again making for a good time. I want to also give special thanks to Lauren for being so kind and friendly with my Daughter. We’ll be back.

And now… to rest. 🙂

Updated: I edited the post slightly to add in some details of things I forgot to add the first time around.

Updated 2: On the big doe, due to the “hit from the front” angle, there was no exit wound. Thus the bullet was somewhere inside that deer. I wanted to recover it but we couldn’t find it. Well, I just got an email from Josh Storm. He found the bullet! He said it was lying on the slab where the deer was cleaned. He emailed me a picture:

I reckon he took the picture with his iPhone, since it’s a little blurry. But you can still see that 85 grain .277″ Barnes TSX expanded perfectly! Petals all curled back. Looks like no loss of petals either. THAT is Barnes performance. THAT is why I love Barnes bullets.

I do wonder where it actually ended up inside the doe. That is, how far did it penetrate, especially after hitting the shoulder. I do know the heart and lungs were demolished. While trimming out the right backstrap, I saw a hole in the ribs right next to the spine and wondered if that might have been where the bullet ended up. We’ll never know exactly.

Josh is going to mail me the bullet. I expect no loss of weight (or negligible), and for it to look picture perfect…. as long as it makes it through the US Mail without a hitch.