Family

Teaching knots

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I’m working on an effort where every day I teach my kids something useful. Doesn’t really matter the topic, just a little something every day.

I only just started a few days ago and so far we covered things like stopping bleeding, RICE, different hammers and how to use them, and today we started on knots. I’ll probably stick with the knot thing for a while, because hey… I like knots. All that Boy Scouts growing up.

I wanted to share an excellent website that teaches knots, called Animated Knots by Grog. Covers all your major knots from things like rescue knots, household knots (including tying a tie), Scouting knots, fishing knots, whipping and coiling, and even fun stuff like the monkey fist. Yes, we’re going to tie one of those eventually.

12 Steps to Raise a Juvenile Delinquent

/ hsoi

Not too long ago, Jay G was lamenting the state of parenting. Chris Byrne was then motivated to write about 5 rules for good behavior.

In that vein, yesterday I read a friend’s Facebook status that linked to this, 12 steps to raise a juvenile delinquent. It’s all in the same vein, just a different approach in the writing. Reprinting:

  1. Begin with infancy to give the child everything he wants. In this way he will grow up to believe the world owes him a living.
  2. When he picks up bad words, laugh at him. This will make him think he’s cute.
  3. Never give him any spiritual training. Wait until he is twenty-one and then let “him decide for himself”.
  4. Avoid the use of “wrong”. He may develop a guilt complex. This will condition him to believe later, when he is arrested, that society is against him and he is being persecuted.
  5. Pick up everything he leaves lying around. Do everything for him so that he will be experienced in throwing all responsibility on others.
  6. Take his part against neighbors, teachers, and policemen. They are all prejudiced against your child.
  7. Quarrel frequently in the presence of your children. In this way they won’t be so shocked when the home is broken up later.
  8. Give the child all the spending money he wants. Never let him earn his own.
  9. Satisfy his every craving for food, drink, and comfort. See that his every sensual desire is gratified.
  10. Let him read any printed material, and listen to any music he can get his hands on. Be careful that the silverware and drinking glasses are sterilized, but let his mind feast on garbage.
  11. When he gets into real trouble, apologize to yourself by saying, “I could never do anything with him.”
  12. Prepare for a life of grief. You will likely have it.

Credit says: “Taken from a pamphlet entitled Twelve Rules for Raising Delinquent Children distributed by the Houston Police Department.”

Remember: you are (supposed to be) the parent; act like it.

There is no begging, no pleading, no bargaining with your kids. Limits are essential. Saying “no” is good for them.

Thank God for my Leatherman Wave

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Ah…. Christmas morning.

The sounds of children tearing into wrapping paper as they open their gifts.

That’s the easy part.

The hard part is Dad having to tear through all the packaging to actually extract the toy. 🙂

I am so thankful for my Leatherman Wave. Knives for cutting out packaging. Pliers and wire cutters for removing those !*%@ing twist tie-downs. Screwdrivers to open and close battery compartments.

For my Leatherman Wave, I am thankful. 🙂

Merry Christmas, y’all.

The things my kids do and say….

/ hsoi

Oldest also received a deer call in his Christmas stocking from Grandpa.

He’s sitting at the back door making some doe sounds, seeing if he can get a buck to wander into the backyard area.

Youngest is sitting next to his brother adding in his own calls like…. “She’s available!!!”

Heh heh. 🙂

C-SPAN archive

/ hsoi

I learn via The Volokh Conspiracy about C-SPAN working to put their entire video archive online. You can find it here.

I don’t know what you might want to use it for, but me? I want to see people I know. Growing up as I did, I went to (public) school with the sons and daughters of many US Congressmen and Senators, amongst other things. I recall when Dan Quayle became Vice-President and his son, Tucker was monitored and chauffeured every day at my high school by US Secret Service agents. We all knew each other due to the circles our parents ran in, but that didn’t mean we were friends (e.g. I’m not friends with Danielle Delay, Tom Delay’s daughter, but I knew her and if she’d claim she remembers me she’d probably recall me as some dork, which would probably be a fair assessment given the social circles we were in during high school… seems this person at DailyKos remembers her from high school too). I was good friends with a few kids tho; we could bond on a level that few other kids could.

So flipping through the archives and coming across the fathers of my old friends, kinda fun.

What do I really want to see?

My Dad.

Being able to go back and find archived footage of my Dad? That’s cool. I can’t get the archives to dredge it all up (can’t tell if it’s just not online or if their servers are slow/hammered), but I’d love to see things like his first speech on the floor of the US House of Representatives.

I did see some old pictures. But I guess I’ll have to wait for the video footage. Once it’s up tho, I’ll have to show my kids so they can see what Grandpa did in a past life.

My Secret Talent

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Well, I guess it’s not going to be much of a secret any more.

I sew.

Yes, some people love the dichotomy. Big me with my guns, motorcycles, martial arts, beer, hunting, etc…. and sewing. One of these things is not like the other.

I learned to sew out of necessity, to mend things. As a child I watched my Mom sew things to mend or adjust clothing. I’d often pull out the sewing kit myself just to dink around. As a kid, one Christmas my sisters and I bought our Mom a sewing machine; she never used it, but my sisters and I would always fiddle around with it. Fast-forward to about 5 years ago and I caved in and bought a sewing machine because it was much less painful to sew patches on Scout uniforms with a machine than by hand.

Make no mistake — I am not a seamstress. I do not have mad skillz. I actually think about taking some classes to learn how to sew things like clothing. But for now, I can do some things.

I made a toy pillow and mattress for Daughter’s doll crib a few years ago. We pulled the doors off Daughter’s closet and I fashioned some neat curtains for it. I’ve done a few other things too, tho no clothing because the notion of that intimidates me (at least until I can get more training; man knows his limits).

My latest project: blankets and pillows for my nephews.

A couple years ago Wife’s brother’s wife made some blankets and pillows for our kids that were pretty neat. When thinking about Christmas presents for my sister’s boys, I thought making them blankets and pillows would be neat as well. I asked Sister what colors the boys liked and headed over to Jo-Ann Fabrics. The plan was to make them double-sided blankets, with one side being a “novelty” cloth and the other side being this fuzzy fleece; fun and warm. When Daughter and I got to the store, they didn’t have much of the fuzzy fleece nor did we find much for cloth in the colors and patterns we wanted. We picked what we thought might be good, then I called Sister to ask her what she thought. Snapped a picture of the cloth, sent it to Sister (iPhone love!). I asked her to be honest and she said there was a good chance some of those wouldn’t be well-accepted. Fair enough, that’s why I was asking. While talking on the phone I was staring at a shelf full of camouflage cloth and asked her what the boys would think about that. She said it’d be great and the would love it.

So here we are.

Picked two different camo patterns so they boys could tell their blankets apart. Both fleece.

Originally we wanted to sew a fleece “blaze orange” on the other side of both blankets. Unfortunately with the bolts of orange fleece they had, only one gave us enough to do what we wanted (I wanted 2 yards, the other bolt only had 2 1.5 yard pieces). So we grabbed some of that black fuzzy fleece. Thus one blanket has camo on one side and hunter blaze orange on the other, and the other blanket is camo and the fuzzy fleece.

Jo-Ann’s also had some regular camo cloth, so I picked up a yard of two varieties and some poly-fill and made some very fluffy pillows too. I felt really geeky because I was all excited to find just bolts of Realtree AP. Gosh… now I could sew my own hunting clothing. 😉  In fact, Daughter wants me to make her a t-shirt with the leftover camo cloth; again, clothing intimidates me but who knows… maybe Jo-Ann’s will have a pattern and I can give it a try.

All very soft, very warm. Daughter helped me sew things, did some good product testing, and gave her seal of approval. No they aren’t perfect (there are obvious spots where things aren’t in nice straight lines), but they work and should hold up well. I’m generally pleased with the work and hope my nephews enjoy them.

First Roast

/ hsoi

A lot of Wife’s family are coming over to our house today for the annual Christmas season gathering. Should be fun.

I decided one of the roasts from my recent deer hunt would make for a fitting course. I also found some feral hog backstrap in the freezer and since we needed a little more meat to feed everyone, I thought making both would be good.

I decided to try out the crock pot approach.

Simple enough: flour, salt and pepper the meat then brown it in the skillet just to seal things up. Roughly cut up potatoes, carrots, onion. To the venison I added some whole cloves (started sticking them in the meat but it was so tedious I stopped and just put them in the pot). The pork got a mushroom-based broth. The venison a beef-based broth. Both enough liquid to cover everything (meat and veggies). A couple bay leaves in each. Also added a sliced up bell pepper and minced garlic to the pork.

Going to slow cook them for about 8 hours on “low” and we’ll see how they turn out.

It could be great. It could be a big disaster. Either way it’ll be fun to learn. 🙂

Updated: They turned out pretty good.

The cloves with the venison was an interesting twist. First, you have to like cloves (I do). If you do, give it a try. It added a really nice flavor to the venison. Nothing too strong, just a nice and different flavoring. The cloves also made the potatoes taste really cool. I don’t think we’ll use cloves all the time, but certainly it was cool to discover this mix.

The bell pepper made all the difference for the pork. It turned out very tender and just so flavorful from that one large bell pepper.

One key thing to do when serving is to keep all of the liquid the meat cooked in. Put some roast on your plate, shred it, then ladel some of the liquid onto the meat. Mmm.

Morning with Daughter

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

Had a fun morning with Daughter.

The main purpose was to go to the gun range to have her try out the AR with the scope. But we made a morning out of it, stopping for breakfast at Denny’s. We were going to go to Waffle House but there was a Denny’s on the way and Daughter wanted to try it because she’s never been to one. No problem, we changed plans and stopped at the Denny’s for breakfast. I figured as long as we were doing firsts, I had a t-bone steak and eggs for breakfast; never done that before but always wanted to. It was terrible, but I loved every minute of it. 🙂

We were surprised how many people were out at the range this morning, given the temperatures were just above freezing. Apart from that tho the morning was very nice, so it made sense some people were out. We settled over on the “E” range because no one was there so it would give us the most flexibility. The one downside was I wanted to start her at 25 yards (thus originally I hoped to use position 41 on the “A” range), but 40 meters would have to do and frankly I didn’t think it’d be a problem.

Got settled in, got her set up on the rest. Still, she was too short. Luckily we found an old office chair and we could raise the seat up some, which got her there. Set up the targets on the 40 meter rails, and let fly. Daughter did quite well. A few days ago I had a talk with the kids about trajectory, “height over bore”, zeroing, point of impact vs. point of aim, and things like that. That this rifle was sighted to be zeroed at 100 yards, thus when they shot at the closer targets they wouldn’t hit where they were aiming. I told them, for, now, to keep aiming dead center on the target and just watch where the bullets impact and strive for good groupings. I’m glad we had the talk before we went as it made it much easier to handle things on the range.

Daughter shot for a bit, then I shot for a bit. I was pretty happy with my shooting, with some pretty tight groups. I did have some fliers and I know it’s because I am not used to that heavy single-stage trigger. I know the trigger also was giving Daughter some troubles, and I think that convinced her to dry fire the rifle at home to work on it. Between the cold air, the steady cold breeze, and the heavy trigger, I know it was giving Daughter troubles in breaking the shot. She had no trouble getting on paper and putting the bullet basically where she wanted, but doing it in a timely manner was rough. It’s just going to take practice with the rifle, but I think she’ll be fine. Next time we go out I’ll try “walking” the target rails on the “E” range (it’s a silhouette range), starting at 40 meters, then 50, then 75, then 100 and see how they do. I am pretty sure that as long as they can keep things steady, they’ll do fine out to 100 yards/meters.

Daughter didn’t get as much trigger time as she wanted — she was just too cold. So we packed it up and she sat in the car while I worked with my XD-9 a bit. No targets, just shooting into the berm. I’ve been re-reading the Brian Enos book and I wanted to do some stuff with grip, relaxation, and “floating the gun.” I picked up some good feedback and some points to ponder. I’d like to try running a lot of Bill Drills at this point and see how I do, as that’d give me a lot more tangible feedback. The cool thing was how much I stopped thinking about everything else and just let my eyes “drive the gun,” as Enos puts it. It really does make a big difference. As well, while I see lots of merit to the Todd Jarrett “grip 20% tighter kung fu action grip”, there’s also Enos’ take of being more relaxed and just letting the gun do its thing. You can’t be limp wristed, but yes I find the gun works a lot better when I have a “medium” grip and just let the gun do what it does. There’s a balance to find. More things for me to play with later.

A good morning. Not just because I got to go shooting, but because I got to spend time with Daughter. That’s the best part.

Updated: I forgot. Daughter got to learn some things about ammo. We were shooting Georgia Arms Canned Heat. Daughter pressed trigger, it went “pop” not “bang”. She looked up, puzzled. Her first misfire. I took care of it. I pulled back the charging handle and when the case ejected I noticed a lot of powder still in the case. Ugh. Good thing I had a cleaning rod with me. Bullet was only lodged an inch or two into the barrel, but I explained how this could be a bad thing. When I examined the case I immediately saw the problem… and I showed it to Daughter and asked her if she saw it (I didn’t say what it was), and she saw it. The primer wasn’t fully seated.

I’ve generally had good luck with Georgia Arms stuff so I’m not really holding this against them. But these things can happen. Glad Daughter got to experience and learn about them.

Returning to normal

/ hsoi

Dad visited first half of last week. Mom and Little Sister visited second half of last week.

It was great to see them all, especially since it had been too long since our last visit.

But oh, I’m tired. Wife is tired. Kids are tired.

Today, we get things back in order and back to normal. But I almost wish I had another few days off work so I could recover from my “vacation”; funny how that tends to happen, thus why my preferred vacation is just doing nothing. 🙂

Blogging should return to normal too.

Range Day with Dad

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

My father and his wife is visiting us for a few days. It’s always good to see him.

Growing up I didn’t do much with guns. Dad was a Captain, Second Infantry, US Army. Mom however didn’t like guns. So while I always remember this .22 rifle being in the storage room, it was never used; in fact, I just learned today that Dad had removed the bolt and hid it long long ago, thus it was never functional. So while growing up I was never anti-gun, I was just never really exposed to it. I do remember one family vacation that Dad took me skeet shooting. Shot a 20 gauge, had a great time. My first real exposure to guns. Certainly had some pellet guns and such over time growing up, but really nothing much.

So that made today kinda special, especially since today ended up being Son teaching Father. 🙂

Dad does shoot, but mostly shotguns for skeet and trap. I believe he gets out on occasion as well to go duck and pheasant hunting (lives in Nebraska, after all). But the last time Dad touched an M-14 was back in the Army, Expert qualification I believe with the M-14, M1 Carbine, .45 handgun, and so on. But certainly, Dad’s technique reflected old school technique. I showed him some modern technique. 🙂  Plus some guns he’d never shot before.

Started out with my Smith & Wesson 442. I just got it back from the gunsmith (I’ll write about that later) so I had to try it out. Buddy foo.c gave me a bunch of various .38 loads that he had lying around I think from his father-in-law, so just an assortment of stuff. They all ran just fine, probably went through almost 100 rounds: me shooting 5, my Dad shooting 5, and trading off like that. Gun felt good, but I know I need more practice (now that I have it back, I can do that.. pulled to the right a lot, that long trigger). Dad was slapping the trigger a lot, lots of anticipation. But heck, for a first time with a snub he did just fine.

Moved on to the Browning Buck Mark. Of course, that gun is a lot of fun. Dad was certainly excelling with this, tearing one ragged hole in the center of his target. I think without question that was his favorite gun to shoot, because well.. that gun is just tons of fun to shoot.

Then we moved on to my Springfield XD-9. Dad fired one shot. “Wow…”. Heh heh. 🙂  He finished one magazine and said that was enough for him. Heh heh.

After that we opted to put the handguns away and move over to the 100 yard rifle range. I had brought along my Springfield M1A Scout Squad. Dad seemed to enjoy that too. One thing about his shooting is while he may have been off a slight bit in terms of “hitting the bullseye” he was very consistent. I think with the M1A it was probably some measure of the fact the gun was set up and sighted for me, not him. But he shot well.

While at the rifle range, met another gentleman shooting there. The M1A always seems to attract folks and strike up conversations. The gentleman actually did a lot of custom work on M1A’s. He let me try out the trigger on one he had just finished customizing. As well, he let me fire 5 of his handloads out of my M1A and man they were accurate. He even shared the load recipe with me (must remember, using Federal brass to put half a grain more powder in, and using other factory brass like Winchester, etc. to put a full grain more… that I think he was using Black Hills match cases). Anyway…. very nice guy and I’m sure I’ll be in touch with him in the future.

Just being able to spend the one-on-one time with my Dad was precious to me. For that, I am thankful.