Me

Steel Challenge

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

For some time I’ve wanted to try my hand at shooting competitions. The main reason I haven’t? Scheduling. Things have been happening lately tho that have spurred me to get off my duff and finally try competition shooting. I still have to get my schedule happy, but at least my desire to do competition has moved from passing thought to “OK, let’s seriously consider this.”

As you can see here and here, the Austin and greater Central Texas area provides for a lot of competitions. Shotguns, rifles, carbines, pistols, combinations of them (e.g .3-gun), and just various types. So where to begin? I figure I’m going to start with handgun-only competitions, because that keeps it simple to start. But even with handgun-only there’s still many things to try. So I asked my mentor what to do and he suggested I start with Steel Challenge-based competition. There’s the ALSPPC that sounds like a good group to get started with.

I think steel will be a good way to start. It’s a simpler competition, by design, which is good for breaking into the world of competition shooting (less to worry about). Given the skills I’m working on and need to improve upon, Steel Challenge seems right up the alley: distances 7-35 yards, every shot must count, speed is important but accuracy more important (slow hit better than a fast miss). It really seems exactly the sort of thing I need right now. An additional benefit is you can shoot it with a .22 rimfire handgun… given the state of ammo today, that’s a great thing. Furthermore, kids can shoot! If Daugther eventually wants to try, she can! As I was researching for this post, I came across videos of a Tori Nonaka, who appears to be a 13-year old girl shooting Steel and IPSC competitions and being quite good at it:

I watch her videos and am not just impressed with her shooting, but I can’t help but think of my own Daugther and wondering if that might be her someday. 🙂

But back to steel… here’s some resources:

So, at this point I’ve got more reading, practice, and preparation to do. But as soon as my schedule will allow me, I’m going to try shooting steel.

Quite an experience to live in fear…

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

A couple hours ago I finished watching the movie Blade Runner. Never seen it before, so it was about time that I did. Interesting movie, and I should probably watch it again to more fully appreciate it. While the movie wasn’t quite what I expected, in a good way, there was one line that jumped out at me. Roy Batty said:

Quite an experience to live in fear, isn’t it? That’s what it is to be a slave.

True, so true.

Latest on the orange cat

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As mentioned previously, the orange cat has problems. Finally got the blood tests back.

I believe the wife said intestinal lymphoma. 

Nothing we can do.

Some things could be done to address symptoms, but more or less he’s on his way out.

Sad.

This is Wife’s cat. She’s broken up and very torn. The diarrhea all over the house is driving her crazy, but she’s not ready to say goodbye. It’s a big mixed bag of emotions.

Stay tuned.

ACL Festival 2009 Lineup announced

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The Austin City Limits Music Festival’s 2009 lineup has been announced.

Big deal. 🙂

Most of the bands that play ACL just aren’t the sort of stuff I care to listen to. Pearl Jam headlines this year… meh. I recall when Mother Love Bone ended and was looking so forward to what was to come. Temple of the Dog was a cool thing, but we still were waiting for the next thing. Then “Ten” came into the radio station and we listened and all I could think was how unimpressed I was. It was OK, but didn’t really move me. Everything since then did less for me.

Dave Matthews Band. I saw them many times before they got signed (they were a local band when I was in undergrad). They actually are pretty cool and I did enjoy seeing them live. I recall during one show Dave was signing and kept breaking strings on his acoustic guitar. He just kept singing, fished a new string out of his pocket, and restrung his guitar while continuing to sing. I always thought that was pretty cool. They were a great jam band then, but I just haven’t kept up with them.

Beastie Boys, yeah that’d be cool to see.

Sonic Youth would be very cool to see. 

Toadies. The only band to ever make me physically ill. Some many years ago, I think during a SXSW, a few too many adult beverages, and the bass was cranked so high I could feel it. I come from the water *boom boom* I come from the water *boom boom*. And with every boom my stomach rumbled in a bad way. Held it fine, but still. 🙂

The B-52’s. I love Kate Pierson’s voice and think she’s totally cute. They’d be fun to see live.

Clutch. That’s cool. Finally, one band that’s at least somewhere in the genres I tend to prefer.

Asleep At the Wheel is an institution. I always loved Ray Benson’s look.

But apart from that, it’s a lot of bands that I’ve not heard of and could care less about. Tends to be the case every year with ACL’s lineup. That’s OK tho. It’s a great festival and is great for the city. Just not for me.

Mixed Martial Arts Serendipity

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Of course, in my world “mixed martial arts” combines something other than the “muay thai, wrestling, bjj” formula. 🙂

As I’ve mentioned before here and here, when it comes to shooting I need to back off my speed and improve my accuracy. At the dojang today we were emphasizing a similar thing: smoothness of movement. As the saying goes, “slow is smooth, smooth is fast”. I’ve been working on my handgun presentation, the “punch” I refer to in my AT-4 class writeup, and that’s all about slowing down, being smooth.

So it was nice that my work today at the dojang was also about backing off speed a bit and improving correctness and accuracy. It’s always a great thing in my book when different things in my life end up with overlaps like this. It’s a signal to me that I need to work on it in those realms, but also what else can I apply it to? How about just general living? To slow down a bit. Cruise on my motorcycle at 55 MPH… sure the speed limit is 70, but go at 55 and get techniques right and enjoy the scenery going by. Don’t rush around to various things, just mellow out with the kids around the house. Whatever.

Slow down. Smooth things out. Do things correctly. No one cares about the first one to get the wrong answer. All those things that I keep telling myself. Gotta work on them more. Heck, it’s worth it for me to remember Tao Te Ching #48.

Gun folk taxonomy

/ hsoi

Tam has a look at the different ways to classify gun folk.

I guess I’d be a trainer (which of course makes me a shooter and owner too), who is looking to become a gamer, expects to be a hunter eventually.

Sunday ride

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

Early Sunday mornings are my favorite time for motorcycle riding. The roads are about as dead as you’ll see during the week, so there’s little pressure and little noise. It’s a great time to ride.

This morning the weather was great. Cool, breezy, fairly cloudy. Just had some rain so the roads are fairly clean. And with the rain we’ve been getting lately, everything is green. Wildflowers in bloom up and down the roadsides, lush green grass. It’s just a great time to cruise and enjoy what’s around you; be thankful for it too.

I prefer to ride alone as riding is my therapy, my escape, my time to decompress and unclutter my head. On Sunday mornings, it’s my personal time for commune with the greater thing(s) out there. When you roll through and experience the sights, the sounds, the smells of the world around you, you get reflective… you get thankful… you count your blessings and perhaps discover a few you didn’t realize you had. I haven’t been able to ride much latey and it reflects in the level of stress I’ve been feeling. While today’s ride was short, it was better than nothing and certainly welcome.

To boot, I stopped by Cabelas, picked up a couple things including .22 LR ammo (finally, someone has it back in stock!). I picked up 5 bricks — that’s over 2500 rounds, and I guess means I have an instant arsenal now, right? For anyone who wonders why someone would need that much ammo, well… come shooting with me sometime, you can use the Buck Mark, and you’ll see how quickly one runs through it. You might even have fun too, but don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. 🙂

Play date!

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

I actually dislike the term “play date”, but figure it’s amusing for a title.

TXGunGeek organized a play day. It was him, some of his friends, commenter Chimera was there, doc was there (it was a pleasure to meet you!), Barbie no-showed on us. But to me, the coolest part was TXGunGeek said it was cool if I brought my kids so Daughter came out with me.

Everyone got unpacked and there was just a smorgasbord of guns on the table. Everyone checking everyone else’s gear out, “Hey can I try that?” “Only if I can try that!”. It was quite cool. But, allow me to focus on My Little Girl for a bit, since that was the highlight of my day. 🙂

The main thing she was looking forward to was shooting the Buck Mark. A few days ago at house we did a little dry fire. She’s never fired a handgun before so we went over things like grip and stance, how the Buck Mark operates, etc..  She already knows about things like sight picture and trigger control, but we touched on those again as well. So once we got to the range and we could go hot, we shot steel. At the range there’s a nice set of steel targets, from 6″ and 8″ circles to larger rectangles and pepper poppers. Daughter had a blast. She liked shooting the Buck Mark. She liked the sound of lead hitting steel. She was doing really well. She would shoot a magazine then rest, since the gun would be heavy held out at arms length. As we went along I refined her trigger control so she would ride the trigger and properly reset it. Then working on regaining sight picture and shooting again as soon as she regained the sight picture. I think she really enjoyed that, being able to shoot a bit faster that she was before. I can’t disagree… there’s something satisfying about shooting fast and hearing all that “ping” on the steel.

Daughter also got to shoot a few other things. Chimera had a Henry lever-action .22, which Daughter really got a kick out of. I think she liked the lever-action. TXGunGeek had a .22 conversion kit for his AR and while the rifle was very heavy (you can see my right hand supporting the front), Daughter liked to shoot it.

Daughter was nothing but big smiles all morning long. She was shooting well, got to try some new (to her) and different guns. I’m a proud Daddy. 🙂

As for me, again I gotta say how much I like that Buck Mark. It is so much fun to shoot. 

The big thing of the day was a course TXGunGeek set up. Started off with a long gun (whatever you wanted to shoot, Chimera even tried it with his Henry lever-action), engage cardboard, shoot some clay pigeons, more cardboard, move, transition to side-arm, steel, cardboard, move, more cardboard, various distances, precise shooting. A fun little course.

Here I am, engaging the clays and missing because I was figuring out exactly how much holdover I needed:

And here I am after the transition to the XD.

We wrapped up just as it started to rain on us. Good timing. The weather was very nice: partly cloudy, a cool breeze, moderate temps. Just a great day for shooting.

I asked Daughter what she enjoyed: the Buck Mark. 🙂  I asked her what she learned: how to shoot a handgun, and a bit more about things like sight picture and trigger control.

I asked myself what I learned: it reinforced my need to make an effort to back off on speed and jack up accuracy. Not so slow that it’s akin to bullseye shooting, but well…. after I got home I was thinking that next time I’m shooting the Buck Mark on the steel range the thing to have in my head is “all hits”, that all 10 rounds in the magazine must go “ping”. That will require slowing down a bit, being 100% sure of sight picture before firing, keeping my eyes glued to that front sight.  I also learned I need to spend more time with my AR (and that I want an Aimpoint). What did I enjoy? Having a great time with my Daugther, bonding, teaching her things, creating fond memories. That was my highlight. 🙂

I want to thank TXGunGeek for setting this up and inviting me out to it, and for allowing my daughter to come along as well. Thanx to Chimera for letting us shoot his Henry (man, I want one of those now!). Doc, it was great to meet you! Everyone else, it was good to meet you too and I’m sure we’ll see each other again.

A good day. Now, off to clean some guns.

Updated: Gotta brag on my little girl a bit more. In the classroom at the range there’s a subtle but intentional thing done. I don’t want to say what it is because it’s better when students discover it on their own. It took me a few visits before I noticed it, then it was explained to me. This was daugther’s first time in the classroom and she noticed it immediately. I was tickled. 🙂

Updated 2: TXGunGeek has his write-up on the day.

Updated 3: Docbot finally wrote up!

Growing old together

/ hsoi

Blogging’s been light the past couple days. My buddy W got married tonight. I was one of his groomsmen and was honored to be (thus my minimal blogging, as I’ve been off doing wedding stuff). He’s a great guy, someone I’m fortunate to be able to call a friend. He’s found himself a wonderful woman in A, and seeing the two of them together… they are great for each other. I know my word choice is pretty lame here, but the simple fact is I just can’t express it. Watching them exchanging their vows, heck, every time I’m just around them… you can feel something great between them.

I see how they treat each other. I see how they care for each other. The tenderness, the consideration, the way they light up. It’s not just little silly things either. It’s bigger things, things that matter more for a relationship to have long-term success. I do believe they’ve got “it”.  I’ve only been married 13 years (1st and only marriage), so I still don’t know a lot. But I know what I like about my marriage and what helps to make it last:

My wife is someone I want to grow old with, and I’m someone she wants to grow old with.

If you have that, in so many ways you have an important bit of what it takes to succeed. I shared this, my wish for you both, at the reception this evening. It comes from my heart. I look forward to watching you guys growing old together. 🙂

Slacking, sorta

/ hsoi

The past couple weeks have been… full? distracting? having other things taking priority? been what they’ve been is all I can say. Some of it documented here, some not. As a result tho, I haven’t been at the dojang as much as I’ve wanted to be. So to my Kuk Sool folk reading this, sorry I haven’t been there… but it’s not from lack of want. 🙂  I did sign up for seminar tho. Dan bong! Looking forward to it.

Thing is, a while ago I made a commitment to practice martial arts every day. Doesn’t matter what it is, just as long as it’s something and done every day. It could be going to the dojang. It could be going to the garage and working on the heavy bag. It could be going on the yard and doing forms. It could be dry fire. It could be just draw practice. It might just be working out some techniques in my head, thinking through self-defense scenarios. Mentally going through all my Kuk Sool curriculum. Freeform development of mixed concepts (e.g. empty hand transition to handguns). Whatever. Doesn’t always have to be intensely physical, could be mental, could be just meditating on some concepts. So long as every day I do something. Going to the dojang is actually a fair part of that, but not going is really bugging me…. such is just life right now. Ebb and flow.