Me

Socialization

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

So I’m reading JR’s blog and he refers to this article from DirtCrashr. The article talks about the so-called “GIVE Act”. What actually hit me about the blog post wasn’t so much the content of the posting, but that along with the visual that hit me when I was reading it. Here’s a screenshot (you can click on it to see it larger):

Just look at that. Yes, read the words… then look at the pictures, especially the one on the top-left and the one on the right. Just take in the whole visual state of the blog posting.

You see, Wife and I homeschool our children. What’s the #1 thing that people say to us regarding homeschooling? Why, the “S” word of course: socialization.

Kinda takes on a whole new meaning now doesn’t it?

An old man and his LEGO

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

TXGunGeek isn’t an old man (well, he’s older than me and I’m just ribbing him), but he does lament where his old LEGO has gone.

I deal with this on a daily basis at my house. I grew up on LEGO as one of the coolest toys ever, and I still think they are. So of course as soon as my kids were old enough to not view them as little cubic candy pieces, there was LEGO in the house. Heck, Oldest just used the money he’s saved up to buy himself a Brickmaster subscription.

I do understand where TXGunGeek is coming from. My first LEGO kit was just a giant box. You opened the lid and there were lots of little compartments that just held bricks. Nothing fancy, but just oodles of bricks and endless imagination. No mini-figs in sight. But man, once Town and Castle especially Space came around, dude, that was so cool! Now it just wasn’t basic bricks, but you had other pieces in shapes like cones or wings, so now you could build airplanes or rockets. The mini-figs were cool too because now you had “to scale” people that you could put in your creations. 

When I got a new LEGO kit, sure I built the model that the kit was designed around. But then I built more. Many times the box had pictures of other things you could build with the set, and it was always a challenge to build those things because you maybe got only one shot of the thing and so you had to figure out for yourself what bricks you needed and what you had to do to fill out the rest of the model. Then of course there was just happy free-form creation. One of my cousins was a bigger LEGO nut than me (I swear he lived for LEGO; I recall him writing a paper for school on LEGO), and his free-form creations were awesome. I remember visiting him one time and he had just made this double-decker 6 foot long space ship. It was incredible. Then, one of our younger cousins proceeded to throw it down the stairs… yes, we were livid.

So recalling my memories, I look at how LEGO is now and I have to wonder a bit. I often think there is too much emphasis put on the models, on merchandising. I mean, there’s Star Wars, Spongebob Squarepants, Indiana Jones, they did a thing with the NBA, there was that stupid Galidor thing that wasn’t even LEGO, Harry Potter, Batman, Thomas The Tank Train, Bob the Builder…. and there’s been many more things they’ve done. But is that so bad? If this allows LEGO to stay in business, if this helps to get some kids interested in LEGO that maybe they wouldn’t otherwise be, is that so bad? Plus I’ve seen a lot of the pieces that come in these model sets, and there’s some really cool pieces. Not to mention one of the larger consumers of LEGO, especially Star Wars, are adults.

Let’s not forget LEGO’s own creations. They still have City, there’s always something Space (now it’s Mars Mission), they’ve got Pirates, Vikings, Castle, and we can’t forget Bionicle. Bionicle is a huge hit at my house. I’m not so hip to the latest Bionicle because it’s certainly more about milking a franchise now, whereas the original Bionicle was truly an extension of the Technic series (gears and levers and “doing stuff”). Then there’s Mindstorms. What a great thing that is.

The thing is, certainly some LEGO kits remain as-is. Some people like the model aspect of it all, and really this is no different from any other model making, be it Revell models or basla wood planes or whatever your choice of medium. But without question, the kids still take things apart. They still use their imagination to create their own things. They still play. They still have to be challenged to think, or even just learning how to follow the directions and pay attention to detail… these are all good and positive things for kids.

Yes LEGO isn’t the same as it was when we were kids, but in all the ways that matters it still is.

Another day, another class

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I was back out today at KR Training helping with classes. There were two classes today, first Defensive Pistol Skills then Handgunning: Beyond the Basics. Overall, it was a good day. I came home and didn’t have any holes in me, so I cannot complain. 8)  Wife is, understandably, happy about that too.

The classes actually went pretty smoothly, from where I sat. Sure things weren’t perfect, but all in all the students were good and things went alright. Up front however, I want to admit my goober moment. Before the first class we were out on the small range getting people properly geared up. One gentleman had brought a revolver to shoot, so I was asking John for his take on things (the gentleman also had a semi-auto and was trying to determine which he should shoot during the class). The gentleman was well behind the firing line and unholstered the revolver to hand to John. John immediately did the proper thing, directing the man to reholster… but I goobered. I said “it’s unloaded”. As soon as I said it, I realized I just had a goober moment. The reason I spoke up was because just a few minutes prior I had taken that gentleman up to the line and got things unloaded, so what I was trying to do was let John know I had cleared the gentleman. But it doesn’t matter. Rule 1? All guns are always loaded. Furthermore, proper range etiquette is that you don’t handle the gun where we were. So, I admit my goober moment in hopes someone else can learn from my mistake.

Again, I overall felt the classes ran OK. Many of the people that came for the first class stayed for the second. Because of the amount of overlap in the students between the two classes, it was cool to watch people progress all day long. So with that, I have a few comments towards the future:

Skills Build

The way classes are structured, what you are doing now is laying a foundation for what you will be doing later. This means you should pay attention to what you’re doing now. It can also perhaps provide a hint as to what’s coming later. But more importantly, as you move on to later things, don’t forget the things that you did prior. You might get taught A then B then C, but when you’re working on D, don’t forget to do A (and B and C). Everything builds, and you should keep that in mind. For those that have taken the class, I’ll just say one word: “SCAN!”. For those yet to take the class, there’s your hint for what you’ll be doing later. 🙂

Speed Is Relative

Fast is important, but I believe correct/accurate is more important. Yes it is important to go fast, but if you’re missing your target, you might be going too fast. I understand the pressures of class… the instructor wants you to go fast… there’s other people shooting faster than you… you want to go fast, you want to do well. Thus, we go fast. But here’s the thing. You can only go as fast as you can go. Yes, there will probably be someone faster than you. Yes, there will probably be someone slower than you. But who cares; this is a classroom, a place to learn, not a competition. You should go as fast as you can go that allows you to properly and correctly perform. Once you are comfortable and confident going that speed, then you should try going a bit faster.

For instance, there was one gentleman in class that was shooting all over the target… very little consistency. We watched him. He was going too fast: trying to shoot fast, pulling the trigger really fast and thus pulling the gun off target, and things just weren’t panning out for him. Eventually we got him to slow down, and slow everything down: slow down his time between shots, slow down his trigger press. Once he did this, his accuracy improved exponentially. Was he as fast as others in the class? No, but he was fast enough for himself. Now that he knows how to shoot correctly, he can work on having correct skills first then he can working speeding up those correct skills.

There’s a story of an Austin Police shooting from a few months back. Apparently that rookie police officer was shooting at the suspect, and was shooting fast. Things weren’t working. He remembered to slow down, use his sights, and he was able to take the bad guy down. 

Misses don’t count. Slow hit is better than fast miss. Work to be correct, work to be smooth, then gradually speed that up.

Mindset is Everything

This is something I actually want to devote to its own blog entry. So here it is.

 

So anyway, the day was good. The weather was gorgeous, a little windy, but wonderful. The drive was great too, as the wildflowers are coming up, bluebonnets are everywhere. Just a good day.

Yes, there is hope!

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Dinner is done.

The table needs cleaning off. The children are supposed to be cleaning, but are farting around and wrestling with each other. Wife is getting irritated. Yes the kids are all in a good mood, and we really don’t want to dampen it with Threat Of Dad® coming down upon them. So instead, I opt to bribe provide positive reinforcement to the children.

Ice cream.

Going out for it, no less. Wife requested a little peaceful time to herself, so I’ll happily take the kids away so she can have her Calgon moment.

I told the kids: clean the table and kitchen to Mom’s satisfaction, then tend to the litter box. You have 15 minutes. And I walked away.

These kids are moving. They set a timer. Oldest started delegating tasks. They are focused. They are cooperating. I just heard Oldest holler for Middle, “I need some help!” “OK, I’m coming.” Wow… no smart-assery, no belligerence, no nothing. Just the stuff that parental dreams are made of!! 🙂

I just heard “OK, we have 5 minutes left.”. I’m not sure, but it sounds like they are going above and beyond, cleaning even a bit more!! Are they wanting sprinkles on top of their ice cream? Oldest is barking orders. There’s no “You’re not the boss of me!” retort, just a simple “OK.” and obeying of the command. Wow….

Is it a bribe? Is it positive motivation? Call it whatever you want. I know the true power of this moment. You see, now I have tangible proof they are totally capable of working together, as a streamlined unit, cooperating, focused, efficient, on task, without back-talk, without fighting, without a need for Dad to intervene and put things back on course. Yes… yes I will hold this against them in the future. 🙂

And get this. 2 minutes left. They come in my office and give a successful report. So this is another thing… they can get things done early!  Man, they don’t realize how they’ve been set up… how high they just raised the bar for themselves. *insert diabolical fatherly laugh* 🙂

 

Updated: I should clarify, it’s not like my kids are normally misbehaved, disobedient, fight with each other, etc.. They’re actually quite well-behaved and do work well with each other. But, they are like any kid, they do have their sibling issues, they do have their moments of sheer jackassery. But still, tonight was sweet.

And sweet it was. I am still waiting for their Guinness ice cream to come back into rotation. A cup of that, some chocolate chunks crushed in. People I’m telling you there’s nothing finer. Had to settle (if you can call it that) for Mexican vanilla with fresh strawberries crushed in. Mmm.

Little things

/ hsoi

I can’t remember where exactly I read this (and my Google-Fu is weak tonight), but I’m pretty sure it was either in Suzi’s blog or Ron’s blog. S or R was talking about little things and how wonderful they were. That time together didn’t have to mean going out on some extravagant date. One was saying how the other needed to go down to the corner store to put gas in the car and asked to go with. Sure it wasn’t an extravagant date, but it was time together. 

I shared that with The Wife and since then we’ve been doing little things like that. Walk down to the mailbox with each other. Walk around the block. Run a quick errand. Whatever works. We’re even doing it with the kids, Oldest, Middle, and Youngest. I need to run to the store, go with me. I need to fix the sink, come watch. You’re reading your book? I’m reading my book. Come sit next to me and let’s read together.

Sometimes lots of little things adds up to more than just a few large things, y’know?

One of those happy moments

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Here I am. Sitting at my computer working (or pretending to). One of our cats, the “weird one”, opts to seek me out. Jumps up in my lap, spends a few minutes getting her head scratched. Then she opts to park it in my lap and take a nap. Purring away. Happy. Content. This is rare behavior from her… she’s not a lap cat.

But it’s welcome, both by her and by me. The wife and kids are out of the house, so it’s just me and the cats. It’s a nice, warm, peaceful moment.

I’m fortunate to work from home.

Use it or lose it

/ hsoi

I find our bodies to be amazing things. They naturally strive for preservation and efficiency.  You exercise and work hard for a long time to make physical gains, then you lay off for just a short while and all that work disappears. Our bodies strive to maintain just the level it needs, which is great, but frustrating when it takes so much time to gain and so little time to lose.

One area I see this is my legs, not just in strength but in endurance. In Kuk Sool we strive for low stances. This can look very nice when performing forms (especially on taller and thus longer legged and torsoed people), but moreso it’s a matter of training legs for strength and endurance. You don’t really fight in a low stance, but it’s a lot easier to duck via bending your knees when your legs are strong enough to allow you to do this.

I think what motivates me more than fighting, self-defense, or any sort of martial activity is growing older. I see people much older than me and even people my age, that just can’t get around. Getting off the couch is an effort. Picking something up off the floor is a strain, and they bend from their back then complain of back problems when they right themselves. They haven’t used their body, so they’ve lost it. I don’t want to be this way as I grow older. So, I do my best to just use my body fully in my daily life. If I need to pick something off the floor, I bend at the knees, either squatting or quasi-lunging to do so, but either way using the full range and ability of my body. If I need to stay down for a long time (e.g. scooping out the cat litter box), then I assume some sort of low horse stance while I do so… again, not being bent over at the back and feeling the lumbar pain as I’m down working for so long. Lifting a heavy object? Use the legs, baby. Things like this. Just ensuring that whatever I do in my daily life I do fully (other implications implied).

Doing such things in everyday life won’t turn my legs into something Tom Platz will fear, but it helps to keep my legs and body usable. As I said, the body likes to maintain just the level it needs, so my hope is if I continue to use my body every day at the level I wish to have when I’m 70 years old, hopefully when I get there I’ll still have it.

Easing them into life

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

My friend Ron stopped feeding one of his sons today.

I think it’s a great idea.

I hadn’t thought about doing this specific thing, but I’m going to add it to my agenda for my own kids. I have been allowing Oldest to make more of his own choices mistakes, which is good. He’s got enough knowledge and experience in his head to be given some free reign and jurisdiction over himself. We still guide him and sometimes we have to make the decision for him, but in the end the consequences (good and bad) are his to receive, and any mistakes are his to deal with.

I have felt that when 16 years old comes around, we won’t buy any of the kids a car. If they want a car, they pay for it. I might go in half with them, we’ll have to see how prices are. But things like gas, insurance, money for whatever fun they want to have… they have to get that on their own. Basically, if you want things in life, you gotta work for it and earn it. It’s how life is (or at least, is supposed to be), so get used to it.

Also once they can start to drive I want them to take at least one class at the local community college to get used to how they are. Again, easing them into the real world.

Anyway, thanx for the idea Ron. Good one.

A simple pleasure

/ hsoi

One thing I love about being home so much (side-benefit of the work-at-home situation) is my wife’s cooking.

Not just eating it and eating it 2-3 times a day, but smelling it.

I’ll be sequestered in my office. I’ll be deeply buried in code or debugging or some other software development joy. Then it hits me. Some smell… it has crept its way through the house. It might be the smell of garlic and onions sautéing. It might be bread baking. It might be the wonderful smell of bacon frying. Whatever it is, it’s always a wonderful smell. It’s always a pleasant surprise when it hits. Sometimes I’ll head down to the kitchen to see what’s cooking, other times I’ll just savor the aromas from afar and wait to see what else floats my way so I can try to figure out what she’s up to. 

The printer is in my office. I’ll hear it kick in without my initiation, so I know it’s Mrs. Hsoi printing out a recipe she found. I do my best to avoid looking at the printout. I don’t want to know. I don’t want the surprise to be ruined. Let her cook. Let the clues waft my way. The simple please of deciphering the magic she’s performing in the kitchen.

I am a fortunate man. 🙂

Updated: You know how I know my wife reads my blog? I post this. I go get in the shower. I come out of the shower and smell… bacon. Sweet sweet thick cut smoky fatty bacon. She received the above subtle hint.

My wife is awesome.

Apparently I’m doing ok

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Was out all day today, thus the lack of blog entries.

One thing I did today was “beta test” some handgun drills/tests. For an idea of what I’m talking about, check here (and the PDF files linked to on that page); those aren’t what I shot today, but it gives you an idea. It’s handgun shooting drills, timed, to assess knowledge and skills.

I have to admit, when I was told I was going to be beta testing the drills I got nervous. I was going to be watched, judged, my performance evaluated. *gulp*  Furthermore, I would be shooting with two other gentlemen whose experience and skills are far more vast than mine, so I was just hit with this feeling of pressure and nerves. But a few seconds after that all washed over me I said to myself: “Don’t worry about it. This isn’t a contest. This isn’t to compare you against them or anyone but yourself. Just shoot the best that you can shoot. Take your time and get hits. Be accurate. Don’t rush and try to shoot fast, even if the other guys can and do shoot faster than you, else you will mess up and shoot poorly. So, just stop being anxious and just shoot your best.”  Just had to let the wave of nerves and apprehension wash over me, then be washed off me. 🙂

We went out to shoot. I kept my mind calm and didn’t worry about anything. I’d shoot however I’d shoot, and as long as I didn’t work myself up I’d shoot fine. Just focus on that front sight, good trigger press, and that’s all you can do.

We shot the tests. If I remember correctly, I scored a 97%. Was I surprised? A little. I didn’t think I’d shoot that well. What surprised me was that I held my own with the other guys. Not that this was a competition or a need of an ego stroke, but that I’m my own worst critic. I will be hard on myself in assessing my skills, abilities, and knowledge in anything. These guys have always told me I shoot well, and while I never thought they were blowing smoke up my skirt, I didn’t think I was good enough. They might say “You shot that well”, but I knew what mistakes I made, I knew I could do better. But now to see me shoot and hold my own with these guys, it did show me my skills aren’t as bad as I think they are. These guys gave me a neutral measuring stick, so to speak, that I could measure myself against instead of just always telling myself “no not good enough”.  Note: I do believe these gentlemen could still outshoot me in competition, don’t get me wrong. 

I also know that I did shoot well on my own accord. I just kept to the fundamentals, e.g. “cleardistinctfrontsight-press-cleardistinctfrontsight”. I did NOT look at the target at all while shooting (it’s a habit I’m working to break); I kept my eyes focused on that front sight. Good trigger presses. Stayed relaxed and calm, focused on nothing but myself and my shooting. I was aware of all of this as I was going through the drills, and that made me most pleased. I was especially pleased in that I did not care about how I was performing. All too often I get caught up in how I’m performing and that causes me to screw up the performance. I just shot and didn’t care what happened, at least until well after the shot was over. So that’s what surprised and pleased me most. It was me performing as I should perform, and it paid off. So I was happy. It wasn’t an ego stroke, but it was certainly a good gain of confidence.

In the end, I realized I’m not as bad as I thought I was. Sure I’m still going to be hard on myself, sure I’m still going to work to improve myself. But it was nice to have something that gave me a bit of a reality check, to put things in some sort of perspective.

 

In related news, I am very pleased with the modifications done by Springer Precision. The improved trigger certainly helped, but what helped most were the sights. There’s no question in my mind regarding today’s drills/tests that I would not have shot as well as I did if I still had those XS Sights on (that may be (part of) my problem… having those XS sights on as long as I did and my shooting sucking as much as it did, that may have brought my confidence and “belief in myself/skills” down). The bright red fiber optic just draws my eye to the front sight. The rear sight is clear and unobtrusive. The sight picture is just great. I do believe having better tools helped me. 

I’ve also been working on my grip, especially my left hand. I’m placing my left palm heel a bit higher on the grip/frame, which gets more of my left palm in contact with the frame and allows my left hand to have as far forward a cant as possible. I’m finding a “sweet spot” for where to place my left hand in terms of how it wraps around my right. And I am working with the Todd Jarrett “grip 20% harder” rule. I believe it’s making a difference in recoil management and thus ability to reacquire my sight picture. Heck, I shot some quasi-Bill drills (6 shot rapid fire strings) today and had no loss of left grip, no need to reset my grip, and good sight picture reacquisition and control. 

Bottom line for the day: I got a nice idea where my skills are, and that my practice and work is paying off. So with that, off to practice more.

And the sun was shining. The weather was great. I got about 120 miles of motorcycle riding in. A good day.