Me

The Texas Rollergirls

/ hsoi / 12 Comments

I remember watching roller derby on TV as a kid growing up. It was fun, but I don’t think I ever really understood the game, the rules, or what was going on. It was just…. fun.

I know roller derby has been growing in popularity again, especially here in Austin. I was talking with my buddy W about it as he’s gone a few times and really enjoys it. Plus, Daughter got wind of it and thought it looked pretty cool. So, last night W, a friend of his, myself, and Daughter went to check out the Texas Rollergirls.

Oh man, that was fun!

The rules and basics of the game are simple enough, but it still allows for competition, strategy, and a load of excitement. I think that’s what I liked the most was the constant action: the game is designed to move and keep moving.

I was impressed with the endurance and toughness of the ladies. No question it’s a tough and demanding sport, but you could also tell everyone out there was loving what they did. I think that must have been evident to Daughter because she was so excited and loved every minute of it. She even got to get a picture with and talk with Acute Angel after the bout. Angel told Daughter about the Derby Brats, and Daughter is interested in checking it out! I have no problem if she wants to do it, tho Wife is a little unsure. Next session isn’t until Fall, so I guess the meantime it’s buy her some rollerskates and safety gear and see if she falls in love with skating.

Oh yes. I’ll be going back. Take the whole family too.

We now know about Sasha’s past…

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

I haven’t written much about our dog training because well… I just haven’t. But we haven’t stopped. We’re still working with Sasha and the new (well, she’s not new any more) trainer. We’ve done a lot of the basic obedience, working on her territorialness, and teaching her how to be calm on command (“settle”).

What’s really interesting is the recent turn of events. If you remember, we took ownership of Sasha around 8 months of age. She had another owner for 4 months prior. We had a lot of questions about what went on during those 4 months because the time from age 2 months to 6 months can be a very vital stage in a puppy’s development. But we resigned ourselves to never really knowing what happened apart from the few things the breeder told us.

Let’s hear it for the Internet. A few weeks ago I get an email from Sasha’s previous owner! You see, when he returned Sasha to the breeder they said she’d become a show dog. Well, a few weeks ago he happened to be thinking about her and figured he could Google to see if perhaps she was listed in any dog show results. Instead, he found my blog and based upon what I had written knew it was her. He wasn’t sure about reaching out to me, but because he’s always dealt with recuse dogs and wondered about their pasts, he figured now being on the other side of that coin he’d contact me so he could fill informational void.

We’ve been exchanging some emails, with him telling me a lot about her past, including sharing pictures. It’s been very useful and answered a lot of the questions we had. We gave all of this information to our trainer, and it’s creating a new course of action for us in terms of behavior modification work. All good. It’s still going to take months of work, but we’re dedicated to this dog. She’s awesome… it’s just that well… “this one goes to 11” and we sometimes just need her to turn it back to a 10. 😉

Here’s a puppy picture her previous owner shared with us. Ain’t she cute?

Random

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

That hog Oldest shot? Yielded 95lbs of “parts” at the butcher. Easily would have been over 100 lbs if we had kept the shoulder he shot through. That does include ribs, which should have enough meat on them for eating. It’s at the butcher’s, and so we wait for them to finish; much sausage to be had.

That reminds me, I need to call that taxidermist to ensure he picked up the head. Getting it european mounted. I was surprised tho. I immediately nixed getting a full mount of the head because I figured Wife wouldn’t want it. To my surprise she actually wouldn’t have minded it, so long as it stayed mounted in Oldest’s room. 🙂  I actually wouldn’t have minded it because after I washed all the dirt off Mr. Hog, his fur was actually very pretty. It’s thicker hairs so there’s more of a “rod” to catch and diffuse light; couple that with the deep dark brown-red color and the way the fur looked in the sunlight was actually very pretty. But just as well, because Oldest actually prefers the Euro mount since there’s more skull to see… the anatomy/biology of it all is interesting to our own Mr. Science.

Geez… and some 15 years ago I never would have thought I’d be hanging dead animals on my wall. People change.

Tax paperwork is done and I drop it off later this morning with my accountant. First time doing taxes for my LLC, so this will be new and novel. I hate the fact it has taken me so long to get my paperwork in. Usually I have it all ready by the start of March, not the end. But life’s been crazier and more hectic than I’ve experienced in many years and I just wasn’t able to get it done until now. But on the good side, I think that was a big source of my stress as of late, and I feel a lot better now. I may even get some chores done this weekend.

Heck, I might even catch up on my blog/RSS feeds this weekend. I forgot that I have NetNewsWire on my iPhone and since it’s all synced via Google Reader well…maybe in bed before I fall asleep I need to read instead of playing Angry Birds. 🙂

Julie Golob keeps posting awesome recipes to her Facebook page. I commented that she needs to write a wild game cookbook. She “liked” my comment. So folks you heard it here. If Julie writes a cookbook, it’s all because of me. 😉

Anyone ever install a cat door on a house interior door? I’m wanting to put a few cat doors on our interior doors (e.g. one into the laundry room where the cat box is; let cats in, keep the poo-eating dog out) but you know these interior doors are just cheap “shells”. I’m afraid if I cut into a door it’s just going to collapse, or that there isn’t enough structural integrity in the door to actually support a cat door. Anyone have experience with this?

And that marks all I can write about right now. Just been too stressed and living a hectic time to be able to write much. *sigh* But thank you for sticking around and reading. 🙂

My son’s first hog

/ hsoi / 11 Comments

Oldest just passed a milestone — he bagged his first hog; in fact, he bagged his first anything. And it’s a doozy.

The Big Weekend

I’ve been trying, struggling to have a weekend hunt with my long-time friend Charles, of Tactical Gun Review. Something always comes up, usually on my part, and we can’t get together. Charles has a deer lease in the South Central Texas area, but what makes it a great lease is not just the property but that he has year-round access to it. Outside of deer season you can go fishing, dove hunting, turkey hunting, and yes… hog hunting. A few months back we set this weekend on our calendars as a “must do” and it happened. It wasn’t going to be just us tho, we brought our older sons with us as well, who have known each other for just as many years as Charles and I have known each other.

The goal for the weekend? Have fun. If we could bag a hog? even better. And while I would have loved to have bagged a hog myself, what I really wanted was for Oldest to bag one. He’s been out in the field with me before, sometimes a bust, sometimes we got something, but it was always me that did the work, he was just a spectator. This time, he was going to do the work. 🙂

Friday after work I packed my car with food, some clothing and essentials, a few rifles, and away we went. On the rifle front, I originally wanted him to use the 6.8 SPC. The whole reason I bought the 6.8 was for kids to use it because it doesn’t recoil that hard, shorter and thus easier to manage, plus some time ago I bought a powerful red LED flashlight to mount on the rifle precisely for hog hunting. But I changed my mind. Instead, I had him shoot the Savage bolt-action in .308 Win. My reasoning? It was a simpler manual of arms to operate (no gun, light, etc.), and that .308 would provide a much wider margin of error. Being as this would be his first time, he’d get excited, heart pounding, might rush things… never know. I figured the .308 would work out better for him. Prior to the hunt I had him work the rifle dry at home: get a feel for the trigger, learn how to work the bolt. He learned how to work the gun, but he had never live fired it. In fact, he’s never shot something as big as a .308; he’s had aversions to shooting rifles larger than a .22 LR because he doesn’t like the noise, but acknowledges that if he wants to bag something he has to. So, this was into the fire feet first. 🙂

First Night

We arrived Friday evening but with more than enough daylight to get us into the blind and wait. We parked our cars, pulled out the rifles, climbed into “The Beast” (an old Toyota 4×4 Charles keeps at the property for getting around) and headed for a stock tank on one side of the property where hogs had been seen. Unfortunately the pop-up blind blew into the tank, so we just plopped down on stools under a tree and obscured by tall grass. We waited. Night fell, but with that “super-moon” out you could see a lot going on, it was so bright.

We never saw any hogs. Some deer, an owl, lots of other critters. But alas, no hogs. We piled back into The Beast and checked out some other tanks, parking The Beast well away from the area and stalking up on it. It was obvious there was activity, just not when we were around. Ah well. We eventually headed back to the cabin for dinner and hanging out around the campfire drinking beer (boys – root beer, dad’s Dogfish Head brown ale) until the wee hours.

Saturday Morning

After a few hours of sleep we headed back out. Charles put Oldest and I at one of the stock tanks we visited Friday night, while he and his son headed to another area. The sun came up. A turkey was calling and showing and we watched him for a while. Then across the stock tank, probably 100 yards or so away, 2 does. No, 3 does… 4… 5… 6. It was nice to watch all those does grazing, but darn that the season is well-over. 🙂  After maybe 15 minutes or so we noticed the does spooked and took off. Seconds later we see why.

Hogs.

We were atop a high bank on one side of the tank. The opposite bank was probably 60 yards away, then up that bank 35 yards or so starts a tree line. Deep within those trees we saw all these little black masses running across the way. Yes yes yes! Hogs! But they were way back in the trees running in a manner that took them directly away from us with no chance of a shot. Oh man!

“Son, get your gun! get your gun! get it up! get ready!”

I of course went for my gun too, but I put it down. This was for him. Yes I’d love to get one myself, but this was for him. I was going to be the eyes, the coach.

Come on piggy… come on… please don’t run off…. yes!

We see the pigs turn and one by one start to run into the area. It’s a stock tank. Water. Plus there was a corn feeder at the far end. Food. A perfect ambush spot: at food and water. A swarm of piglets runs out. I don’t know… 30, 40, 50 of them? A lot. They all headed right for the feeder. Adults follow out of the trees but head down to the water.

YES!

One goes to drink but is head-on facing us. “No son, can’t” Come on… turn… turn…

More big hogs come down to drink.

“SONSONSONSON! There!  That one!”

A big one. Drinking. Perfectly broadside. And… holding still. You see, hogs almost never stop, they are almost always in motion so windows of opportunity for a shot can be hard to come by. But drinking? He stopped, he was still. Perfect opportunity.

“You got him?”

“Got him.”

“OK, let it rip!”

And the rifle roared.

He got him.

The hog ran for maybe 25 yards, did a circle and dropped.

High fives all around.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Oldest so excited. 🙂  He was wired. Electrified!

Once we confirmed he was down, and of course all the other hogs scattered from the sound of the gunshot, we left the blind and headed over to see him.

I thought he was maybe 150 lbs? But I’m terrible at such estimates. We snapped copious amounts of pictures. We sent text messages to Wife (and kiddos back home), to Oldest’s grandfather and uncle (Wife’s family, life-long hunters). Much happiness.

While waiting for Charles to come get us, another hog came through the trees! I snapped up my rifle and knelt down, got a bead on him and was prepared to take the shot, but a clear shot never presented itself. Either the hog wasn’t positioned well or there were trees/brush in the way. Eventually the hog got close enough, noticed us, and took off running. A second hog would have been nice, but no matter.

Heaving this big boy into the truck was a chore, even with a winch. But we got him back to the cabin, hoisted him up and weighed him.

Just over 250 lbs..

That’s big.

We gutted him (I got more practice at cleaning an animal) and while looking at the organs I saw the heart. The bullet had fully penetrated the heart. Right through the shoulder — and the massively thick “shield” (and his was a formidable one), right through the heart, and complete passthrough. Based upon how the entry and exit wounds looked, it looks like that Barnes Bullet functioned as advertised. This is why I love Barnes Bullets. For the record, it was a Federal Premium P308H Vital Shok (165 grain Barnes TSX). I figure he was shot at about 60 yards, so he got hit with that 165 grain bullet going about 2500 fps and probably hit with 2300 ft/lbs or so of energy, with that Barnes Bullet expanding and dumping almost all of that energy inside the body.

The Rest of the weekend

After we dressed the hog, we put him in a walk-in cooler because we were tired and not in the mood to clean him fully. Went fishing, and Oldest caught a nice bass. Best I did was get some nibbles and got one on but he jumped and threw the hook. Charles landed a nice one, and his son did too. But fishing didn’t last long as it was getting hot and we were all tired and hungry. Back to the cabin, eat, nap.

Upon rising, Charles and I went back to the task of cleaning the hog. That was a chore. Son, next time you need to shoot a small hog. 🙂 I’ve never shot a hog this size or dealt with one this size this close up. It was constantly amazing to me how thick his shield was. The entire side of this hog was just armor, thick, and very heavy. You need a solid and strong bullet, all hail the mighty Barnes. We spoke with the ranch manager and he contacted a local guy to see what we could do with the head. We’re going to see about having a European mount done. We don’t need to make a trophy out of everything, but this is not just his first but yes it is a big one. Might as well have something more than just memories. 🙂

We went back out that evening but we didn’t see anything. Charles and his son did have an opportunity, but the hog ran off and they were unable to connect on the running shot (it’s not easy). Oh and Charles’ son had a bummer earlier. While we were cleaning the hog, Charles’ son was still out in the field. Hogs came by, he stalked up, knelt and took aim and… click. The round didn’t go off. Bad primer? hard primer? who knows, but no bang. He was quick enough to work the bolt and chamber a new round, but alas by then the hogs were off. Bummer that he didn’t get the shot off, but he did everything right from staying in the field to stalking to remedying the malfunction. I say that’s well-worthy of praise!

Had to get home early on Sunday so we left before sunrise, leaving Charles and his son sleeping in the cabin. Bummer we had to go so soon, but we were both tired and drained and ready for a shower. 😉  Charles has the bigger cooler and will drop the meat off on his way home. I’ll take it to the butcher in a few days and we’ll have lots of sausage in the freezer.

My take

I’m so happy.

Oh sure, if I bagged one that’d be nice… but this was so much better. It’s great to see my Son so excited, so ready, so happy. But also, so disciplined. He took instruction from me so well, from studying anatomy charts, to listening to me talking about visualizing success, imagining the hog there, calming yourself, finding the target (“Aim small, miss small, right Dad?”), don’t take too long but also don’t rush it, smooth trigger press. He did everything right, and it paid off.

What all did he take from this? I don’t know. He doesn’t really know either, other than the immediate payoff of the joy of the accomplishment along with lots of meat. As his uncle congratulated him, “You put dinner, lunch, and breakfast on the table!”. I’m thinking more about the long-term. Will there be something in his life that will be able to be traced back to this weekend, to that moment? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Meantime, I have guns to clean. It’s all sandy out there and there’s grit and sand in everything. You work the bolt on that rifle and it just grinds and makes me cringe. I can’t expand/collapse the stock on my 6.8 without it sounding like sandpaper. I think that was the only bummer of the weekend was all the sand and dust everywhere.

I must give big thanx to Charles. His support and generosity made this all possible. Thank you, my friend. Y’all go visit and support his site, Tactical Gun Review.

Son, you did good. I’m proud of you.

Various rambling

/ hsoi

Oldest and Daughter are now American Red Cross Babysitting, CPR, First Aid and Water Safety certified. Very awesome. Proud of them. Skills they can use for a lifetime.

I’ve been out of it. Many things going on in my life right now. Nothing necessarily bad, just some positive, some negative, some turbulence, some change. Some of the change is from myself, some of it comes from others. In fact, there’s some things I’m trying to change but still haven’t been able to… like the inability to get back to regular martial arts classes. It all adds up to just being in an odd state right now. I’ll get through, no big deal. Just makes it hard to find motivation to do things like blog. 😉

I am happy that my Hsoi Enterprises work is coming along well.

Still need to get tax paperwork to my accountant. *sigh*

Some hog hunting would be nice.

Going to be helping out with a women’s self-defense clinic. What’s cool about this is it will be something more than the “that’s my purse, I don’t know you!” sorts of clinics, which I think is great. It gives some hard skills, but also some more things to think about. I like it. More details as I have them.

I’ve gained some unexpected insight into the dog. It’s been very enlightening. Some of the things we suspected were there, and some of the things we suspected we were flat wrong about. I’ll write more on this sometime in the future.

Oh… and be careful what you wish for in life. You just might get it. 🙂

Mead – my second experience(s)

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I tried mead.

I liked mead.

I wanted to try more.

Wife said she was curious to try, so next time I went to the store the goal was an introduction for her and further exploration for me. With that in mind I bought one of the same, the Redstone Meadery’s Traditional Mountain Honey Wine. I also bought one of their Juniper varieties. Finally, something totally different, a Chaucer’s Mead.

I picked Chaucer’s merely because it was not-Redstone. But I thought the addition of a packet of mulling spices was a cool thing so hey, why not.

The first thing I wanted to try was the Chaucer’s. I open the bottle and smell. Certainly smelled like sweet wonderful honey. Then I tasted it. The taste was wonderful to me, yes, better than the Redstone (to my palate, anyways). What’s the difference? Well, Chaucer’s tasted and had a mouthfeel that was almost exactly like honey. The Redstone of course smells like honey, but the taste is different. It’s like the Redstone has a honey with a “bite” to it. The closest analogy I can think of is say how Barq’s root beer has “bite” compared to say Mug root bear. But that’s not even really a fair nor accurate comparison, but I know of no other way to convey this by just typing. Mouthfeel as well, with the Chaucer’s feeling “thicker”, more of that glycerin-like honey-ness. But certainly, Chaucer’s isn’t pure honey. I liken it to saying it’s like drinking honey that has some white wine in it. It’s really amazing how honey-like the Chaucer’s is, by comparison to the Redstone, and I thought that was pretty honey-like.

Of course, since I had a bottle of the Redstone Traditional, I cracked it open for some side-by-side comparison to get the above “analysis” down. The Redstone is OK, but my palate prefers Chaucer’s.

So with that, the Redstone Juniper… well, the Juniper added an interesting twist to it. I’m not sure if I liked it or not. Hard to say, because I think I was more mentally caught up on the “Redstone vs. Chaucer” difference. That which made Redstone Redstone stood out more to me and I think I focused more on that than the Juniper. Still, I finished the bottle so it must not have been horrible. 😉

As for the mulling spices. I tried it. I’m not sure I like it, but I’m not sure I gave it a fair shake. I heated up a cup of the Chaucer’s mead in the microwave, then let one of the bags steep for a few minutes. Mind you, their instructions are to use one “tea” bag for half the bottle and two for the whole bottle. So I may have overdone it. Or, maybe I don’t like hot mead. Next time I should heat it up and then try drinking “plain” mead warm. See how that fits me. As well, make it properly according to the directions. Finally, after letting the spices steep, chill the mulled mead back down to say in the 40º range and see how that tastes. Of course, trying other spice mixes could be something to consider as well. I mean, who knows how long this might have been sitting on the shelf and if those spices lost some oomph.

Wife’s take? She doesn’t like it. She thinks it’s neat, but since she doesn’t like eating raw honey, it’s not surprising she doesn’t like this. But she does think it’s cool and even went back to try some again. In fact, she joked that she needs to start eating more raw honey to see if she can acquire more of a taste for it. My take on that? She thinks it’s cool and is willing to continue trying it… so long as it’s closer to the Chaucer’s than the Redstone.

Anyways, this is fun. It’s wonderful to explore new things and expand your horizons.

No TV for Lent

/ hsoi

I asked Kiddos what they were giving up for Lent. Wife said that it’s going to be a group thing.

They’re giving up TV.

I’m impressed. It’s been a couple of days now and I haven’t heard the TV on and you know, that’s kinda refreshing. A little TV now and again is fine, but the kids have gotten into a bit of a rut and if they’re bored turn to the TV.

I think it will be cool to see what they opt to do to pass time, even if it’s just having to deal with being bored. And more curious, how will they come out on the other side? Will they just revert back to old habits? Or will they discover something new, something else worth spending their time on?

This will be an interesting journey. 🙂

What does it say about a person – blood donor

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Yesterday I went in to donate blood.

I was answering the donor questionnaire when it hit me: by virtue of being a blood donor, it says a lot about you.

Previously, I wrote about being a gun owner and concealed handgun license holder, and what that says about you. For instance, I’m not a felon, or even a class A or B misdemeanor. I’m not delinquent on taxes. I’m not chemically dependent. I’m mentally fit. I’m not subject to a restraining order. I’m a citizen of the US. And so on. So by simple virtue of saying “I’m a CHL holder” you can tell a lot about the person I am.

Well, the same can be said for being a blood donor. I asked the people at the center about the questionnaire. They said that yes there is an FDA list, so you can be pretty sure that all donor centers across the USA ask these same questions. But then each center may have different questions of their own. For instance, I think she said that some of the blood materials here go to Europe and thus some questions specific to those companies there need to be asked. Makes sense.

I found a copy of the FDA questionnaire here. Some things it tells you about me:

  • I’m eligible and still eligible to donate blood
  • I’ve not recently came in contact with someone who had a smallpox vaccination
  • I haven’t had organ, tissue, or bone marrow transplants, or skin grafts.
  • I’ve not had sexual contact with an HIV/AIDS positive person.
  • I’ve not been with a prostitute.
  • I’ve not stuck myself with needles for drugs or steroids, other than what a doctor may have done.
  • Haven’t been treated for syphilis or gonorrhea
  • Haven’t been in jail for more than 72 hours
  • Haven’t been outside the US or Canada in the past 3 years.
  • Didn’t spend a lengthy amount of time (months, years) overseas
  • Haven’t received money, drugs, or other payment for sex
  • Never had sexual contact with a male, even once.
  • Don’t have HIV/AIDS, never had hepatitis, never had malaria, never had Chagas disase, never had babesiosis, never had a dura mater graft, never had cancer, no heart nor lung problems, never been in or has sexual contact with someone who was born or lived in Africa, never had Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

This isn’t something to judge as good or bad. It’s just factual information to take for whatever it’s worth. You cannot and should not read into responses.

I just couldn’t help but think about that while filling out the questionnaire. You tell someone you’re a blood donor, and this is what they can know about you.

Why I like donating blood

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I like donating blood because it’s a good and helpful thing to do, plus I can do it (eligibility, etc.) so why not?

But you know what makes it really nice?

When the donation center is next door to a good Vietnamese restaurant. You have to refuel and start to rebuild your blood supply after donating, right? What better and more tasty way. 🙂

Back from the range

/ hsoi

Went to the local indoor gun range today. Got their early and had my plans foiled: the range wasn’t open yet. Last night they had a lot of welding and rebuilding going on. They redid all the target rails. They are more heavy duty, no more wobble. Everything was tight and solid. The welders were finishing up so the range opened up a little late, but it was worth it.

What was the reason for the range trip? I got my Aimpoint CompM4s. Had to get it mounted and zeroed.

Everything was to be zeroed at 50 yards. This is part of that Revised Improved Battlesight Zero. With the irons I could only do so much since the rear is just a flip-up BUIS so no elevation adjustment, and of course the Aimpoint is a different beast. But the key was using a 50 yard zero, thus giving me that “ideal battlesight trajectory” from 0 to 200-250 yards.

I started with irons and some 55gr. FMJ Georgia Arms Canned Heat. Ensured things were on paper, then turned to Hornady TAP FPD .223 Rem 75gr.. A few adjustments and things were looking as good as my eyes would get them. Once that was all set, I put the Aimpoint on. I’m using their QRP2 mount, with the spacer. It’s certainly good enough. Yeah, a Larue mount would be cool, but that’s more money I don’t want to spend right now. Aimpoint’s is good enough.  I repeated the same process, starting with the 55gr. FMJ. The Aimpoint was close to zeroed from the factory, shooting about 1.5″ left and a hair high. I didn’t bother adjusting the scope with the FMJ rounds since they were on paper and close enough. Put in the TAP, a bunch of tweaking, and she’s about as good as I’ll get. I say that because with that 2 MOA dot, there’s only so accurate you can get. I did try a few things to help, like turning the brightness down as low as I could get, which helped. Usually I use one of their fluorescent red sight-in targets, but I thought maybe black would allow the dot to show up better. It didn’t really, plus it made it harder to see my holes. So back to the red targets. And overall the grouping and accuracy was good given the limits of the system I was working with.

I’m pleased with most things. But yes, most.

I noticed a lot of the holes in the target weren’t clean round holes. Were the bullets keyholing? Possible. I’d need to shoot at 100 yards but didn’t have enough time or ammo today to try. I think those 75 grain TAP bullets might be pushing the limits of the 1:9 twist of this barrel. But the interesting thing was I also noticed the 55gr. bullets were making similar holes. Nothing was a full-profile keyhole, just you might notice a little “tearing” on one side of the target more than the other. I’m not sure. The target was also moving some due to the air circulation system, maybe that. I need more research.

Bottom line: I’m happy with things. I really like the Aimpoint. Both eyes open, point and click. Just put the dot on what you want to shoot and press the trigger. So nice.

I also rotated my carry ammo, shooting what I had on me and replacing it with new stuff. Boy, you go from shooting plinker reloads to shooting 124gr. +P, and it sure feels different in your hands. 🙂